The People

Staff

Shakthidharan
Director

Executive & Creative Director, Artist
shakthi@curiousworks.com.au

Shakthi founded CuriousWorks in 2005. He has worked with the CuriousWorkers to deliver a series of creative initiatives that have sustainable and innovative outcomes for all Australians.

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. The system was developed through 3 year partnerships in two regions: Western Sydney (urban) and the Pilbara, Western Australia (remote). All Around You is now freely available as a living resource kit and social media portal for artists, educators, media makers and curious creators everywhere. It has also become the key service of CuriousWorks and the company continues to train cultural leaders in marginalised communities around the country on how use new media to innovative their cause.

Shakthi’s two new initiatives, developing in 2010, are The Stories Project and Serendib. The former is an episodic, place-based video series for the Internet; the latter a multi-platform initiative centred around the Sri Lankan-Australian community.

He 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.

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
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, Mentor

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.

Naomi Bower
Advocate

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.

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.

Anna Lam
Media Intern

Anna is a Media Relations/Communications intern at Curious Works and an active participant in the Urban Stories Project.

In 2009, she was the Managing Director of Papaya, a 23-member company that produced, manufactured and sold an educational film for NSW high school students. Papaya won the State and National Marketing Award from Young Achievement Australia.

In early 2010 Anna worked at the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Manila, Philippines, on the political and stock market/banking beat. She was also posted as the Marketing and Media Executive for Students In Free Enterprise (SIFE), developing business and community partnerships in Sydney, Australia.

At the end of this year, Anna will graduate with a Bachelor of Arts (Media and Communications), University of Sydney.

Cecelia Charlesworth
Design Intern