The People
Staff
Shakthidharan
Director
Artist, Executive Director & Creative Director Arts Program
shakthi@curiousworks.com.au
Shakthi founded CuriousWorks in 2005.
His first initiative was The Migrant Project, a creative project that brought together 40 Sydneysiders with cultural and artistic ancestries from across the globe. From 2005-2007, The Migrant Project was a series of live performances and forums, garnering an audience of just over 2,000 people. A feature film has concluded the project that is about to start the film festival circuit.
His second initiative is All Around You. All Around You is a system for using digital media in a simple, positive, lasting manner in marginalised communities. Currently the system is being developed through 3 year partnerships in two regions: Western Sydney (urban) and the Pilbara, Western Australia (remote). In early 2010 All Around You will be ready as a resource kit coupled with a simple training program that will allow any organisation or group of individuals to implement it in their own community.
Shakthi also writes and produces his own music under the moniker ASI. Check out his first album, The Waiting.
Before CuriousWorks, Shakthi was a producer in the Sports Department at SBS, did a stint in investigative journalism at the ABC and even managed a clothes store whilst completing an Arts/Media degree at Sydney University and an Arts / Media Production Honours at UTS.
Elias Nohra
Head Educator
Filmmaker, Director Community Program / Community Services
elias@curiousworks.com.au
Elias brings a passion for film, comics, video games and the Internet to being CuriousWorks’ Multimedia Educator. Through All Around You he has delivered a tremendous amount of digital arts workshops for CuriousWorks, across Western Sydney, Redfern, regional NSW and regional Western Australia. Elias has also documented and edited CuriousWorks’ live performances and collaborated on video works for the company’s first major initiative, The Migrant Project.
Previously, Elias taught film at University of NSW and various high schools around Sydney. He has also developed a visual media mobile application for deaf people with The Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children and a prototype for an educational computer game, entitled Jackals of the Nile, for the Catholic Education Office.
Naomi Bower
Connector
Development Manager, Community Services
naomi@curiousworks.com.au
Naomi worked in community and public arts in London from 2000-2008. There she co-ordinated training schemes, events and strategic development for community groups and local government. She particularly focused on working with local arts groups to regenerate deprived areas of south London via the government’s Neighbourhood Renewal initiative and fostered the development of a creative industries network in Camberwell, London Borough of Southwark.
She has a passion for the role arts can play in bringing communities to life and loves to see the creative sparks fly when people connect.
Eleanor Winkler
Producer
Enterprise Programs and Operations Manager
el@curiousworks.com.au
Eleanor Winkler is an award winning film and theatre producer who is committed to representing diversity on screen and stage. Her career in the Arts began in 2006 when she took the helm as General Manager of Western Sydney’s leading youth arts organisation Powerhouse Youth Theatre (PYT), and has worked fiercely since then to realise creative projects highlighting the diverse cultural landscape of Australia on all scales: from small street theatre performances to large scale site specific theatre pieces and feature films.
Eleanor line produced award winning feature film Missing Water (2009 Sydney International Film Festival Official Selection; winner DigiSPAA 2009 Award) written and directed by Khoa Do. She also produced award winning short film Be My Brother, written and directed by Genevieve Clay, winner 2009 Movie Extra Tropfest Best Film. Currently, Eleanor is based at CuriousWorks producing a multimedia social enterprise project for young people in Western Sydney called Urban Stories.
2010 Collaborators
Aimée Falzon
Caretaker, Artist & Educator
As an educator, Aimée collaborates on the performance, voice and visual arts components of CuriousWorks’ All Around You workshops. As an artistic collaborator she performed, wrote, sang and designed in The Migrant Project, in the spirit of her belief that the multiplicity of art-forms naturally intertwine and support each other. As an illustrator, she spent a month animating for CuriousWorks’ in a partnership with the Melbourne Fringe Festival and Federation Square, Overflow. This diverse arts work was balanced by Aimée’s role as CuriousWorks administration head before the hiring of its General Manager, building on similar, previous work at Harbour St Management and ATYP.
Aimée is also a classically trained singer and flexible vocalist, and has trained in various physical performance methods, from Flamenco dance to Suzuki method. She completed actor training with the Actors Centre Australia, then studied Performance at the University of Sydney. She continued with the Australian Theatre for Young People, performing in nine productions over the last six years. Aimée has since performed in various, independent film and theatre productions.
