After celebrating our 30th birthday in 2024 APHIDS, a dynamic and innovative arts organisation, is preparing for the challenging decades ahead.  With the confirmed support of 4 years of funding from Creative Australia, and currently led by two of Australia’s most respected experimental artists Mish Grigor and Lara Thoms, we are looking for up to three dedicated individuals to join our voluntary group of Board of Directors. We are committed to pushing boundaries in the arts and are seeking board members who can ensure our relevance, viability and impact will continue to develop.

Full details in the position description here. Interested in joining us? Submit your one page Expression of Interest by 5pm October 17th outlining your experience and your passion for the arts.

Send your EOI to Angharad Wynne-Jones, Chair of APHIDS at angharad@aphids.net with the subject line “Board Membership Application”. We can’t wait to hear from you!

We are humbled to recieve the 2023 Melbourne award for Arts and Events. The Melbourne Awards are the City of Melbourne’s highest accolade, celebrating the inspirational Melburnians who dedicate their time and energy to making this city a world leader. We were chuffed to be nominated alongside Melbourne Fringe, The Butterfly Club, Salam Fest and the Future Joy Club. We thank the 2023 judges Padmini Sebastian, Terry Wu, Judy Small, Bronwyn Johnson and  Stephen Beers and The City of Melbourne for recognising APHIDS contribution to the city.

2022 was another enormous year for APHIDS and for the world, beginning with another wave of COVID-19.

The conversations around lockdowns, staying in to protect the community, and forward planning amidst a climate of more potential cancellations were at the forefront of everyone’s minds. On a local level Melbourne had a glut of art events that had been suspended over the first two years of the pandemic which needed to be presented in order to meet various funding and venue timelines, so calendars began to bulge, just as news broke of war in Europe — in short, the atmosphere of chaos was ongoing.

To start the creative year, we received a commission from the Australian Centre of the Moving Image (Melbourne) and produced FAWN for the online exhibition space Gallery 5. The piece then toured to Brisbane Powerhouse’s MELT Festival. This work will be held in the ACMI collection in perpetuity.

Our major project for the year was the presentation of Class Act, with Mish at the helm and Lara as designer and dramaturg. They were joined by a stellar team of women and non binary folk — notably director Zoey Dawson and dancer Alice Dixon. The piece sold out, and it was a joy to stand in the foyer with audiences abuzz with the excitement of a hilarious and provocative performance piece — something we missed so much during the long lockdowns. The Age called it a ‘boganised fever-dream that staggers between metatheatrical stand-up and subversive clowning’ — we’ll take it!

We were also thrilled to receive the ‘Art and Social Change Award’ through Incinerator Gallery for our 2021 work DESTINY. This nationally recognised award is awarded for a piece that opens a pluralistic, poetic and political discourse — we could not think of a more appropriate feather for the APHIDS cap.

2022 saw our first presentation in the regional coastal town of Apollo Bay’s Winter Wild Festival with Contentious Buffet, which saw locals eating crickets amongst other experimental offerings. Our collaboration with Long Prawn continued with our first iteration of GUTFUL, Revolt!, a residency-made event at the State Library of Victoria. In this exciting new partnership we reflected on the Library’s history as a site for dissent and protest, showcasing the collection and creating a menu that responded to our research. Our team built a cheeky and irreverent experience of food and performance that was met with much enthusiasm.

2022 also had a lot of SUPERDRIVE projects in high profile contexts. Mish collaborated with Emma Beech, directing The Photo Box at Adelaide Festival, and with Amrita Hepi on RINSE for Liveworks. Lara collaborated with Samara Hersch again to present Please Stand at Zurcher Theatre Spektakel, to much international acclaim. For RISING Festival, Mish performed in the eight hour gruelling spectacle 8/8/8, which Lara dramaturged whilst also collaborating with Sophia Bruce to present The Invisible Opera, at Federation Square — all massive undertakings!

