EmErging Cultural lEadErs 2015

WElCOmEThank you for joining us to welcome and congratulate the Emerging Cultural Leaders for 2015. In our midst, artists and cultural facilitators are reshaping contemporary practices through stories and experiences. Together we are building relationships in arts and non-arts sectors, leading in thought and change making. We are pleased to present our new friends to you within these pages, as part of the Emerging Cultural Leaders (ECL) Showcase.

As ECL is the only program of its kind in Australia, we invite you to take this booklet and put faces to names, take your time and talk with us. In 2015, we had the opportunity to partner with Darwin Community Arts (DCA) to pilot delivering an ECL Intensive. Each year, we are further developing this model to explore how we can ensure the integrity of the program whilst reaching more amazing emerging artists and cultural workers across the country.

We all have the responsibility and the honour of supporting the next generation of Australian practitioners and cultural leaders. Each Emerging Cultural Leader has engaged in a five month program with access to a mentor, industry speakers, the FCAC Team and a small project budget, thanks to the Lord Mayor’s

Charitable Foundation. With the further support of the Australia Council for the Arts and Learn Local, it is also apparent how important creating capacity building and local learning opportunities are for members within or emerging into the arts and cultural sectors.

Of course, we always want to hear from people who are interested in being a mentor, an industry guest speaker or providing an immersive in-organisation experience for the group or an individual. Please be in touch if you are interested in being a part of the ECL experience or collaborating with us in some way.

Congratulations to this wonderful crew of passionate, talented and insightful Emerging Cultural Leaders, thank you for sharing time with us.

Have a wonderful evening.

Jade Lillie

Director and CEO

Jade Lillie

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We take our commitment to the growth of our sector seriously. It is through the Emerging Cultural Leaders program that artists and facilitators come together to make work, to establish networks, develop skills and receive mentoring. It is about getting a foot in the door, about taking creative risk, about diversifying the stories that ebb and flow through our communities.

Over the past five months participants have been meeting with leaders in the arts and community cultural development sectors on a weekly basis. These workshops cover a range of topics, and participants develop, plan and deliver their own projects. The program provides space and place for artists to excel in their art form and community engaged practice so that each person is confident and can be recognised as a leader and thought in their approach and process.

EmErging Cultural lEadErs

industrY rEFlECtiOnsFotis Kapetopoulos, Kape CommunicationsEvery year I find one incredibly bright and innovative young leader that I take great honour in mentoring.

This is not a great program, it’s an essential one!

Kate larsen, Writers VictoriaIt’s long past time that our arts organisations and commissions are as diverse as the communities they aim to represent. ECL is creating the arts leaders of the future.

grace Vanilau, Contemporary Pacific arts FestivalECL provides an opportunity for emerging practitioners of diverse cultural backgrounds to gather in a safe environment and engage in critical conversations which explore the realities and possibilities for the advancement of self, community and the local, national and international creative cultural sector.

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BiOgraPHYMuma Doesa is an MC/ Vocalist/ DJ of South African heritage, who specialises in live performance and recording. Her lyrics explore the themes of identity, family, healing and empowerment, using characters, symbols, and humour. These are the main themes within her solo album “Ms Fortune” recorded in Melbourne and New York. She hopes through her music and ECL she can learn more, and share knowledge that others may find useful.

Muma Doesa has performed around Australia and New York for 11 years at festivals, live music venues, and protests. Highlights include: The Big Day Out, The Light in Winter Festival (Fed Square), Melbourne Now (NGV), Moomba, Nyorican Poet’s Café (NY), The Delancey (NY).

Muma has facilitated workshops at Queen Victoria Women’s Centre, and mentoring with Multicultural Arts Victoria.

PrOJECtBahdoesa are currently working on a mixtape and their EP, produced by UK Producer, Lotek.

mumadoesa.bandcamp.com

youtube.com/Themumadoesa

adElE PiCK / muma dOEsabahdoesa@gmail.com | facebook.com/bahdoesa

I have discovered that I have a lot more skills in community cultural development than I realised, but I still want to work on a more structured approach.