Aimée regularly workshops and tutors young people in voice and drama through Powerhouse Youth Theatre, atyp, SCEGGS, Blacktown Migrant Resource Centre, ACDN and most recently with PYT for their ‘Mixed Abilities Ensemble’. She has assistant directed with Jo Turner for Ashfield Youth Theatre’s ‘Crossfire’ and also with James Winter for Company B’s ‘Youth Express’. Over the last 12 months Aimée has written and directed a series of interactive performances for Western Sydney high Schools for Macquarie Legal Centre. Aimée’s writing also appeared in the 2007 and 2008 Sydney Writer’s Festival.
Platon Theodoris
Filmmaker, Educator
Part of Platon’s eclectic nature has to do with his communist upbringing. By age 13 he was a full member of the radical left wing group “The Young Pioneers” – at 15 he quit in disgust after reading Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged”. He began making films whilst still in high school to impress the girls. This failed. A stint at the College of Fine Arts in Sydney, he preferred finishing his studies at the less glamorous Jakarta Institute of Arts in Indonesia – during the turmoil and upheaval of Soeharto’s downfall. He has an Honors Degree in Political Philosophy from the UNSW as well as two MTV Awards. He is privileged enough to have had his work openly trashed on Today Tonight and A Current Affair – most recently a music video he directed for the boxer turned rapper – Anthony Mundine.
“Lakemba” - his 30 minute hip-hop drama – drew critical acclaim. The film screened at various national and international film festivals including the prestigious 52nd London Film Festival. It received a limited theatrical release at both Dendy and Hoyts Cinemas – a first for an Aussie short film. ’Sunrise’ – made as part of film production workshops with the kids from the Sunrise Children’s Village in Cambodia is currently doing the film festival rounds – with a charity screening in Sydney last year raising over $5000 for the orphanage. Platon enjoys taking photographs of shoes on power lines and occasionally dips his toes in the very shallow world of tv commercials.
He is still single and seems to get daily cravings for yum cha.
Peter Cossey
New Media Designer
Peter spent a year full-time at CuriousWorks with the support of the Vodafone Australia Foundation’s World of Difference program. Although that time has come to an end, he remains a CuriousWorks collaborator.
A designer and programmer from Sydney, since graduating from Media and Communications at UNSW Peter has worked with various organisations developing web based publishing systems, interactive multimedia and educational video games. His previous work includes collaborations with Ross Rudesch Harley, Parramatta Catholic Education Office and the School of Education, Sydney University.
Dan O’Reilly-Rowe
Filmmaker, Educator
Dan O’Reilly-Rowe is an artist, educator, and activist. He has edited, shot, and produced numerous documentaries, most recently “Bidam (With Blood)”, which follows health workers and their patients in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Dan’s work often highlights the role of media in social movements, and he has worked to promote the media production and analysis capacity of numerous communities in the the USA, the Middle East, and Australia.
He produces improvised video art performances and DJs under the alias Ghostleg, and curates a monthly screening series in Sydney called “Stinger Sessions”. After a ten year stint in New York City, Dan recently returned to Sydney with his partner, their daughter, and their three-legged cat.
Management Committee
Anthea Fawcett
Chair
From 2002 – 2008 Anthea has lived in South Africa and South Korea, enjoying the opportunity to experience two of the world’s most rapidly transforming cultures and economies. In 2006, Anthea curated the ANZA Art Show Southern Hands, initiated numerous trade opportunities and presentations of South African art craft, and presented Contemporary Colours – Modern Art Craft From South Africa in conjunction with Gallery Ju, Samcheong-dong, Seoul.
Anthea returned to Sydney to live in early 2008 and has established the Australian office of Southern Art Exchange, www.southernexchange.com.au. Anthea is pleased to work with some of South Africa’s leading artists and creative sector organisations, including David Krut Projects, KAROSS, Art for Humanity, Paul Weinberg and the Centre for Curating the Archive, University of Cape Town, and Ilulwane Craft.
Anthea possesses a Master of Art Administration from the College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales. She has worked extensively in sustainable design and development, and environmental policy and education in Australia and South Africa. This work is interdisciplinary in nature and this is reflected in Southern Exchange’s commitment to the role that creative industries can play in sustainable development and cultural exchange. In such areas, Anthea has consulted to Price Waterhouse, the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, The Institution of Engineers, Australia, and the University of Cape Town.