In July and August, APHIDS remounted our public hoardings on the Metro Tunnel construction hoardings at Franklin St, Melbourne, to celebrate our rich history of collaboration and experimentation. The 30 photos were pulled from APHIDS archive and featured collaborators from projects over the last decade, including our artist community, workers from the gig-economy, a funeral director, and a pizza shop owner. This project felt immeasurably meaningful after years of lockdowns had prevented us from gathering together.

On a staffing level, we began the year with the appointment of Executive Producer Anna Nalpantidis who vivaciously took the reins of the company. We are very grateful for her ongoing exceptional commitment across the year. We also welcomed Angharad Wynne Jones as chair, a long term APHIDS advocate and hugely respected arts leader. We thank outgoing chair Meredith Martin for her limitless support, wise advice and enthusiasm over the years and are very thankful she will be continuing as a general board member.

You can read about all the work that made it so extraordinary in our annual report here. In all, another thrilling year!

-Lara Thoms and Mish Grigor (Co-Artistic Directors of APHIDS)

Hello intrepid supporters of APHIDS.

We’re in our 29th year of shaking up art in Naarm/Melbourne, Australia, and we want you to join the party.

We make art that raises eyebrows, ignites conversations, and makes people go, “Wait, what just happened?”

But here’s the thing,  we can’t do it alone. We need you, with your generous spirit and love for all things wonderfully weird, to help us make a splash. With your support, we’ll be able to continue pushing boundaries, challenging norms, and redefining the possibilities of art.

In 2022, 86% of our annual turnover was spent directly on artist wages and fees. Your contribution makes a tremendous difference in amplifying the voices of underrepresented artists and promoting critical conversations around gender, identity, and societal norms. By investing in APHIDS, you are investing in the power of art as a catalyst for change

If you would like to know more, you can head to our Support page here, or if you’re ready to make a tax-deductible donation then you can do so via this link: https://shoutforgood.com/charities/aphids. Anything you can give counts for so much.

We’re always happy to talk about what APHIDS does (both the big and small stuff) – so please don’t hesitate to reach out if you want to chew the fat. It would mean a lot to us to have your support.

With love, laughter, and a bid for a better world,

Mish, Lara and Anna, and the whole APHIDS family

APHIDS x Coco Star Flocked Hoodie & Tees + Act of Care Combs featuring embroidered ribbon: “touch me in the mourning”.

We’ll be selling our limited edition OH DEER! merch at The Capitol so you can purchase your comfies before/after the show.

If you can’t make it to The Capitol or want to pre-order for pick up, head to the APHIDS online store to get yours today.

OH DEER! has been a collaborative effort between at least 18 people who have experienced the loss of a parent at some time in their lives. What you saw on stage is a hybrid distillation of our months of meeting up, sharing family stories, testing connections and interrogating Disney.

The trope of so many characters in popular culture losing a parent is decidedly one-dimensional. Deaths are often off screen, and allow protagonists to have a rollicking adventure. But all of us can attest to the multiple dimensions that come with grief – the stillness, the distractions, the absurdity and the longing.

I have loved watching everyone bring themselves to the piece in a way that is charming, disarming and cheeky. Their real life experiences have grown with the magic of theatrics whilst maintaining a vulnerable authenticity. The costumes by Verity Mackey are a strong reflection of the tension between each real life person and their character, made with caring detail.

Care has been at the core of everyone’s contribution to this work. It now feels like we have built a chosen family of ratbag baby animals, women in big dresses and sloppy action heroes. We welcome you into our strange castle.

– Lara Thoms (Lead Artist and Co-Artistic Director of APHIDS)

This year we are welcoming three pals into the APHIDS family. It’s a formalising of relationships we already have, with people we already know and love – collaborators whose role extends beyond the lifespan of a project. It’s special to feel like we can keep growing and shifting how we think about ‘APHIDS’ as a collective identity.  

The APHIDS Triad is an artistic brains trust made up of artists Sammaneh Pourshafighi, Amaraa Raheem and Amrita Hepi. The Triad will assist in programming decisions, offer community consultation and curatorial care to APHIDS projects and operations. This year, they will also collaborate directly on various APHIDS keynote projects and public programs:  

Dr Amaara Raheem is a Sri Lankan born dance-artist, writer and researcher. As part of her time as Thinker in Residence with APHIDS, she is researching methods of ‘in-residence’ as ways to reveal alternative narratives within colonial and decolonial systems.  

