Fionna

Reed

Annette

ELIO Gati
[Currently being updated]

TIFFANY Lee-Shoy
Tiffany is Regional Cultural Planning Coordinator at WSROC – Western Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils Ltd - one of Australia's oldest and most respected local government lobbying and research organisations and a key advocate forWestern Sydney. In late 2004 she finalised the first Regional Cultural Strategy for Greater Western Sydney, Authoring Contemporary Australia and is the coordinator for several networks of cultural administrators and professionals across 14 local government areas.

In previous lives, Tiffany has been an artist, curator, gallery director and scientist, but her spirit finds its greatest creative expression as a cultural advocate and negotiator. Her experience lies in working with culturally diverse communities, forging multidisciplinary partnerships, arts advocacy and management, strategy analysis and in community cultural development.

Tiffany is a member of the Australia Council for the Arts' Multicultural Arts Committee, its Community Partnerships Committee, and is Deputy Chair of its Community Cultural Development Assessment Committee. She is also Deputy Chair of Information and Cultural Exchange (ICE), a Board member of Artswest Foundation, and a member of Sydney Olympic Park’s Arts Development Advisory Committee.

YASMIN Sabuncu
Yasemin Sabuncu is a hybrid media artist who utilises such mediums as video, painting, graphics, performance, graffiti, and photography to create innovative works that can be unsettling, expressive and alluring. Her work has been shown across many galleries, festivals, magazines and public events.

Also a keen Curator/Creative Director Yasemin was Co-Creative Director and Creator with her creative collaborator Chris Tamm of South Australia's first Street Art Festival the St 5000 held across 4 days in venues across Adelaide and is now an annual event. Chris Tamm and Yasemin continue to curate shows to this present day.

Over her career to date she has won various Awards and been selected into various artistic programmes both nationally and internationally. She was even selected as one of the top artists under 25 nationwide for the Noise Festival in 2003 when she was interviewed for ABC TV, Triple J and SBS.

In 2005 Yasemin was hired as a Producer/ Director of a pioneering web/cable based TV variety show with a difference called Girl Machine. This helped her to develop her vision, leadership and technical expertise in the field of TV and New Media Technologies.

Yasemin has created her Company YES Media to offer creative services in a wide range of fields including photography, film, TV and illustration. She is currently writing her feature film script that exposes the dark humour of societies obsession with celebrity culture and reality TV.

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ANTHEA Sidiropoulos
Anthea has been a self managed artist as a singer, songwriter, performer for over 15 years. This has given Anthea a ‘holistic edge’ in her career with both performance and management skills to her credit.

Anthea grew up in a household where music and politics were always present, especially through her late father Theo Sidiropoulos, first Greek migrant to enter Australian politics.
Anthea made her début in Greek music as finalist in The Antipodes Song Writing Festival 1989 and again in 1992. Before then Anthea performed in cover bands and tribute shows. Her most successful show being Pearl The Ultimate Janis Joplin show (1992-94) taking her to SanFransisco where she interviewed Janis Joplin’s sister and performed with some of Janis’s much loved musicians from Big Brother and The Holding Co and the Kosmic Blues Band.

Since then she has blossomed as a singer/songwriter in her own right. In 2001 Anthea was finalist at the MusOz songwriting competition. In 2002 she launched her own CD of traditional Greek Folk Songs Full Circle and later that year produced her ode to womanhood Kundalini40.

At the Melbourne Fringe Festival 2003, Anthea wrote produced and performed her one woman show Ánthea’s Diary winning her a nomination for best performance. Her song Mes Tin Xenita / Foreign Land was included on Arnold Zable’s musical companion to his book of the same name, The Fig Tree which won best folk CD released in 2004. Anthea continues to further her career as a songwriter with credits now including music for film and TV. Anthea is an advocate for peace, reconciliation and human rights; currently explores new realms in bringing communities together through music and song by writing and producing her own show on multiculturalism.

ANNETTE Tzavaras
[Currently being updated]

CHI Vu
Chi was born in Vietnam and came to Australia in 1979. After studying Creative Writing at The University of Melbourne she worked as a theatre facilitator, dramaturg, writer and artistic co-director at Western Edge Youth Arts.

