People

Brook Andrew’s matrilineal kinship is Wiradjuri, and Ngunnawal on his mother’s father’s line, and paternally he is Celtic. He is an artist, writer and scholar who is driven by the collisions of intertwined narratives, often emerging from the mess of what he has coined The Colonial Wuba (Hole). His practice, research and curatorial projects challenge the limitations imposed by colonial power structures, historical amnesia, stereotyping and complicity to centre Indigenous perspectives. Brook Andrew was artistic director of the groundbreaking First Nations and artist-led “NIRIN,” the 22nd Biennale of Sydney, 2020, recent projects include: co-curator of We Are Not All Just Human After All: Care, Repair, Healing scheduled to open in September 2022 at the Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin; International advisor to the Sámi Pavilion at the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia 2022; Enterprise Professor, The University of Melbourne, Associate Researcher, Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, UK; ARC (Australia Research Council grant) with Dr Brian Martin: ARC Special Research Initiative for Australian Society, History and Culture: ‘More than a guulany (tree): Aboriginal knowledge systems’. The Director Reimagining Museums & Collections role with the University of Melbourne is a part time position enabling Brook to continue his artistic practice and other commitments.

Carroll Go-Sam is Dyirbal gumbilbara bama of Ravenshoe, North Queensland. A graduate with B.Arch (Hons) UQ in 1997 and lectures in the School of Architecture. She has research interests in Indigenous architecture where it intersects with public, civic, social and institutional architecture. Carroll is engaged in research, consultation and design practitice with specific interests in Indigeneity in architecture, civic spaces and Indigenous-led models of housing. She co-led the Gununa Futures research project (2022-2024) and UQ’s Campuses on Countries Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Engagement and Design Framework (2020-21). 

Carroll has presented at national and international events, symposia and conferences including Asis Pacific Architectural Forum, SAHANZ, IASTE, Brisbane Writers Festival, academic symposia and MPavillion Blakitecture. She was formerly Indigenous Design Place researcher (2017-2019) and worked on the research consultancy about safe drinking water in the Torres Strait Islands. The recipient of an ARC Discovery Indigenous Award (2014-2016) on Defining the Impact of Regionalism on Aboriginal Housing and Settlement. 

Professor Marcia Langton AO is an anthropologist and geographer, and since 2000 has held the Foundation Chair of Australian Indigenous Studies at the University of Melbourne.

She has produced a large body of knowledge in the areas of political and legal anthropology, Indigenous agreements and engagement with the minerals industry, and Indigenous culture and art.

Her role in the Empowered Communities project under contract to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet and as a member of the Expert Panel on Constitutional Recognition of Indigenous Australians are evidence of Professor Langton’s academic reputation, policy commitment and impact, alongside her role as a prominent public intellectual. 

As an Indigenous scholar and arts practitioner Brian Martin has extensive experience in visual arts and Indigenous knowledge systems. His research has focused on artistic practice-led research and how Indigenous ways of knowing reconfigure new materialism and the knowledge economy in general. As a practising artist for twenty-seven years, Brian has been exhibiting his work for approximately twenty years, both nationally and internationally. In addition to the above, his artistic practice has investigated the traditions of western painting and drawing whilst materialising his cultural background in its conceptual basis.  It is this extensive experience of oscillating between different world views that has seen his expertise cover a broad spectrum within Indigenous knowledge production across various disciplines. His traditional research outputs and publications have been in the field of Indigenous knowledge, decolonial theory and art practice/theory. 

Budi Miller is Co-Artistic Director of The Theatre of Others. He is an associate teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework, a certified integrative studies practitioner, and an UNESCO designated master teacher of mask work.

He teaches acting through an amalgamation of Balinese performance traditions with Mask Work, Fitzmaurice Voicework, Michael Chekhov, Clown, Viewpoints, Grotowski and Earl Gister’s techniques.

He holds a B.F.A. in theatre from NYU Tisch School of the Arts. He is pursuing a practice as research PhD at the University of Melbourne.

He has been an actor-director-writer-teacher in the United States, Australia, Singapore, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Taipei, Malaysia, India, and Indonesia since 1992. He is a Balinese mask dancer and the first teacher to bring Fitzmaurice Voicework to Denmark, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taipei, Malaysia, China and Indonesia.

He coached Michelle Williams for her Academy Award nominated performance in Ang Lee’s movie Brokeback Mountain. He coaches and collaborates with Jonathan Majors (The Last Black Man of San Francisco, Lovecraft Country: HBO) and Julian Elijah Martinez (Wu-Tang: An American Saga: Hulu). He has had the privilege of coaching and inspiring actors in many mediums: Broadway, HBO, Netflix, Showtime, major international film markets and theatres around the world.

He has been on the faculties of The Chautauqua Theater Company from 2004-2018, LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore 2009-2017. He has taught at Yale School of Drama, The Juilliard School, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, The Actors Center, Wayne State (MFA), The New School (MFA), SUNY Purchase College, University of Southern California, The Bill Esper Studio, Rutgers Mason Gross School of the Arts, The National Theatre Institute, Howard University, Western Michigan University, The National University of Singapore, The Queensland Theatre Company (Brisbane), Curtin University (Perth), and the Michael Chekhov Conference 2002. He was the Executive Director of the International Antonin Artaud Fringe Theatre Festival 2008.

He was a featured presenter at the International VASTA conference in Mexico City 2010 and London 2014. He was the conference director for the first VASTA conference in Asia (Singapore) 2017. Published: The Lion and the Breath: Combining Kalaripayattu and Fitzmaurice Voicework Techniques Towards a New Cross-Cultural Methodology for Actor Training (Journal of Embodied Research).

Pro Vice Chancellor (Indigenous) Tiriki Onus is a Yorta Yorta man and Head of the Wilin Centre for Indigenous Arts and Cultural Development, University of Melbourne. He is a successful visual artist, curator, Performance artist and opera singer.

His first operatic role was in the premiere of Deborah Cheetham’s Pecan Summer in October 2010, which he reprised in 2011, and 2012 for the Melbourne and Perth runs. He received the Dame Nellie Melba Opera Trust’s Harold Blair Opera Scholarship in 2012 and 2013. In 2015 he was the inaugural Hutchinson Indigenous Fellow at the University of Melbourne. 

Ms Tamati-Quennell is a leading curator and writer of modern & contemporary Māori & Indigenous art, a field she has worked in for three decades. Her research interests include Māori modernism, Mana Wāhine Māori – the Māori women artists of the 1980s and 1990s, The Māori Internationals – the urban avant-garde Māori artists of the 1990s, International Indigenous art, and Indigenous art curatorial praxis. 

She currently holds two curatorial positions; Curator modern & contemporary Maori & Indigenous art at Te Papa in Wellington and Associate Indigenous Curator, Contemporary Art | Kairauhī Taketake Toi Onāianei at the Govett Brewster Art Gallery in New Plymouth.