This week we’ll be getting to know the Interfaith Childhoods team!
Today: meet Marissa Willcox!
Marissa is a Project Manager for the Interfaith Childhoods project, who currently lives and works on Wurundjeri land. When she’s not working with Interfaith Childhoods, Marissa is a PhD student researching feminist and queer activist Instagram artists, and how they make posthuman communities centered on gender and sexuality through their digital art practice.
We asked Marissa a few questions!
How long have you been involved with Interfaith Childhoods?
“I started as Anna's PhD student the same year Anna brought her project to RMIT. I initially came on board to assist with fieldwork but my love for the project emerged from there and I started to take on more responsibilities as the project grew in Australia. I started in early 2018 and now am one of the project managers for the Australian fieldwork sites.”
Is there one experience from the project that’s really interested you?
“The ways that kids who are often shy, or afraid or even experiencing intergenerational trauma, feel like they can open up and express themselves more by the end of the project. The way art gives young people agency and maybe enhances their voice by way of making something that means something to them.”
What are you reading?
“Rosi Braidotti, and this article I love ”
Have you picked up any new hobbies during lockdown?
“I am not very domestic, I have found its not that I dont have time to clean the house, I just dont like cleaning. I have taken up making a new cocktail every saturday, and building fires in our backyard.”
Have you always been a researcher? What led you here?
“I did media and labour market research for a not for profit in Canada called Open Door Group, it helped people with barriers to work find meaningful employment. I also worked as a social media coordinator and project officer for Buy Social Canada, which certified businesses that had a social purpose as social enterprises and ran intenstive events on social impact. I have a bachelors degree from UBC majoring in sociology with a minor in creative writing.”
You can find Marissa on Twitter and Instagram: @MarissaWillcox
Plus check out some of Marissa’s latest research outputs:
Entanglements of Difference as Community Togetherness: Faith, Art and Feminism
Feminist Affect and Children’s Embodied Trauma in Matter Journal
Chapter 3: Material Expressions of Religious Culture in Religion, Hypermobility and Digital Media in Global Asia - Catherine Gomes, Lily Kong, Orlando Woods.
Marissa at work with the Interfaith Childhoods team!