We Australians

About us

‘Anigoz­anthos flavidus’ 2011, Eva Fernan­dez, ‘Exper­i­ment 03 — Viral Poster Pro­ject’ 2011, Carl Scrase

about

We are offer­ing a space to explore and con­test per­sonal and shared exper­i­ence. We are a group of artists empower­ing our own voices. We encour­age the same in oth­ers through this exhib­i­tion. We sup­port the recon­sti­t­u­tion of lan­guage as a medium with the poten­tial to trans­form social and cul­tural consciousness.

We are fas­cin­ated by the infin­ite pos­sib­il­it­ies that art presents to regen­er­ate the lan­guage rep­res­ent­ing our evolving con­tem­por­ary cul­ture. We are approach­ing new ways of pro­du­cing a pro­gress­ive notion of Aus­tralian iden­tity that is itself in the pro­cess of recon­sid­er­ing an appre­ci­ation of mul­tiple voices and per­spect­ives. We are not bey­ond believ­ing that art can be trans­form­at­ive, and that at min­imum it is a com­plex lan­guage that can con­vey the rich­ness of diverse voices, with the poten­tial to encour­age empathy, com­pas­sion and belonging.

Fun­da­ment­ally we want to share the range of cre­at­ive and crit­ical approaches to con­tem­por­ary life in our art, with others.

artists

Monika Behrens
Boatpeople.org
Jessie Boylan
Brown Coun­cil
Sapna Chandu
ZHEN
Bindi Cole
Eva Fernan­dez
Ann Fuata
Jane Kor­man
Keith Lim
MISO
Paula do Prado
Roberta Rich
Carl Scrase
Dario Vacirca
Michael War­nock
Paul Yore

pro­ject organisers

artistic dir­ector

Sapna Chandu is an emer­ging artist and cur­ator. The “Mani­fest­a­tions of Now’ exhib­i­tion is cur­ated by Sapna Chandu with the guid­ance of ment­ors Zara Stan­hope, Nikos Papas­ter­gi­adis, and Jeff Khan. Sapna is inter­ested in explor­ing new nar­rat­ives in iden­tity and cul­ture. www.sapnachandu.net

pro­du­cer

Ilana Rus­sell: brings expert­ise in the areas of tour­ing, pro­du­cing and man­aging arts and cul­tural events, fest­ivals and musi­cians. Her work his­tory includes the Mel­bourne Inter­na­tional Arts Fest­ival, Lane­way Fest­ival and the Mel­bourne Fringe Fest­ival. Ilana is cur­rently the Pro­duc­tion Man­ager for the Sus­tain­able Liv­ing Fest­ival, Fund­ing and Grants Man­ager for the Aus­tralasian World Music Fest­ival, and Tour Man­ager with Mistletone Records.

Pro­duc­tion Team

Carl Scrase is a prac­ti­cing artist, cur­ator, arts worker and writer. He co-founded Opro­jects Artist Run Space in 2008, which spe­cial­ised in cross art-form col­lab­or­a­tion and com­mu­nic­a­tion. In 2010 he co-founded both S.E.R.I. and the Wemakeus Col­lect­ive, both explor­ing the poten­tial of cre­at­ive prac­tice in unique, innov­at­ive ways. . Carl is cur­rently a board mem­ber of Bus Pro­jects ARI in Mel­bourne. 2012 will see Carl under­take a res­id­ency at the pres­ti­gi­ous Sym­bi­ot­icA art/science lab in Perth, fol­lowed by his second solo com­mer­cial show by John Buckley Gal­lery. www.carlscrase.tumblr.com

Marie Schoen­maker: a prac­ti­cing artist and facil­it­ator. In 2010 she foun­ded window99 gal­lery, a space that con­tin­ues to provide young and emer­ging artists with an inex­pens­ive and highly exposed exhib­i­tion space in Brun­swick Street, Fitzroy. Marie’s art prac­tice util­ises the body as a tool for per­form­ance along side pho­to­graphy and video. Marie is inter­ested in explor­ing gender and culture’s impact on iden­tity. www.window99brunswickstreet.blogspot.com

Ebony Addin­sall: a prac­tising glass artist cur­rently under­tak­ing her Mas­ters in Arts and Cul­tural Man­age­ment at Mel­bourne Uni­ver­sity. She is inter­ested in the influ­ence of arts pro­grams and their impact on Aus­tralian soci­ety and cul­ture. Ebony’s prac­tise invest­ig­ates the con­nec­tions which occur between the meet­ing of pos­it­ive forms with the neg­at­ive space of our sur­round­ing envir­on­ment and the con­tem­plat­ive rela­tion­ships which can be formed. www.anitatraversogallery.com.au/Artists/EBONY-ADDINSALL

Hay­ley Haynes

Hay­ley is com­plet­ing a Bach­elor of Arts/Visual Arts at Mon­ash University.  Prior to join­ing We Aus­trali­ans, she was act­ive in the organ­isa­tion and deliv­ery of the inter­na­tional con­fer­ence Cul­ture: A New Way of Think­ing for Local Gov­ern­ment held by the Cul­tural Devel­op­ment Network.  Hayley is pas­sion­ate about the poten­tial for art to act as a cata­lyst for pos­it­ive social change and inter­ested in the rela­tion­ship between space, place and iden­tity.  

Scar­lett Moloney

Lak­shmi Balakrishnan

Lor­etta Mui

ment­ors

Zara Stan­hope is an Inde­pend­ent Cur­ator, writer and Phd can­did­ate (ANU), and is the former Senior Cur­ator of Heide Gal­lery, Melbourne.

Nikos Papas­ter­gi­adis is Pro­fessor of Cul­tural Stud­ies and Media Com­mu­nic­a­tions, The Uni­ver­sity of Melbourne.

Jeff Khan is the Asso­ci­ate Cur­ator, Per­form­ance Space, Sydney and has just com­pleted four years as the artistic dir­ector of Next Wave.

Mag­delena Moreno is CEO of  Kultour.

Geor­gie Sedg­wick is Pro­gram Man­ager of Kultour .

www.kultour.com.au