Sammaneh Pourshafighi is a queer genderfluid Muslim who arrived in Australia as a refugee after the Iranian Revolution. Sammaneh is a hereditary witch, producer and multidisciplinary artist. After performing in GUTFUL: Revolt!, Sammaneh Pourshafighi is co-creating Over The Borderline with APHIDS as part of Arts House Culture Lab. 

Amrita Hepi is an award-winning First Nations choreographer and dancer from Bundjalung (Aus) and Ngapuhi (NZ) territories. Her mission as an artist is to push the barriers of intersectionality and make work that garners multiple access points. After working with APHIDS on DESTINY and Easy Riders, Amrita is performing and choreographing a new major commission for the company in 2023 (to be announced).

Together we will hang, eat, talk, think, laugh, dream, debate, and work with and alongside each other. As makers, we value the labour of thinking, of reflection, of imagining. We are very lucky to have these brains on our speed dial.

Want to learn more about the Triad? Listen back to their APHIDS Listens episodes below:

– Sammaneh Pourshafighi
– Amrita Hepi 
– Amaara Raheem

We are delighted to announce the appointment of Angharad Wynne-Jones as Chair of the APHIDS Board.

Angharad Wynne-Jones (she/her) is Cymry (Welsh) Australian and lives on the unceded lands of the Kulin Nation in Narrm (Melbourne).  She is an arts leader with extensive experience in the industry across large scale public and participative performance programs, exhibitions, business entrepreneurship support and education programs that support community knowledge building. 

Angharad is currently Head of Audience Engagement at the State Library Victoria, having previously been Head of Creative Engagement at Arts Centre Melbourne – where she supported the inaugural Alter State – a disability led performing arts festival, and the Artistic Director at Arts House –  where she initiated Refuge- a five year action research into the role of cultural institutions and communities in responding to the impacts of climate impacts and disasters. 

She was Founder Director of TippingPoint Australia (2010-2019) energising the cultural response to climate change and co-designed and delivered NIDA’s MFA Cultural Leadership course 2015-2018. She is a member of the Centre for Reworlding collective and Board member of All The Queens Men.

“I am honoured and thrilled to be taking up the role of Chair of Aphids to support their vision of “urgent art for urgent times”. Aphids has drawn extraordinary artists and projects together over its nearly 30 year history, people who continue to contribute so much to our cultural lives in Naarm and across Australia. David Young, Willoh S Wheiland, Lz Dunn, Tristan Meecham, Eugenia Lim and many others have created an artist-led space for rigorous experimentation, collaboration and socially engaged practice that is critical to a vibrant cultural sector. As Chairperson, I look forward to working with Mish, Lara, Anna, their collaborators and the Aphids Board, including the outgoing Chair Meredith Martin, to support the company to build on its legacy and continue to propose new ways of making art that are both viable and breathtakingly imaginative.”

We would like to acknowledge the inimitable Dr Meredith Martin for her leadership and unbounding care over the past two years as Chair of the APHIDS Board. Meredith has played a vital role in APHIDS strategic vision, supporting the current directors through the impacts of COVID-19 and the recruitment of an Executive Producer. Meredith won’t be going too far away, remaining on the APHIDS Board as a general member.

On Angharad’s appointment, Meredith says:

“It has been a privilege and a pleasure to Chair the APHIDS Board over the past two years. I look forward to working with my great friend Angharad Wynne-Jones, and our wonderful Board members, alongside the extraordinary APHIDS team into the future: exciting times!”

Dearest friends, 

APHIDS has had a year filled with insects (fittingly), Chicken Crimpies and Chiko rolls – and that’s just what we put in our stomachs. 

As we continued questioning what art can be and for whom, we saw fishermen performing,  taxidermied cats parading, dancers pantomiming, crickets sub-leasing the studio next door, dramaturgs flower arranging, and princesses vomiting. A huge thanks to our generous collaborators who met our provocations with open minds and impressive skills. 