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ana rita PirEsrita.anap@gmail.com

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antOniO mOrEiraseuantonio@me.com | estreladomar.com.au | +61 452 204 364

BiOgraPHYAntonio Moreira is a Melbourne-based Artist and Creative Cultural Producer with passion for the arts, music and sharing his rich Brazilian culture.

He grew up in Recife, the cultural capital of Brazil where he was immersed in a lifestyle rich in vibrant foods, dance, colours and music. Antonio proudly shares his roots and connects Melbourne with the powerful and exotic performances of rhythms mainly from Brazil’s Northeast representing styles such as Maracatu, Coco, Ciranda, Afoxé and Forró.

Through his experience of traveling and living in different countries, Antonio has worked in many productions. Since arriving in Melbourne, he had opportunity to work for companies like Melbourne Olympic Park, Australia Open, Melbourne Arts Centre, Melbourne Food and Wine Festival, Melbourne Recital Centre, Multicultural Arts Victoria. His background in production include also a tour with Cirque du Soleil in Brazil in nine cities, while travelling he identified the challenges of being an outsider within a foreign culture.

PrOJECtFootscray Night Market aims to activate the City of Maribyrnong at night with friends and family actively promoting social engagement.

Planned to be run at heart of Footscray, showcasing the richness and multicultural local trades, artisans and artists, this night will be a sure success.

Bringing different cultures together in a safe space, interactions will be facilitated through common interests, such as cultural food, drinks and music.

I think we often forget our own values and personality through outside influences, who tell us who we should be. During ECL, I have discovered that I could be, again, myself. I was part of a comfortable space of acceptance,

where my mistakes would be supported and treated as part of a learning process. I did not feel judged as an other culture, the way foreigners usually are.

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BiOgraPHYAphrodite is a visual artist, currently working with video art, film, projection, projection mapping and installation. In her art practice she is interested in how technology has influenced human-to-human relationships, and human-to-technology relationships. Her works have featured at events such as the Food and Wine Festival, Fringe Festival, Gertrude Street Projection Festival, Channels Video Art Festival and Melbourne Fashion Week.

Her attraction to the Emerging Cultural Leaders program was a desire to learn the skills to organise community events and spaces that enable citizens of Melbourne to have the interest and ability to generate and communicate their own idea of art and creativity.

She has a strong interest in politics and social justice. She would like to produce opportunities to merge creativity and politics to encourage people to question themselves and those around them, to have the difficult conversations in environments where people feel safe and permitted to speak freely.

PrOJECtmemento mori |m'men,tō 'môrē|

noun (pl.same)

a serving as a warning or reminder of death.

ORIGIN Latin, literally ‘remember (that you have) to die.’

You are invited to our version of a momento mori. The aim of the evening will be to celebrate some of the ideas and approaches to death across cultures, whilst being entertained and educated by food, audio, visuals, conversation, and settings.

aPHrOditE FErOs-FOOKEaphroditeff@gmail.com | www.cargocollective.com/aphroditeff

The interpretation of community is fluid and often hard to determine. Though the definition may vary from project to project, the approaches ECL has taught me when working with community will remain. I intend to focus

on a community’s strengths, to arrive informed and with integrity, and to allow the passing on of responsibility and ownership. And to enjoy the process!

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BiOgraPHYAseel is an Installation & Performance Artist, Art and Education Graduate with Honours. Her major areas of interest have centred on Identity and Culture, with a particular focus on women, freedom and land. Driven by passion for social change, she creates interactive experiences that invite audiences to participate with how she designs her space, her physical and vocal presence. Aseel has performed at La Mama, Metanoia and Polyglot Theatre, sung and contributed to various festivals and art events around Australia.

PrOJECtWhat happens when you have limited time left to leave your hometown, when your house is demolished, when you feel in danger and lost? You look for a shelter and grab the most valuable things you have in one sack and walk. We all have a story for the things we care about. Whether we have a small bag to carry on a boat, or on a plane. When you are leaving a whole life behind and starting a new one, what do we decide to keep?

