Celebrate Labour Weekend in Queenstown with MindJam 2018 - tickling your brain as we tackle the big issues in a series of informal café conversations, stitched together by some of New Zealand’s leading thinkers.

MindJam ranges from Frankenstein and bioethics to the new politics of farming. From the meaning of whakapapa and the future of work in a world of AI, to why should we care about Captain Cook?

MindJam is a collaboration between Queenstown’s Catalyst Trust and the University of Otago’s Division of Humanities.

We launch with “a think and a drink” and complimentary tapas at Yonder (our hosts for the weekend) on Friday night, October 19, with international bioethics expert Dr Susan Lederer. 

Two hundred years after Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein was published, Dr Lederer will cover issues from cloning to xenografting through the lens of this cult ‘monster and his maker’ myth. What might it suggest about the acceptable limits of scientific and medical advances - and the role scientists and citizens play in determining them?

This weekend of disruptive conversations continues through the weekend with MindJam sessions sandwiching lunchtime both Saturday and Sunday.

MindJam was launched as part of Queenstown Jazz Festival last year.  It was such fun brain fodder, we are continuing even though the festival is taking a bit of a break this year. 

The hour-long MindJam sessions are guided by guest experts, but it is our questions, thoughts and discussion that make MindJam. Seats are free but limited, so please come along early to get your spot, grab a coffee and be ready to join in.

Yonder, 14 Church Street, October 19 – 21, 2018.  See below for programme details. Eventbrite page registration encouraged, so we have an idea on numbers, but it is first in, first served for seats. More details on our website Updates will be posted on our Facebook page