A few weeks ago we served up a bain-marie of research into activism and food after taking up residence in the State Library of Victoria. Our sold out event GUTFUL: Revolt! was the first in an ongoing program of performance lectures and snacks with the State Library, over 2 years in the making, with our beloved studio buddies Long Prawn. 

We are very proud of all of our projects, including Class Act (‘You’re Going To Make Me Posh’ is still stuck in our heads), online video commission FAWN (which is still on at ACMI’s Gallery 5) and Contentious Buffet as part of WinterWild Festival in Apollo Bay.

This year Executive Producer Anna Nalpantidis took the reins of APHIDS with vivacity. As a team we juggled outcomes with developments, future scheming, Collingwood Yards meetings, studio dancing and a few artistic-director-created Fanta Trifles. 

Thank you to all of you who shared our year as peers, audiences, performers, muses, and pals. 

Stay tuned for a huge 2023, we can’t wait to share what we’ve been planning. Until then, happy holidays!

Lots of love, 

Lara, Mish and Anna x

GUTFUL: Revolt! reflects on the Library’s history as a site for dissent – investigating how the peace and quiet of the Library intersects with the agitation of protest. Interrogating which snacks have radical histories and what cookbooks in the State Collection speak to cultural upheaval and social change, this event asks the question: how can food be used as a tool for activism?

To develop this event, a research residency was undertaken by APHIDS and Lara Thoms at the State Library of Victoria as part of the State Library ALCHEMY program. 

Find our GUTFUL: REVOLT! Program here & Reading List here. 

GUTFUL is based on APHIDS’ mission to create Urgent Art For Urgent Times, collaborating with Long Prawn, State Library staff, artists and new audiences to have meaningful exchanges about our collective future.

This project was developed with assistance from State Library Victoria’s Alchemy program and made possible through the support of the Australia Council for the Arts, the City of Melbourne, and Creative Victoria through its Organisation Investment Program.

Over three years in the making, CLASS ACT finally had its world premiere at The Substation last night.

Thank you to the incredible team of artists, collaborators and supporters that made this work possible – lead artist / performer Mish Grigor, co-performer and dream move-maker Alice Dixon, director / strong virgo script dramaturg Zoey Dawson, designer/dramaturg Lara Thoms (yes, she also did the experimental floristry and high tea menu 🥂), jack of all trades, PM/SM chef + merch model Harmony Boucher, lighting world-maker Jen Hector, dub-step / electronic extraordinaire Nina Buchanan, producer / classy high tea host Anna Nalpantidis & all the wonderful staff at The Substation.

Tickets are now on sale for Class Act which will have its world premiere at The Substation from 27 September to 1 October 2022.

In Class Act, working class unfortunate Mish Grigor tells the story of a grotesque world of class and social mobility straight from her dirty mouth. APHIDS have created a bombastic, unexpected deconstruction of  My Fair Lady, albeit with less bonnets. Joined by dancer Alice Dixon, directed by Zoey Dawson, and with some experimentally arranged orchids, Grigor’s performance shines a light on the unseen costs of a social glow up. Plus there’ll be high tea (but only for the bourgeoisie).

Please note: High Tea seats are limited and will include hors d’oeuvres and sparkling wine upon arrival. Plus you’ll be able to skip the queue and settle in sooner than the great unwashed (just try not to look too smarmy when you do, it’s unbecoming).

Created by an all female and non-binary team, we are thrilled to finally bring this urgent new work to the stage… and we can’t wait to share it with you!

See you there?

Anna, Lara and Mish x

From 18 July to 29 August 2022, APHIDS is remounting our public hoardings on Franklin St, Melbourne, right near the city baths to celebrate our rich history of collaboration and experimentation.

The 30 photos are pulled from APHIDS archive and feature collaborators from projects over the last decade, including our artist community, workers from the gig-economy, a funeral director, a pizza shop owner and other participants around the world.

Check these large scale photos out on your next walk through Melbourne CBD.