I present a community art installation that engages people who have been through similar situations, with special stories to share. This work is also for those who have not had to leave their homes in a hurry, to try and imagine what they might do.

asEEl taYaHhttp://aseeltayah.wix.com/aseel-tayah | +61 439 220 996

I have discovered a new me. All the assumptions I had, were only what I decided to believe. I needed to widen my vision, to research, to ask more and to discover a whole picture. I have discovered that to be able to work and lead the

community you must be honest with yourself first about the reason you do it and to build the trust with the people that will be the heroes of your  project.

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Working in the arts sector is one of the most exciting, demanding and challenging journeys. I believe it is a constant endeavour of awareness, continual professional/personal learning and configuration. I have a much more

educated admiration and respect for those in the field. It has been absolutely inspiring, I have definitely shifted some paradigms!

BiOgraPHYBigoa Chuol is a spoken word artist based in Melbourne who is re-discovering her love for writing and passion for poetry. Her art explores socio-political themes and challenges conventional ideas of love, relationships, beauty and womanhood. She hopes her art will uplift and empower others to embrace their heterogeneity without apology.

PrOJECtMy project is the production of my first performance poetry video to be developed in collaboration with local African creatives. Serving as the beginning of a series of events simultaneously exploring the self, I aim to explore ones’ place in community and the fluidity of culture. The main focus is to facilitate space for autonomous, constructive, creative ownership of the stories of African people in Australia for and by them.

BigOa CHuOlbigoa_chuol@hotmail.com

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I’ve learnt to always be aware of my intentions, my tone, and my questioning processes. Arts practise and leadership is about creating unity, and I’m interested in the ways I can pioneer this. Sometimes being provocative is helpful

in order to blow questions open, but if the intent, tone and language isn’t coming from a place of positivity and curiosity, it can result in blowing questions up. This has been a rewarding exploration for myself as an emerging arts leader.

BiOgraPHYDidem Caia is an emerging Australian playwright who has had worked produced through NIDA, the Griffin Theatre Company, Theatre 503 and La Mama Theatre. Her plays have been developed in Melbourne and Sydney through Playwriting Australia, the RE Ross Trust, and City of Melbourne. In 2014, she travelled to the UK and the US to gain extensive knowledge about Dramaturgy and new writing development; specifically in Edinburgh, London, Chicago and New York. This journey was proudly funded by the Australia Council for the Arts and the Ian Potter Cultural Trust. Didem is also a short fiction writer, having published work in Voiceworks, Catalyst, Farrago, and Yen.

PrOJECtThe muted melancholy between the lines is a growing collaboration between myself and people of many different communities. It’s a project about the voices we don’t hear. My intent is to uncover the ways in which people relate to their voice and their body. Through a series of questions, I have begun to gather stimulus for a multidisciplinary theatre project.

didEm Caiadidem_caia@hotmail.com | +61 413 808 847

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BiOgraPHYFlorence ‘FTRIANGLE’ Tupuola is a self-taught contemporary Australian visual artist of Samoan descent, currently living in Melbourne. She established the FTRIANGLE label, and is a commissioned textile artist.

A visual artist and a dancer, Florence continues to learn and cherish her cultural background through various art forms. She is a member of the contemporary all-female Samoan dance group, Nesian Pearl in Melbourne. She is a youth member and dance performer of Canberra / Queanbeyan Methodist Youth Group. She is also a supporter of Samoan Victim Support Group and their ongoing work against domestic violence and child abuse.

PrOJECtBe Open supports the need to rediscover and empower people and art within Samoan community. To bring forth the colossal significance of contemporary art in supporting artistic restoration. Providing a safe, supportive, educational, inspiring, collaborative and ongoing creative community platform for the Samoan people to bravely share stories of artistic empowerment and healing, in overcoming and managing difficult life challenges and disadvantages.

FlOrEnCE tuPuOlaflowie_13@hotmail.com | +61 410 456 492

[The] ECL program has given me the strength and longing growth that I desperately needed as an artist and artist for the people. ECL has reawakened my passion in strengthening the connection between community and art. During my ECL journey, I’ve demolished my fear of

leadership and taken ownership to that role, discovering the fearless and confident inner-qualities I so dreadfully shadowed myself away from. ECL has rebirthed me, as an artist and cultural facilitator and human being.

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Being part of the Emerging Cultural Leaders program has provided me with a stimulating environment to rigorously question and explore my intentions and ambitions as an arts practitioner who is interested in collaborating with communities.