Chi has worked with a diverse range of arts organisations including Kids’ Own Publishing, stART, Playbox Theatre, Theatre 4A, La Mama, the Asialink Centre, the Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre and the Big West Festival as well as culturally diverse community groups. Chi’s writing has won several awards in Australia including the Playbox Asialink Special Initiative Award. Her short stories have been published in Meanjin, The Age and various anthologies. Her plays have been performed at the North Melbourne Arts House and Footscray Community Arts Centre; and at Sidetrack Theatre and the Studio at the Sydney Opera House.

Chi was awarded an Asialink writer’s residency to Vietnam in 2000, and the Australia Council’s literature residency to the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Ireland in 2006.

ANN Williams-Fitzgerald
Photo-Media Artist/Photographer
Ann was born Hobart in 1953. Her current artistic work focuses on exploring deep-buried emotions relating to family connections, body image and bloodlines - issues such as heritage, roots, connectedness and belonging. Her father, who was a Polish gypsy who spent over four years in a number of German POW camps during WWII, including 3 years in the dreaded Auschwitz Concentration Camp [Nazi Death Camp] before being moved to Neckargerach. On 4th April 1945 after a three-day-odyssey on a train to Dachau, the prisoners were liberated by the US-Army in Osterburken.

After being liberated he left behind the turmoil of war-torn Europe and settled in the farthest corner of the world, in Tasmania in 1951 and was bonded to work for two years on the Tasmanian hydro electric scheme. She feels her current multicultural work is an important step in recognizing, valuing and understanding our cultural diversity. This work aims to highlight that we all have a rich and diverse heritage; and we all have a cultural background that is worth acknowledging and sharing with each other.

It is through this symbolism that we can express, enjoy and value each other's identity and recognise that we all have a role to play in ensuring the wellbeing, contribution and participation of people in our community.

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NINA Howard
Nina is an arts professional with broad experience in organization and project management, administration and training in the international development industry and multicultural working environments. She is lucky to have had broad experience developing her skills in countries and cities such as Guatemala, Indonesia, India (Kashmir and Delhi), New York, Papua New Guinea and right now in Cambodia. Nina has a strong drive to work in international communities and to share her skills in developing culturally appropriate strategies for improved coverage of development issues, including HIV/AIDS, education, governance, gender and the environment.

Nina is currently working with the Artisans Association of Cambodia (AAC) as the Designer and Marketing Advisor. The AAC promote the socio-economic integration of Cambodia's most vulnerable, including; landmine survivors, people with disabilities and disadvantaged women, through the medium of handicraft production and sale.

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FRANK Madrid
Born in Caracas, Venezuela, Frank has lived in Australia for more than a decade. He attended the Universidad Central de Venezuela's School of Journalism obtaining a Broadcasting Licence. He has also undertaken studies in the area of Arts Administration at New York University's School of Professional Studies and completed an Executive Certificate in Arts Marketing for Cultural Industries at the UTS Graduate School of Business. Frank has a Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing Communications from the University of Canberra. He is also an active producer, presenter and programmer of cultural content having been an associate producer of the Australia Latin America Foundation for a number of years.

Frank's areas of expertise are marketing and communications with an emphasis on developing a wider audience for the arts. He has worked with an array of arts organisations including most major arts festivals in Australia, the International Theatre Institute-UNESCO, Putumayo World Music, and venues such as the Sydney Opera House and the Brisbane Powerhouse . He actively promotes international cultural exchange and has nurtured close relationships with artists and other cultural brokers the world over facilitating opportunities for international dialogue.

He is currently managing communications and marketing for one of the largest cooperative marketing agencies in the world, Canberra Arts Marketing as well as running his own agency, Frank Madrid Arts Consulting. In 2007 Frank will present "Nueva Danza", a showcase of contemporary Latin American dance for the Canberra National Multicultural Festival . He is also working closely to showcase the success of the Venezuelan network of Youth orchestras to Australian audiences. His skills as world music Dj are in constant demand around Australia and overseas.

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