Em Bagg

hi!

I’m Em, a queer, neurodivergent, migrant woman who has lived many lives in her 30 years.

I was born in Harare, Zimbabwe; grew up in Boorloo (Perth), Australia; fled a suicidal depression to London, England and then followed a boy to Oxford; moved to Naarm (Melbourne), survived some lockdowns; chased a dream to Copenhagen, Denmark; and am now back home in Naarm.

I did a Bachelor of Arts (First Class Honours) at the University of Notre Dame Australia in Fremantle, where I also served as President of the Student Association in 2014 and 2015. My Honours thesis was entitled Valuing Women: analysing the influence of the philosophy of the Liberal Party of Australia on the underrepresentation of women in parliament.

My Master of Social Policy (First Class Honours) was completed at the University of Melbourne. I undertook an internship at The Policy Lab in 2020 during which I completed a pilot diversity sensitivity audit of the Parliament of Australia that became The Principled Parliament Project.

In 2021, I began my PhD at Deakin University. I spent a year at the Aarhus University Danish School of Education completing coursework and immersing myself in the European academy. I’ve called the project Silver Bullets for Glass Ceilings in Ivory Towers: introducing the Vectors of Opportunity Framework (VoOF) to evaluate equity for (ab)normative university students.

I make art to soothe my soul and regulate my nervous system. emmamegg.studio houses some of these works; sparked mainly by the Seasonal Produce Chart I made for a friend.

My research and artistic practices are based in radical, relational compassion for myself and my communities. I have been blessed with many opportunities to transgress the assumptions others have for people like me, and my approach has always been to find ways to do the same for others. That’s what you’ll hopefully find here.