Australia’s no 1 university for research impact
SINK OR SWIM
SINK OR SWIM - trailer
Angelica hails from Sydney, where sparkling beaches and aqua blue municipal pools are the backdrop to a swimming-obsessed culture.
But does the image fit reality? For Angelica, it doesn’t. She never learned to swim as a child, and she lives in a part of town where the cool sea breeze never blows, and there are fewer swimming spots to go around.
In Sink or Swim, Angelica faces her fear of the water and talks with her friends, family and neighbours about what it takes to stay cool on a warming planet.
Sink or Swim is a podcast by Impact Studios at UTS. Our host is Angelica Ojinnaka Psillakis, a public health and social researcher, a young carer, a youth leader, a second-generation migrant and a proud Igbo woman.
It’s the start of another scorching hot summer and Angelica is looking for relief. She longs to dive into some cooling water, but there’s one problem… Angelica can’t swim. Join our host as she examines what it means to be a non-swimmer in a nation that prides itself on its prowess in the pool, and what stood in her way as a young girl growing up in Sydney’s west.
You’ll join Angelica as she mingles with the crowd at a pool party in Mt Druitt, hear from writer Sarah Malik about her own hard-won adventures in the water, and get Olympian Shane Gould’s take on Australia’s swimming scorecard.
And you’ll be by Angelica’s side as she takes us back to one fateful school swimming carnival, many years ago.
Angelica has decided: this is the summer she finally takes the plunge. Go with her as she joins an adult swim class for beginners, and realises that there are plenty of other adults who share both her trepidation and her determination.
Angelica’s home of Western Sydney is heating up faster than nearly anywhere else, making swimming an essential survival skill – not just for staying afloat, but for staying cool. She talks to local doctor Kim Loo to learn what extreme heat can do to the human body, and to urban planning and heat researcher Professor Sebastian Pfautsch, who explains how the new homes and suburbs we build – without the community’s input and without an eye to our hotter future – are exacerbating the discomfort and the risk.
In our final episode, we look to the future and explore how we can survive the hotter summers that lie ahead for all of us. Blacktown is facing increasingly extreme urban heat, but locals are coming up with their own solutions. We visit two cool refuges where we discover ordinary citizens and local leaders who are shaping the communities they want in the places where they live.
You’ll hear from Maryam Zahid, a community leader creating spaces for newly arrived women to learn skills like swimming, and Emma Bacon, who is campaigning for community-led heat responses.
And you’ll find out – will Angelica and her swimming classmates reach their goals this summer? Will they sink or swim?
Production Team
Sink or Swim is a UTS Impact Studios production.
It is written and produced by Angelica Ojinnaka-Psillakis and Britta Jorgensen.
Audio editing by Britta Jorgensen and Celine Teo-Blockey.
Additional support from Jane Curtis and Tamson Pietsch.
The executive producers are Olivia Rosenman and Sarah Gilbert.
Sound design by Melissa May.
The theme song is Beaming by Friday.
Podcast artwork and graphic design by Alexandra Morris.
Research by Jackie May.
Sink or Swim is part of a place-based audio project called Welcome to Blacktown, supported by the Paul Ramsay Foundation.