Art & social change

Jade Lillie is an experienced community cultural development practitioner, arts executive, educator and facilitator.

For over a decade, Jade has been developing her practice and philosophy around the belief that arts and cultural development, underpinned by sound engagement and social justice frameworks, are tools for social and systemic change.

She has lived and worked extensively in regional and remote indigenous and non-Indigenous communities, both nationally and internationally, primarily in Australia and Thailand.

Jade’s areas of expertise include: arts management, community cultural development, education (alternative and mainstream) and training, facilitation, consultation and engagement, change management, concept and framework development, policy development, strategic and program development and implementation.

Jade has worked in a variety of government and non-government contexts including: Education Queensland, NT Department of Education and Training, Arts Queensland, SpeakOut (now known as Human Ventures), Brisbane City Council and Contact Inc. She has also been engaged as consultant for arts and cultural organisations including: Flipside Circus, Queensland Arts Council, InterUrban Arts and with Queensland based consultancy, Fieldworx.

From 2011 to 2012, Jade was based in Chiang Mai, Northern Thailand and is working with Australian Volunteers International as an Arts Management Advisor for Gabfai Community Theatre and, arts, cultural and community based non-government organisations who are working with communities, around human rights and trafficking issues. Jade commenced as director & CEO of Footscray Community Arts Centre in October 2012.

In 2009, Jade was the recipient of a Kirk Robson Award and was recognised as a young cultural leader in community cultural development practice. In 2010, she was an Asialink Arts Management Resident.

Megan Evans is a visual artist working as a professional artist for 30 years, doing everything from large-scale murals in the early 80s to my own exhibitions.

More recently, she divides her time between working three days a week as a curator in a suburban gallery showing contemporary art, and being in the studio. She likes to position herself on the edge of things and shy away from the popular and everyday.

Her current artwork is a culmination of 30 years of thinking about colonisation and race in Australia. It is a long-term project called KELOID.

Patrice Naiambana is an interdisciplinary performer-creator and works interculturally: from playing lead roles with the Royal Shakespeare Company, BBC, and Channel 4, to bringing Shakespeare to the elderly and long-term unemployed in Birmingham, to running creative development programs for artists and communities in Africa and Europe.

In 1991 he founded social enterprise Tribal Soul Arts, as a means to make visible African Diaspora stories and socially transformative work. He is from Sierra Leone and is based in the UK.

Patrice is a recipient of the Edinburgh Fringe First Award for his solo show The Man Who Committed Thought, and was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Olivier award-winning Histories ensemble. In Melbourne Patrice will perform The Man Who Committed Thought at Footscray Community Arts Centre, and lead The Gospel of Othello intercultural performance training for emerging and professional artists.

Tariro, whose name means hope, is a Zimbabwean born multi-disciplinary artist raised in Narrm/Melbourne. Tariro’s body and breadth of work spans across multiple storytelling disciplines- acting, performance poetry, spoken word, writing, movement, directing, consultation and facilitation. Tariro is the co-Artistic Director of Western Edge Youth Arts, a 20 year old youth performing arts company that works across Melbourne’s western suburbs, providing space for young people to come together to tell their own stories, in their own way and with their own voice. By providing a safe space to explore creativity, learn new artistic practices, and develop leadership skills, WEYA constructs supportive pathways for young people to achieve their own creative agency. An award winning performance poet, Tariro also works as an actor on the Australian stage (MTC, STC, Bell Shakespeare, Belvoir, Black Swan, Red Stitch, Street Theatre) and screen (Neighbours, Winners and Losers, Other People’s Problems), has been an actor in the internationally acclaimed, award winning web series "Shakespeare Republic" and the award winning short films "Arrivals" and "Home", has been a voice over artist for La Trobe, AFLW, Thomas The Tank Engine (UK), HESTA, PWC, BMW and more. Tariro’s career highlights have been training with legendary dancer and teacher Anna Halprin in Northern California and attending the Decolonial Summer School in UniSA in Pretoria, South Africa. Both those experiences inform a lot of her work and artistic practices. Tariro recently released her first album ‘Closed Beginnings’ which is an electro-acoustic/spoken word/sound art work in collaboration with Reuben Lewis, Peter Knight and Australian Art Orchestra. Tariro released her first EP titled ‘Bones’ in collaboration with Reuben Lewis (I Hold The Lion’s Paw) as part of a New Movements in Australian Jazz and Soul compilation produced by Seven Wonders. Tariro’s piece ‘The Dangers of a Single Story’ is part of an anthology ‘Growing Up African in Australia’ published by Black Inc Books (2019). Tariro is the founder of Africa’s Got Talent Australia and a Co-Founder of Centre of Poetics and Justice.