Anna, Lara and Mish here with a request this donation season. We need your help to continue to do what we love to do – make art together.

APHIDS mission is to create urgent art for urgent times. We make art that asks big questions and demands more of us as a society. We take creative risks— questioning where art should be, what form it should take, and who it should be for. We invite all kinds of people from different walks of life to make art with us. And we want to continue doing this in a sustainable way.

Bringing ambitious new performance works to audiences in Melbourne and around the world costs money (and a lot of it). Now, more than ever, a project isn’t going to be conceived, developed and presented without a raft of supporters. And that’s where you come in.

In 2021 alone, 82% of our annual turnover was spent directly on artist wages and fees. We are so proud of that number. We want to continue to platform diverse, experimental artists and to prioritise getting more cash into artists’ pockets. Your support and generosity will help us develop and present important new work that is proudly artist-led.

Being back in a room together in 2022 has felt like a warm hug. We have big plans to make urgent art over the next 12 months. Your donation will help us place our artists and collaborators at the centre of our activity. 

Help us continue doing what we do best now and into the future. If you would like to know more, you can head to our Support page here, or if you are in a position to donate, please consider giving to APHIDS by making a tax deductible donation via this link: https://shoutforgood.com/charities/aphids. 

Sending you love and warmth as we head into the depths of another winter here in Naarm, Melbourne. We can’t wait to see you in a foyer or around town, or if you find yourself at Collingwood Yards, pop over to APHIDS HQ – we’d love to have you over for a cuppa and a chat. 

Yours with gratitude,

Anna, Lara and Mish x 

This winter, APHIDS and studio neighbours, Long Prawn are rugging up and heading to Apollo Bay in August to present an event as part of WinterWild Festival.

Bugs Bunny. Jiminy Cricket. The Beatles. Y2k. Part-performance lecture, part-intervention, part-lunch – Contentious Buffet is an experimental community hall buffet investigating food neophobia, bugs in popular culture and low carbon alternatives to food consumption. 

Bringing together local Otways producers alongside some of Melbourne’s most experimental artists, food designers and thinkers, this event will get you thinking about how it was that Apollo Bay’s famous rock lobster shifted from being a ‘sea cockroach’ into one of the world’s most expensive and sought after delicacies. 

Fusing APHIDS’ future-focused politics with Long Prawn’s culinary playfulness, the result is an unpredictable and invigorating afternoon of performance, participation and surprising bug-snacks.

Warning: People affected adversely by shell fish might have a similar reaction to bugs. 

We are beyond thrilled to announce Monir Safari as the new APHIDS Treasurer. Monir has over 17 years’ experience in executive finance roles including KMPG and Tennis Australia and has worked with various Boards of Directors, Investment and Audit & Risk Committees. Her diverse experience includes key roles in financial planning, operational transformation, reporting, governance, compliance and financial strategies across global and multinational organisations. She has a passion for art and has recently joined the National Gallery of Victoria as their Senior Finance Manager. Welcome Mon!  

We are also delighted to welcome Michaela Coventry to our Board as a general committee member. Michaela is an arts producer whose career spans over 20 years and all art forms. She is currently the Creative Director of Sage Arts and the Executive Producer at The Substation. She has been the Producer for Lucy Guerin Inc, Speak Percussion, Megafun, Stalker/Marrugeku and Performance Space. With Sage Arts she works with several independent artists including Jo Lloyd, Gail Priest, Roslyn Oades & Collaborators, Lee Serle, and Matthias Schack- Arnott. Welcome Michaela!

Chair of the APHIDS Board, Dr Meredith Martin says “Mon and Michaela bring a wealth of experience across financial planning and arts production, that will significantly enhance our capacity to support APHIDS and to ensure the company’s sustainability into the future.”

As we welcome two new Board members, we also thank Tim Webster for his outstanding contribution to the company and Georgie Meagher for stepping in as Interim Treasurer whilst we undertook the recruitment process.

