YAARTS Membership

Simon Bedford

Simon is a performing arts producer and arts manager with over fifteen years of experience in the in both Australia and the UK. He is currently the Head of Systems and Ticketing at the Melbourne International Film Festival. Simon has also produced work for the Arts Centre Melbourne and Hoipolloi Theatre in the UK. Simon lives in the City of Yarra.

Angela Conquet

Angela’s experience spans dance, performing arts, festivals and arts management. A prolific writer and creative producer, Angela has just begun doctoral research after serving as the Artistic Director/CEO of Dancehouse 2011 to 2020, Australia’s premier centre for independent dance. Prior to moving to Australia, Angela was the Director of Performing Arts at Mains d’Oeuvres, Paris’ largest independent arts centre. Angela lives in the City of Yarra.

 Miranda Hill

Miranda is a performer, music director, producer, teacher and community development worker. With specialist knowledge in Western Classical, Contemporary Western Art Music, Historically Informed Baroque performance, Improvisation, Electro-Acoustic, and Electronic composition. Miranda’s experience also extends to dance, theatre, and multi-media. Miranda is the Musical Director of the Riff Raff Radical Marching Band and the bands director for "Serendading Adela" feminist street opera. Miranda works and lives in the City of Yarra.

Clare Leporati

Clare brings extensive experience in visual art, public art, artist residency, collection management and local government. Clare is the Vice-Chair of NETS Victoria and Vice President of Yarra Sculpture Gallery. Clare lives in Yarra.

Joel Stern

Joel Stern is a researcher, curator, and artist. Informed by his background in DIY and experimental music scenes, Stern’s work focusses on how social, political, and technical practices of sound and listening inform and shape our contemporary worlds.  

In 2013, Stern was appointed Artistic Director of pioneering Australian sonic art organisation Liquid Architecture, a position which he held until 2022. In this capacity Stern has produced and curated numerous festivals, exhibitions, concerts and publications in Australia and internationally, while developing artistic research investigations and programs.

Stern completed his PhD thesis ‘Eavesdropping: The Politics, Ethics, and Art of Listening’ in 2020 through the Curatorial Practice program at Monash University.  In 2022, Stern began a Vice-Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellowship at RMIT School of Media and Communication to continue to develop his work on machine listening.

Arika Waulu

Arika Waulu is a koolyn language holder of the Djap Wurrung, Peek Wurrung, Dhauwurd Wurrung western districts of Victoria. Waulu is a sovereign multimedia and installation experimentalist who uses sculpture, video, moving and still images that are predominantly displayed as projection installations. 

Waulu is a community activator, and is a part of a small working team at Blak Pearl Studios in Fitzroy. Working closely with their local community on arts projects and upcoming events. Waulu launched their landback initiative Wuurn Of Kanak in November 2020, the ten year plan aims to regenerate land and waters through native plants and bush medicine gardens, and nurture and protect the existing ancestor trees and surrounding cultural landscapes. 

Council is advised on cultural matters by the Yarra Arts Advisory Committee (YAARTS). The Room To Create Panel is a sub-committee of YAARTS which provides specialist advice as required on matters related to creative infrastructure in the City of Yarra.

Yarra City Council is concerned about infrastructure related issues facing the creative sector; those relate to affordability, security of tenure, fit for purpose and capacity to operate effectively in a city area of increasing density and accompanying challenges of amenity.

Council has established a perpetual fund to support creative infrastructure in the City of Yarra. The Room to Create Fund (‘the Fund’) was established with the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation in 2014.

The Fund is one way for Council to support a valued sector by specifically assisting to create more affordable spaces. It is hoped this will enable arts and cultural organisations to be more economically viable and give incentives for them to be able to stay within Yarra. It will also strengthen artistic practice in the municipality, assisting in retaining an economic driver within Yarra.

The key role of the Panel is to:

Advocate for the importance of creative infrastructure in the City;
Contribute to strategic direction and policies related to the Room to Create Fund;
Contribute to the development of fundraising strategies for the Fund; and
Advise on grants made by Council towards creative infrastructure.

2019 Room to Create Terms of Reference

Narelle Desmond

Narelle is a practising artist, a designer, an arts manager and an educator. Narelle is a founding member of the Damp Collective, teaches graphic design at the University of Melbourne and co-manages an artist run space in Fitzroy. Narelle works in Yarra.

Matthew Fung

Matthew is an interior architect and a practising artist. He has worked in the building industry for over 8 years working in several firms and studios as a designer and fabricator across Sydney and Melbourne. Matthew lives and works in Yarra.

Shini Pararajashingham

Shini is the Founder and Director of Off the Kerb. Her role is in the strategic direction of the gallery and the creation of a calendar of exhibitions and special artistic projects that contribute to a dynamic independent arts sector in Melbourne renowned for innovation, excellence and internationally recognized standards. Shini works and owns a business in Yarra.

Harry Wray

Harry is the founder of Digi Debates, a judge for the Adelaide Advertising and Design Club, a speaker for She Says and Leading Ladies and a member of Pause Fest. She has over 15 years’ experience running creative and digital production teams in software strategy and customer experiences. Harry lives and works in Yarra.

Jessie Wright

Jessie is a practising mural artist and illustrator, a curator and gallery manager. He has experience as an Art Director within branding and advertising and expertise in guerrilla marketing. Jessie is the owner of Honey Bones Gallery and Studio in Collingwood. Jessie works and owns a business in Yarra.

Faraday Boydell

Faraday’s experience includes project management, curatorial work and arts collections management. She is the Art Collection Manager for a private collection and works with Agency Projects, an Indigenous cultural organisation based at Collingwood Yards. Faraday works in Yarra.

Rhy Haskin

Dr Rhy Haskin is a practising artist, an educator, and an arts manager with collections management experience. Rhy has an impressive record of exhibitions, publications, presentations at forums and has won many honours and prizes. Rhy has run artist run spaces, including TCB Gallery and Connors Connors at Fitzroy Town Hall. Rhy works in Yarra.

Sam McGuiness

Sam is the Creative Director, Visual Design at R/GA Melbourne. R/GA is a global award winning digital agency that designs businesses and brands for a more human future. Sam works with companies like Toyota, Google, and Slack. Sam lives in Yarra.

Glenn Manson

Glenn is the Gallery Manager Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne, dedicated to representing Aboriginal artists. Glenn has work in both commercial and public galleries specialising in contemporary and indigenous art. He has curated exhibitions locally, interstate and internationally. Glenn lives and works in Yarra.

Carolyn Lewens 

Carolyn Lewens is an artist and curator working solo and collaboratively to produce complex ensembles of image, sound and text. She investigates the properties and metaphors of light, and the mysteries of shadows, often producing experimental works. Her cameraless photographs are a mix of the literal and the phenomenal, problematising the digital through the uncanny of the analogue.

Probing cultural and scientific explanations of nature and more recently, the universe; playing with creative ambiguities of the photogram process, mobile sculptures and installation, her works broadly canvass ideas at work in culture and science, with a focus on ecologies of light, water and life. Her images are cyanotypes – blueprints, “plans for future reference.” As such they deal with issues of art and science - climate change, pollution, over-fishing, questioning what it means to be alive, and speculating on what might exist down in the oceanic depths or out in deep space. More recent forays into cosmic realms with her current fellowship at Swinburne University’s Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, has brought questions of the scientific interpretation of light and darkness, movement and shadows to the fore.