Wesley Enoch is a writer and director. He hails from Stradbroke Island (Minjeribah) and is a proud Quandamooka man. 

Wesley is the QUT Indigenous Chair of Creative Industries.

Previously Wesley has been the Artistic Director at Sydney Festival from 2017 – 2020; Kooemba Jdarra Indigenous Performing Arts; Artistic Director at Ilbijerri Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander Theatre Co-operative and the Associate Artistic Director at Belvoir Street Theatre. Wesley’s other residencies include Resident Director at Sydney Theatre Company; the 2002 Australia Council Cite Internationale des Arts Residency in Paris and the Australia Council Artistic Director for the Australian Delegation to the 2008 Festival of Pacific Arts. He was creative consultant, segment director and indigenous consultant for the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.  

Wesley has written and directed iconic Indigenous theatre productions. THE 7 STAGES OF GRIEVING which Wesley directed and co-wrote with Deborah Mailman was first produced in 1995 and continues to tour both nationally and internationally.  Others include THE SUNSHINE CLUB for Queensland Theatre Company and a new adaptation of Medea by Euripides’; BLACK MEDEA. His play THE STORY OF THE MIRACLES AT COOKIE’S TABLE won the 2005 Patrick White Playwrights’ Award.  

In 2004 Wesley directed the original stage production of THE SAPPHIRES which won the 2005 Helpmann Award for Best Play. Other productions include BLACK COCKATOO, STOLEN, RIVERLAND, MOTHER COURAGE AND HER CHILDREN, HEADFUL OF LOVE, BOMBSHELLS, BLACK DIGGERS, GASP!, COUNTRY SONG, HAPPY DAYS and THE ODD COUPLE, I AM EORA, ONE NIGHT THE MOON, THE MAN FROM MUKINUPIN, YIBIYUNG, PARRAMATTA GIRLS, CAPRICORNIA, THE CHERRY PICKERS and ROMEO AND JULIET. 

His most recent production is the Australian premiere of APPROPRIATE by Branden Jacobs Jenkins at the Sydney Theatre Company. In 2021 Wesley received the Dorothy Crawford Award For Outstanding Contribution to the Profession and the Industry at the AWGIES.”

Photographer Cassandra Hannagan

Wesley Enoch AM

Chair

“I know the shows I work on work best when there is a synergy between what we are saying and who we are saying it to. The more BLAK people in the audience helps everyone understand the show better. If we are going to pursue diverse artists, and their stories then it is reasonable to pursue a diverse audience.”

Jamie Lewis

Member

JAMIE LEWIS is a Singaporean-Australian artist, curator, dramaturg and facilitator. She creates experimental and contemporary intercultural work, facilitating participatory experiences on identity, place, and time, through autobiographical stories, conversation and food. She creates and curates site-responsive performances that engage audiences as participants, and communities as artists. Jamie also has a long-term creative partnership – curiously exploring place and new vantage points with Dan Koop as Jamie, Dan & Co. Jamie is currently CEO / Executive Director at Next Wave. She has previously been the Program Manager at TNA (Theatre Network Australia), on the Board of MAV (Multicultural Arts Victoria), and was in the 2018 cohort of Australia Council for the Arts’ Future Leaders program.

Photographer – Leah Jing McIntosh

Catherine Jones

Member

Catherine Jones is the Director of the APAM Office. Prior to taking up the role at APAM Catherine was the General Manager of Arts House, Melbourne’s centre for contemporary and experimental performance. Before joining the City of Melbourne Catherine held Executive positions in some of Melbourne’s leading contemporary performance companies including Chunky Move, Malthouse Theatre and Arena Theatre Company. She has worked extensively in producing companies and festival contexts, nationally and internationally, with roles at Queensland Theatre Company, Traverse Theatre, Melbourne Festival, Out of the Box Festival and the Queensland Biennial Festival of Music. Catherine has previously held Board positions with Theatre Network Australia, Arena Theatre Company and KAGE. She was a recipient of the inaugural ISPA – Australia Council Fellowships (2014 – 2017), an Asialink Arts Management Resident (Delhi – 2006) and a member of the Artistic Directorate of HotHouse Theatre (2005-2008).

John Nolan

Member

 John was appointed MSO’s Director of Programming in 2021 following two years as Director of Learning & Engagement. Before starting at the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra John was Manager of the Public Events Program then Senior Producer at London’s Royal Opera House. In these roles John worked closely with The Royal Opera and The Royal Ballet to curate and deliver a program of live and digital events featuring world-class artists.  Other Previous roles include Community Engagement Officer of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra and Artistic Administrator and then Artistic Operations Manager of Gondwana Choirs. John has a Master of Arts in Cultural and Creative Industries from King’s College London, a Postgraduate Diploma in Arts Management from the University of Melbourne and a Bachelor of Creative Industries from Queensland University of Technology.

Veronica Pardo

Members

Veronica Pardo has been leading the work on cultural equity in Australia for more than 15 years, heading peak organisations such as Arts Access Victoria and Multicultural Arts Victoria, as champions of change in the arts towards greater equity and justice. She is a highly regarded leader, sought after by institutions to guide the development of interventions aimed at changing organisational culture, structure and practice. She is an experienced workshop facilitator who brings both lived and professional experience of diversity to the creation of culturally safe learning and reflection spaces. Her understanding of organisational needs and priorities ensures that this work is both aspirational and practical, leading to meaningful and implementable plans for change. Veronica has trained over 150 cultural organisations focusing on issues such as racial equity and justice, cultural safety, diversity and inclusion. Veronica currently serves on the Board of VicHealth and is Chair of Next Wave. She hails from Uruguay, South America.