BiOgraPHYHiroki Kobayashi recently completed a Bachelor of Arts in English and Theatre studies at The University of Melbourne and was a participant in Playwriting Australia’s Lotus Asian-Australian Playwriting Project. In the past he has devised and performed in productions at Melbourne University, created performance installations for Inca Roads and Paradise Music Festival and produced and presented arts based programming for SYN FM. He has also undertaken a communications internship with TimeLine Theatre Company in the US and worked as a development assistant at Malthouse Theatre.

PrOJECtMy project seeks to harness performance-based workshops to encourage collaborations between diverse age brackets and create alternative spaces for intergenerational dialogue. It has been prompted by questions surrounding ageing in a society with a propelling life span and particularly its impact on intergenerational relations and the ways in which we engage with senior communities. Through encouraging playful spaces focused on storytelling, I hope to incite greater conversation and consideration for the spectrum of ageing within our population.

HirOKi KOBaYasHi hkobayashi@live.com.au

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Working with the community means to have a curious eye, warm ear and a mirroring body that is empathetic, recognising the peculiarity and uniqueness of life and being able to present all of these facets on stage.

BiOgraPHYJose (Pepe) Inostroza Aqueveque is a Chilean Psychologist, Personal Development Facilitator, Psychodramatist and Actor based in Melbourne. Passionate about movement, sound, emotional expression and communication has sculpted Pepe’s journey.

Pepe’s practise involves performing in contemporary dance, physical theatre and drama. He participated in an on stage research about language and education. He worked in Berlin with his company exploring movement, sound and pre-expressive language inside a different cultural context.

PrOJECtRevitalising the language connection for people and their cultural belonging. Exploring within the community, the personal concept of Home and the contrast between conceptions of Home both in English and in the mother tongue of the participants. These materials will work as sound support for an on stage performance, showing the connection of emotional language through the body as a container.

JOsE luis inOstrOza aquEVEquEjoseinaqu@gmail.com | +61 404 263 067

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I’ve learnt that what it means to be an artist, much less a cultural leader is much more nuanced than just picking up my camera and sharing my photos. The ECL program has helped push me off the cliff, in a good way, to the deep end so that I may build a stronger

foundation and reflect on what it truly means to be negotiating the landscape of community arts. Am I a Community Artist after this program? No. But I now have the necessary frameworks to keep myself, an artist to be, in check.

BiOgraPHYJustyn Koh is a Melbourne-based photographer who has covered a variety of events including theatre performances. He started off his professional career by photographing a band that plays for refugees and has since been inspired to align his practice with that of those who are lacking a voice in the community.

Justyn is also a full-time student at the University of Melbourne, pursuing a Master in Teaching (Primary) and enjoys working with youth as he strongly believes in being able to influence and grow the leaders of tomorrow. As such, his goal in the ECL course is to find a way to capture and integrate aspects of Community, Education and Culture into his professional photography practice.

PrOJECtConversations: Footscray is simple. I sit on the streets of Footscray and invite people to sit down and share their stories with me or if they would prefer, I share my story about my family’s history. The project came about through my desire to combine my work in Education as a student teacher, with Photography and Community working with youth from the Public Housing estates. The common thread I found between all three was the presence of narratives. Students in the classroom share and listen to stories all the time. Humans of New York demonstrated that photography can be a medium rich for telling stories beyond an image. Behind every door is a different story.

JustYn KOHjustynk@me.com | www.justynk.com

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Working with community is realising your own privilege and what position you bring into that space, acknowledging the power you have and being careful with what you do with it. It is also about constantly asking yourself and others

questions such as who is not at the table or who else needs to be here. Continually interrogating your intention and motivation is key.

BiOgraPHYNatasha Phillips was born in Hong Kong and grew up in both Hong Kong and Australia. She has recently moved back to Australia after five years in London and considers herself to be a third culture kid.

