Featured in Farrago Magazine Edition Six 2026

A month ago, Mimi Koczkar tells me, she was sitting on the curb outside Glamorama Nightclub in Fitzroy, waiting for her friends to come out. It was past two, and the street was almost empty. A woman she had never seen before, older with long grey hair, a trolley beside her and a small dog following at her feet, paused on the footpath and asked her if she was alright. Mimi said she was fine; her friends would be out soon. The woman stayed where she was. "No woman should ever be alone by herself at night," she said. "I'll stay until I know you're safe."

Mimi is a 19-year-old student at the VCA. She is also the co-founder of Trinity Residential College’s first women-only space, along with fellow student Holly Hancock. The two girls are the first appointed female representatives in the institution’s 150-year history. I am sitting with Mimi inside one of the institution’s older wooden buildings in a room that, in a few hours, I will no longer be welcome in. Like every Tuesday at 7:30 pm, this room will become the Trinity College Ladies Lounge. In its first months, the lounge has facilitated bracelet making, an hour-long discussion of the Madonna-Whore complex, and last night, a basket-weaving workshop run by a Wadawurrung artist—none of which had a precedent at the college. While the activities are diverse, the mission is simple. Mimi says: “For one moment we can escape the social and structural hierarchies and all be together with the common interest that we’re all women.”

The idea was born last year over “Formal Hall,” a college communal dining tradition (which includes the compulsory wearing of academic gowns, Mimi explains). The elected senior student was endorsing the Men’s Shed, an existing space dedicated for men to discuss male mental health and feel welcome and safe (as he put it). Admiring the idea, Mimi approached him, asking about a women’s equivalent. Mimi remembers his face dropping to a deadpan. “Oh,” he said, “there isn’t one.” This was compounded by other cultural observations, like how the men’s rugby grand final was scheduled during a time that drew a crowd, while the women played early in the morning leading to little support. It was these “little moments of bias” that frustrated Mimi. “Men have these spaces to exist, and women kind of have to mould themselves around [them]”. The Ladies Lounge, the name a deliberate homage to MONA’s famously controversial exhibition, was Mimi’s response.

Kirsha Kaechele’s Ladies Lounge installation took the national spotlight in 2024 when a male visitor sued, citing anti-discrimination laws, after being denied entry. A Tasmanian tribunal initially ruled in his favour. However, upon appeal (and after the lounge was forced to operate out of the women’s bathroom), the decision was overturned in the Tasmanian supreme court. It is the principle of the saga that stayed with Mimi. “The man who made the complaint couldn’t reckon with the fact that there was a space that he was not allowed to be in,” she says. “That kind of entitlement is something we like to talk about quite a bit.” However, her lounge is not Kirsha’s. There is no admission ticket, nor men serving fruit and champagne (to my disappointment). It is open weekly, student-led, and confidential. What Mimi hopes is that the lounge facilitates and nurtures an inclusive community that is, perhaps counter-intuitively, only possible through exclusivity. 

Unlike Kirsha’s, there has been no formal challenge to Trinity’s Lounge, Mimi explains before pausing: “just the budget”. While the Men’s Shed has been formally allocated funding by the college, the Ladies Lounge has not. Although the Ladies Lounge may request reimbursements for certain expenses, this is not the same as being trusted with a formalised budget, she explains. This is despite the proven success of Mimi and Holly’s adjacent projects this year, including the first organised celebrations of International Women’s Week in the college’s social calendar and the coordination of an intercollegiate Women’s Day walk raising over $800 for Womankind Worldwide.

Last night, the lounge was full. Close to midnight, after the Lounge had closed for the night, I spoke to Wadawurrung woman Scarlett Mercer, who explains that she has been searching for a way to bring a form of Indigenous cultural support to the college that was practical and relational rather than merely measured in funding and resources. Mimi and Holly’s Ladies Lounge offered the perfect space. In a special collaboration between the Female and Indigenous student representatives, Mercer invited her sister, an established Indigenous artist, to run a basket-weaving workshop. Weaving, she explains, is a healing and intuitive form of knowledge traditionally held and carried forth by women. While some knowledge (of certain techniques or materials) is exclusively reserved for Mob, Mercer explains that she couldn’t think of a single person from Mob who doesn’t want to share their culture. The weaving circle facilitated a safe space to ‘yarn’ and share stories, which last night had a special focus on the intersection of the female and Indigenous experience. “As a vulnerable [Indigenous] student here, I appreciate the level of security of the Ladies Lounge,” Mercer says. “It was this beautiful moment of the communal college life that felt good because it was based in something bigger.” On an institutional level, Mercer is a little blunter. “Trinity is a business first and foremost… they support us when it looks good,” she said. But this night was different. “It felt real,” she explained, “it was student-led, it was mob-led, and it was based in community.”

Already, there are big plans for the Ladies Lounge. While the lounge is undeniably popular and effective, it is, as Mimi admits, currently unprofessional. “Ideally, we would have a budget. We would be a recognised society. We would have speakers come in—inspiring women and experts in our issues. I just want it to be bigger!” she says. 

Five years from now, Mimi hopes that a first year can walk into the lounge and feel like she can say whatever she wants and feel supported, “because everyone deserves a space where their voice matters, and where someone is willing to stay on the curb in the early hours of the night, just a little longer, to make sure they’re okay”.