Starter Pack
Starter Pack is our new, fee-based program for artists and curators to develop a project or a skill with a mentor outside of an institutional framework.
Starter Pack is designed to connect highly-skilled, mid-career practitioners to offer their knowledge to emerging artists and curators in a friendly and personalised setting. As the costs for arts education increase, while artist employment within institutions remains precarious, we would like to facilitate this space for reciprocal learning, adjacent to other formal and informal training and development programs in our local arts ecology.
The first Starter Pack will take place between January - April 2025, with Leyla Stevens (artist), Lara Chamas (artist), Nikki Lam (artist-curator) and Bianca Winataputri (curator).
Program Details
- Participate in four 1-on-1 mentorship sessions online or in-person, depending on your location;
-Participate in two facilitated online sessions with Hyphenated Projects and other participants for discussions and/or project feedback;
- Have the option to work towards an outcome with Hyphenated Projects;
- Each mentor may select up to four mentees, depending on their capacity.
- This program is particularly useful for emerging artists or curators who seek to engage with a mentor but not sure where to start. It is also recommended to mid-career artists and curators who would like to upskill, or get specific advice from our mentors over a fixed period of time.
- Guidance around preparation for a project activity such as an exhibition, artist residency, further studies etc.;
- Medium-specific advice and skill share such as video editing, digital project, ceramics, spatial practice, writing, casting etc.;
- General guidance on artistic and conceptual process, material, project planning etc. In-depth learning of a shared theme or skill from your mentor.
- Tier 1: $2,000 (Pay-it-forward)
- Tier 2: $1,650 (Supporter)
- Tier 3: $1,300 (Kickstarter)
Starter Pack Mentors
Leyla Stevens
‘I’m interested in image-based storytelling as a method to recuperate submerged histories within established canons. My approach to filmmaking is deeply collaborative and underscored by a reflective and responsive engagement with place and communities. I use methods of archival research, documentary techniques and performance practices. I can offer mentorship around research driven practices, collaborative and interdisciplinary projects and filmmaking processes.’Current Interests:
Archives, counter-histories, place-based methodologies, Balinese and Indonesian art histories, transcultural and diasporic narratives, filmmaking, image based practices.
Nikki Lam
Aida Azin is a painter, art facilitator, and community organiser whose art practice emphasises the importance of connection with community and culture. Reflecting on her experiences as a 'third culture kid' of Filipino-Iranian heritage born in Australia, she explores the intersections of identity, heritage, and place through her work.
‘I’m interested in working with practitioners who have hybrid practices working in the fields and edges of contemporary art, film, design, research, text and performance. My strongest skills are in filmmaking and devising conceptual methodologies, working with discursive mediums, collaborative and interdisciplinary practice, and Asian diaspora discourse. I am particularly interested in themes around time, memory, migration, mythologies, crisis and speculative fiction right now.’Current Interests:
Time and text-based practice, cinema and moving images, Hong Kong diaspora, Asian diaspora discourses in the West, solidarity and equity-driven practice, queer and feminist methodologies, digital, performance, art publishing, interdisciplinary practice, multilingual practice, anti-capitalist and relational methodologies, collectivism.
Lara Chamas
Lara Chamas is aLebanese artist, based in Naarm (Melbourne), fleeing from civil war, herparents migrated to Australia, where she was born. Her practice investigatestopics of postcolonial and migrant narratives within the context of hercultural identity. Using narrative and experience documentation, storytelling,transgenerational trauma and memory and tacit knowledge; her research intendsto explore links and meeting points between narrative theory, culturalpractice, current political and societal tensions, and the body as a politicalvessel.
‘My knowledge and experience lay inmaterial-based practice/process and medium exploration. Medium matters a greatdeal to me and often is enriching to my work conceptually. I work with objects,materials, and topics that carry cultural, spiritual and or emotional meaning,including food. Anti-colonial methodologies and theory, family and lineage arecentral to a lot of my practice. I would be keen to discuss these and adjacentthemes, particularly with SWANA region and or Islamic backgrounds.’
Current interests:Sculpture, installation, materialpractice, casting, mould-making, process and labour, diaspora, family andlineage, storytelling and narrative theory, tacit knowledge and touch,inherited trauma, Islam, food and cooking, documentary, anti-capitalist,anti-colonial, mutual aid, resistance, body as political vessel, disabilitypolitics, anti-institution.
Bianca Winataputri
Alice McCool is an emerging curator, writer and creative producer based in Tarntanya. As an intercountry adoptee, her research critically engages with ideas around nationhood, race, culture, and diaspora. She has previously held leadership roles at Nexus Arts and FELTspace, and currentl‘I am interested to connect with creatives who have(or are working towards) research-based and community focused practices. I havea strong art historical and curatorial background, working closely withartists, art collectives, curators, writers, and community members particularlyin Southeast Asia and Australia. I also have experience with and knowledge ofdifferent audiences and publics across the Asian and Australian region. I amlooking for mentees who are curious, innovative, and keen to work with internationalcollaborators and communities.’
Bianca Winataputri is an independent curator, writer, art historian, and podcast host based in Indonesiaand Australia. She has a Ph.D. in Art History and Theory at Monash Art, Designand Architecture (MADA) and her research focuses on contemporary SoutheastAsian art and exhibitions. Bianca was previously Public Programs coordinator atthe Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA) and Assistant Curator ofContemporary Art at the National Gallery of Australia. Bianca is currentlydeveloping an international research and exchange project Seaweed Stories that connects seaweed creative practices, artmaking, innovation, and modes of thinking across Asia and Australia.
Current interests: Curatorial research and writing, Art publishing, Public programming,Community/audience-engagement in the arts, Asian diaspora discourses inAustralia and internationally, Transnational artistic, historical, and culturalconnectionsy co-facilitates fine print magazine and works as a creative producer for Open Space Contemporary Arts. In 2024, Alice was selected as a participant of Creative Australia’s (re)situate Biennale Delegates program.