As a creative producer and theatre maker, she has been the Assistant Producer for RIFT where she co-produced and stage managed RIFT’s overnight production of Macbeth (2014) set in the iconic Balfron Tower. She has also been the Marketing & Outreach officer for SPID Theatre working closely with the local community to promote the benefits and wellbeing of The Arts. Since graduating from Goldsmiths in 2012, she has gone on to make her own work which has been staged at the Brighton

Fringe Festival and has produced for theatre companies and venues such as You Me Bum Bum Train (Stratford, 2012), RETZ (The Trial, 2013) and Battersea Arts Centre (London Stories: a 1-on-1-on-1 Festival, 2013).

PrOJECtChina AUS Arts is aimed on strengthening cultural literacy and pragmatically investigates the creative exchanges between Australia and China within the independent contemporary arts. It is focused on helping to remove information roadblocks and provide frameworks that help ease the processes for cross-cultural project development.

natasHa PHilliPsnphillips454@gmail.com | @tashalashllips | +61 417 217 959

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I have discovered that networks amongst artists are very huge. They are not limited to those artists who work within the art sector but also the connection to other sectors within and outside the countries such as Community and Education sectors.

It reminds me how powerful The Arts is in terms of engaging individuals and communities, especially the vulnerable voices in our society.

BiOgraPHYSungkey Chalernkhun is an international student currently undertaking a Diploma of Community Development. Sungkey is passionate about connecting communities with creative activities, particularly enabling youth’s capacity through sharing and building networks where the same values are shared.

PrOJECtThe Tree of Fate is an artwork on textile representing stories of young Lao community who are from different parts of the country but have similar cultural practice. The Tree of Fate is an initial piece of work showing what young Lao people do to maintain their cultural practice while living in a new environment. Somehow their cultural elements have been disconnected, and they form their community in other countries.

sungKEY CHalErnKHunsungkey99@gmail.com

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The time spent at ECL, has made me aware of how similar artists and people can be. As a young and impressionable person in the very beginnings of my art and music career, it is very easy to stay in one’s shell, to easily make a judgement about a group of people and/or a

profession, to not expand and reach out to the wider community.

Meeting, talking and having lectures from industry professionals and with my ECL peers on a weekly basis has made me aware of how important contribution of ideas and

participation is. And, how similar people are in emotion and connections, which makes working with people more attainable and enjoyable.

No idea is a bad idea and the more people contribute to a project, the more expansive you can grow as an individual.

BiOgraPHYSupina Bytol is an Australian born multidisciplinary artist, and she is an advocate for grassroots projects. She believes that you can build something from nothing if you can see outside the box.

Her cultural heritage is of Indonesian and Malaysian Cocos/Christmas Island decent. In the last five years she has been working with artists, and artist groups based in Yogyakarta, and Bali, Indonesia. Her most recent project was to fundraise for an artist run space in the village of Bona, which is world renowned for its strong Hindu spiritism and Kecak dance.

Through her work in Bona, she develops and manages an arts residency program connecting artists from Indonesia and Australia, as well as working as on her music incorporating field recordings of Indonesia.

PrOJECtAt the ECL showcase, I will show images of landscape and sound that are a culmination of ideas and concepts that I encountered as a participant of this program. These images will focus on cultural and geographic similarities. I have chosen to use volcanoes as a subject because of their ancient structure and the complex make-up, stories and significance they bring to a community.

suPina BYtOlfacebook.com/supina.bytol | vimeo.com/140756086

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As a newbie into the wide world of the arts sector, I’ve found that it is an exciting place to be in, and that the sky is the limit to dream and produce creative projects. I have thoroughly enjoyed embarking into the arts and learning about artists, organisations, art mediums, and my own art preferences.

BiOgraPHYMinh Nguyen is currently completing her Masters of Applied Psychology. Her dissertation research explored constructions of ethnic identity among second generation Christian-affiliated Vietnamese in Melbourne. She found that through the negotiations between social relationships, and within one’s location in society, participants created ‘A Different Kind of Australian’ identity that accessed resources from the surrounding environment, their parent’s culture and experiences of racism and exclusion. This study provided an account of Vietnamese Christian identity construction, a particular historical, cultural, and social location within the complex world.

Minh is exploring ways to engage both the creative arts and community input in developing artistic projects based on her research findings. Due to the fluid, evolving, and sometimes conflicted nature of identity construction, Minh plans ongoing research and art projects in this field.