Chris Greiner
Public Officer
Chris has practised in the general corporate, M&A and seniors living sectors for over 30 years. Currently at Ryan Lawyers, Chris has over 30 year’s experience in law and was formerly a Partner at Blake Dawson. Chris’ client base includes major local and overseas financial institutions, ASX Top 100 corporates and developers & owner/operators of seniors living facilities.
Eng-juay
Treasurer
Eng-juay, a Chartered Accountant, has served in senior finance capacities in the UK, Singapore and Hong Kong. Since emigrating from Singapore in 1982, he has worked in numerous sectors, holding senior management positions in a number of public companies. Now working as a sole practitioner, he maintains a number of private tax and business advisory clients.
Shakthidharan
General Member
Shakthi is the Executive and Creative Director of CuriousWorks.
Aimée Falzon
Secretary
Aimée has been a CuriousWorks collaborator and Board Secretary since its inception.
Creative Steering Committee
Khaled Sabsabi
Khaled Sabsabi is a community arts practitioner and artist who specialises in multimedia sound and hip-hop music.
Since 1990 Khaled has worked with communities in Western Sydney to create and develop arts-led programs that explore people and places from a broad social, political and religious spectrum. His work has been screened and performed in Australia at the Casula Powerhouse in Sydney and in Lebanon at the Beirut Theatre. He has also received an AFI nomination for his sound work on the film Color Bars (1997) and has produced sound and music for Writing from the Hip (Belvoir Street Theatre, Sydney, 1996), which was awarded Best Play in the 1996 Contemporary Performance Awards.
Khaled was the recipient of an Australia Council fellowship in 2002 and completed an artist residency program in Camden Head, NSW in 2004. He recently took part in the 2007 New Media Fest, SoundLAB and the 3rd Digital Art Festival in Rosario, Argentina. Khaled was also invited to participate at an arts symposium: Society, Politics and the Performative in New Zealand, where he spoke about the role that contemporary arts practice can play as a vehicle for social change.
Khaled has secured exhibitions in Spain for 2008 and is exploring further opportunities to host solo exhibitions.
Tommy Murphy
Tommy Murphy is an award-winning Australian playwright. He is a graduate of the University of Sydney and of the National Institute of Dramatic Art (Director’s course).
He was a resident writer at Griffin Theatre Company 2004-06, for which he wrote Strangers in Between and Holding the Man. Both plays are published by Currency Press, in one volume. Strangers in Between won the national 2006 NSW Premier’s Literary Award for Best Play, and Holding the Man won the same Award in 2007. Murphy is the youngest recipient of the award, and the only playwright to win in successive years. Saturn’s Return was commissioned by Sydney Theatre Company co-artistic directors Andrew Upton and Cate Blanchett for STC’s Wharf 2 season 2008 and is published by Currency Press.
Murphy sits on the Board of Directors of the Australian Theatre for Young People and World Interplay, and is the recipient of a Centenary of Federation Medal. In 2007, Tommy Murphy had the title of Honorary Associate conferred by the Faculty of Education & Social Work, University of Sydney.
James Winter
James Winter graduated from the Centre for the Performing Arts in 1993 and has worked as an actor, dancer and director on a myriad of projects.
He has been Artistic Director for Brand X Theatre and D Faces of Youth Arts, along with Associate Director for Urban Myth Theatre of Youth, Project Officer for Carclew Youth Arts Centre and Assistant Director for State Theatre of South Australia’s production of “Equus”. James is currently Artistic Director of Ashfield Youth Theatre. James has also worked as an Artistic Director for festivals and events including American University in Cairo (“World Refugee Day”), The Centenary of Federation (“Whyalla 100”), Sydney 2002 Gay Games Sports and Cultural Festival (“Grand Ball” and “Oceania”) and Feast Gay and Lesbian Cultural Festival (“2001 Youth Hub”).
His experience includes working with a variety of marginalised communities on theatre projects including young people with physical and intellectual disabilities, street dependent young people, same-sex attracted young people, incarcerated youth, IV drug dependent young people, sex workers, remote indigenous communities, juvenile justice clients, recent arrival communities and dual diagnosis. James has also worked in Cairo Egypt with African refugees on a 6 month Australia Council program “Out There Everywhere” to establish community cultural development projects for artists in exile.
James has tutored for Australian Theatre for Youth People, Powerhouse Youth Theatre, Bankstown Youth Development Service and Shopfront Theatre. Currently James is the theatre director for Company B’s Education Program with Key College (Youth off the Streets), Marist Youth Care and Youth Space and is an event coordinator for South Sydney Youth Service’s Dual Diagnosis Program.