Fayen d’Evie

Member

Fayen d’Evie is an artist and writer, born in Malaysia, raised in Aotearoa New Zealand, and now living in the bushlands of unceded Jaara country, Australia. Fayen’s projects are often collaborative, and resist spectatorship by inviting audiences into sensorial readings of artworks. She is also the founder of independent imprint 3-ply, which approaches artist-led publishing as an experimental site for the creation, dispersal, and archiving of texts.

Selected exhibitions include: With Cane in Hand, I Dance a Duet for One, for Two, for Three, for Four…, Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), Sydney, 2022; Adelaide//International, Endnote: The Ethical Handling of Empty Spaces, SAMSTAG Museum of Art, Adelaide, 2021; The National, Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney, 2019; Eavesdropping, Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne, 2018; ee//hm, KADIST, San Francisco, 2016; Beyond Exhausted, Physics Room, Christchurch, 2016; […] {…} […], Gertrude Glasshouse, Melbourne 2016; Human Commonalities, V.A.C. and the State Museum of Vadim Sidur, Moscow, 2016; Endless Circulation, TarraWarra Biennial, Healesville, 2016; Habits and customs of _______ are so different from ours…, Kadist, Paris, 2016; Foot-notes, 3rd Ural Industrial Biennial, Yekaterinburg, 2015; Just as Money is the Paper, the Gallery is the Room, Osage Art Foundation, Shanghai, 2015; and Sunny and Hilly, Minerva, Sydney, 2014.

Fayen draws on blindness to propose critical and imaginative methods for navigating uncertainty and the precarious; handling the tangible, intangible, and concealed; documenting ephemeral encounters through hallucinatory recall; inviting extreme myopic readings of artworks and texts; expanding the perceptual space of publication; and animating intersensory translations and conversations.

Seb Chan

Member

Seb Chan is Director & CEO at ACMI in Melbourne. Appointed to the role in August 2022, he was previously a key part of the team behind the organisation’s $40 million renewal project, underpinned by co-design methodology, which transformed ACMI into a multi-award winning, multiplatform museum. Seb joined ACMI as Chief Experience Officer in 2015, as the senior executive responsible for the Experience & Engagement division of the museum, guiding teams responsible for visitor experience, marketing, brand & communication design, digital products, technology, and the museum’s collections, digitisation & digital preservation programs. He designed and leads ACMI’s CEO Digital Mentoring Program (2021–ongoing), working with CEOs and directors across the Australian arts and cultural sector. He is currently the National President of the Australian Museums and Galleries Association.

Prior to ACMI, Seb led the digital renewal and transformation of the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum in New York (2011–15) and the Powerhouse Museum’s pioneering work in open access, mass collaboration and digital experience during the 2000s. His work has won awards internationally in the museum, media and design spheres. Seb is Adjunct Professor, School of Media and Communications, in the College of Design and Social Context at RMIT, an international advisory board member of Art Science Museum (Singapore) and board member of the National Communications Museum (Melbourne). He is an alumnus of the Getty Leadership Institute, Salzburg Global Seminar and UNSW. Seb also leads a parallel life in digital art, writing and music.

Jeremy Smith

Member

 Jeremy is the Senior Producer at Performing Lines WA where he works closely with independent artists working across performance disciplines.

In April 2020, he returned to Boorloo/Perth after four years at the Australia Council for the Arts as Director – Community Arts and Experimental Arts.

He worked closely with artists, organisations and communities across the country promoting artistic bravery, self-determination and brokering opportunities. In addition to his extensive portfolio, Jeremy championed Regional and Remote Australia under the Australia Council’s Cultural Engagement Framework and helped develop and deliver key arts and disability initiatives.

As the General Manager of the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA), Jeremy loved working within a contemporary arts organisation supporting the development, presentation and commissioning of work by leading interdisciplinary artists.

He is a board member of both the Chamber of Arts and Culture WA and pvi collective.

He has held a range of senior positions in the corporate, not for profit and government sectors in Western Australia, including with DADAA, the AWESOME Festival and ArtsWA / Department of Culture and the Arts. He is a graduate of WAAPA, and worked as a freelance lighting designer, production manager and creative producer in the early stages of his career.

As a disabled man, Jeremy is a fierce advocate of celebrating difference and transforming attitudes which ‘other’ people in our community. He also promotes actions to ensure these values are central to our arts, cultural and creative industries.Jeremy loves his ‘anti-bio’ – far more impressive than this dull, corporate overview – and he strongly encourages you to take time to read it here.

Peter Ross

Member

Peter is a graduate of the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (1997). He has worked professionally in the entertainment industry since 1987 as a producer, director and performer.  He is currently employed by Tamworth Regional Council, initially as the Theatre Director of the Capitol Theatre Tamworth (2009 to 2012) and then as the Manager of Entertainment Venues, which programs and manages the Capitol Theatre Tamworth, Tamworth War Memorial Town Hall, Tamworth Regional Entertainment Conference Centre and Tamworth Community Centre. Peter is the Executive Producer and Director of the Golden Guitar Awards – the Country Music Awards of Australia.

Peter is Vice-Chair of the PAC Australia Board, Chair of the Board for the Tamworth Regional Conservatorium of Music and is on the boards of NAPACA (NSW & ACT Performing Arts Centres Association) and Arts North West. He was on the board of Arts On Tour for 8 years up until April 2020.  He is passionate about regional performing arts and creative capacity building and the part it plays in the national ecosystem of our industry – from an audience development & diversity perspective as well as developing and growing the creative industries and practice regionally.