PrOJECtImmigrants are continually challenged by issues of settlement, sense of belonging, exclusion and identity construction. These issues are also important life challenges for the children of immigrants, the second generation and generations thereafter. Chopsticks and Vegemite explores the identity construction of four people from a group of young Christian affiliated Vietnamese called Night Church. Unlike their parents, they create their identities and evaluate themselves in relation to the structures and ideologies of the new society, in addition to the memories retold of their parents’ birthplace. Meanwhile, Vietnamese youth in Australia who define themselves as Christians and who attend a church youth group have an added dynamic to their identity and community making process – that is, being part of a transcendent aim within an eternal community.

This project was done in collaboration with two talented young artists of Night Church, David Hong and Julia Tran.

minH nguYEnjelpham04@gmail.com

ana rita Pires (ECl 2014) Ana Rita has lived her life between Portugal and Australia. This sharing of territory has been a catalyst in the development of her work as a visual artist and in her teaching. Her work questions themes such as migration, identity and place. Her projects have involved working with culturally diverse youth groups, artists’ residencies in West Africa, the ongoing exhibition of her drawings and paintings and more recently the participation in Big West Festival 2015 leading three projects. Ana Rita completed her formal education in 2007 graduating with a degree in Painting from the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Lisbon, Portugal. She currently works and lives in Melbourne`s West with her partner and collaborator Mito Elias and their daughter Tamira.

tania Cañas (ECl 2012) Tania Cañas is the Arts Director at RISE Refugee, a PhD at the VCA and Editorial Board member for the International PTO Academic Journal. Tania is interested in the intersection of performance and research having facilitated, performed and presented at conferences both nationally and internationally. She worked in prisons and with a youth group in Northern Ireland, developed a Forum Theatre play with women in the Solomon Islands and conducted Theatre of the Oppressed Dramaturgy Masterclasses at Rhodes University, South Africa. Her monologue Untouchable, was published with Currency Press 2013 and she has since toured the piece in the US.

sudeep lingamneni (ECl 2014) I am an Indian-American-Australian contemporary artist and arts worker based between Melbourne, Australia and Hyderabad, India with a background in Community Cultural Development (CCD) practice. I use Multimedia and Digital Storytelling to challenge cultural perceptions and comment on local and global issues regarding identity, place, and history. I am currently undertaking a Master of Fine Arts (Contemporary Music) by Research at the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne, where I will be investigating Indian aural environments, explored and expressed through Indian Noise Music.

ignacio rojas (ECl 2014)Ignacio was born in Chile in 1978 and moved to Australia in 2001. He has a double background in fine arts and sociology and is currently undertaking a multidisciplinary PhD in Australian studies at The University of Melbourne.  Ignacio lives and works in Melbourne and has exhibited in more than thirty solo and group exhibitions as well as being finalists in numerous competitions. He has worked as an art teacher in different socially inclusive programs and in different universities as research assistant and project officer such as in RMIT University, Victoria University and The University of Melbourne.

ECl alumni

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aCKnOWlEdgEmEntsMorgan Brady, Supina Bytol, Didem Caia, Tania Canas, Lachlann Carter, Sungkey Chalernkhun, Bigoa Chuol, Daniel Clarke, Hanifa Deen, Aphrodite Feros-Fooke, Richie Hallal, Carly Heard, Mike Justice, Fotis Kapetopoulos, Hiroki Kobayashi,

Justyn Koh, Dan Koop, Mazna Komba, Kate Larsen, Jose Luis Inostroza Aqueveque, Andy Lynch, Joel McKerrow, Antonio Moreira, Liz Moreton, Sarah Neal, Dave Nguyen,

Hoang Tran Nguyen, Minh Nguyen, Natasha Phillips, Adele Pick, Tara Prowse, Mary Quinsacara, Bong Ramilo, Ignacio Rojas, Dan Santangeli, Tim Stitz, Aseel Tayah,

Toltu Tufa, Florence Tupuola, Grace Vanilau, Chi Vu, Uncle Larry Walsh, Angharad Wynne-Jones

suPPOrtErsEmerging Cultural Leaders is supported by the Australian Government through

the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body, Learn Local and the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation.

Footscray Community Arts Centre is supported by