We’ve been thinking about class, and how to talk about it in Australia in 2022. For me, and for many I have spoken to, class is a feeling and knowing. A knowing of some things, and the feeling of inadequacy of not knowing others. It’s about the privilege of knowing what to say, the right things to eat, the right manners, the right language, the right clothes, the right education, and the entitlement to question, to argue, and feel like you belong. It’s about the class your parents aligned themselves with, and how that influenced their decisions. It’s about your grandparents and the distances they travelled (geographically or otherwise) from their places of birth. About the horrors each generation witnessed in their homelands and the ones inside their houses. 

We look to Marx for guidance of course. And to David Harvey to help us understand Marx. But also to Bourdieu, to think about our sticky positions as artists – a class of our own. We turn to the marxist feminist tradition, and to theorists like Silvia Federici, for thinking through some of the intersecting conditions such as gender, and race, might work with and against class distinctions and experiences.

So how to make performance about these nuances? Art ‘is not an independent or autonomous mode of human activity but is conditioned and determined by a society’s mode of production and the relations of production it engenders.’ Auslander on Marx in Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture (Taylor and Francis, 2008, p.17). We refer to the local artists – Patricia Cornelius / Susie Dee, of Urban Theatre Projects and also of artists and thinkers like Natty Solo and Ben Eltham, of writers like Ellena Savage, Melissa Lucashenko, Evelyn Araluen. There are many more names in our notebooks and saved searches. Occasionally we think of Jimmy Barnes. 

We’re trying to think about the ways we embody class. About the things we perform for each other and the things we hide from each other. And we’ve been playing with embodying them for you with our presentation of CLASS ACT in September (more info to come…) It’s a cracker team – Zoey Dawson directing, Alice Dixon performing alongside me, Lara designing/dramaturging and Anna producing. We can’t wait to see you there.

Warmly,

Mish x

The 2020-21 period continued to present challenges to our beloved arts community. Our 2021 Annual Report provides insight into an extraordinary year of art-making and reflection for APHIDS.

In 2021 alone, 82% of our annual turnover was spent directly on artist wages and 100% of the EASY RIDERS creative team identified as female or non binary. We think these numbers are pretty impressive. 

You can read about all the work and effort that made it so remarkable in our annual report here. 

APHIDS is looking for an experienced Treasurer, who will manage our financial controls and monitor our accounting systems to ensure the financial health of our organisation.

The Treasurer of the APHIDS Board is integral to the successful functioning, presence and longevity of the organisation. The Treasurer will oversee the financial administration and operational performance of APHIDS and ensure the organisation adheres to all legal accounting practices. The Treasurer will guide APHIDS financial policies, procedures and financial reporting, advise the board on financial strategy, assess risks and determine funding and investment opportunities. They will work collaboratively with the Co-Directors (Lara Thoms and Mish Grigor) and Executive Producer (Anna Nalpantidis), alongside our wonderful Board. A sense of humour, collaborative approach to organisational growth and love of the arts is a must.

APHIDS is an Equal Opportunity Employer and is committed to cultural equity and inclusive practices. We work hard to embed equity throughout our organisation, and we strive to create safe and positive working environments for our staff and Board. We strongly encourage applications from women and non-binary people who identify as First Nations, people of colour, queer, and/or deaf and disabled. 

Full details in the position description here. To apply, please send a short cover letter which briefly addresses the requirements set out in the position description and your CV to info@aphids.net using the subject line: [Your Name] – Treasurer Position Application.

Applications close at 5pm on Tuesday 12 April 2022.

For further information, or for any queries, please contact us at info@aphids.net. We can’t wait to hear from you!

Co-director, Lara Thoms, will be in Launceston from 21 to 25 March as one of Situate’s 22-23 Provocateurs.

SITUATE 22-23 is a program dedicated to the creation of ambitious work by regionally based emerging and mid-career artists within the context of social engagement. It prioritises artistic excellence while also ensuring that the process and outcomes benefit both artists and communities alike. The 22-23 program is designed to address a growing global trend among artists interested in generating a diverse range of art experiences that reflect both their distinctive identities and their relationship to place and community.

More information can be found on the SITUATE website here.

2022 is still feeling a little uneasy so we thought, why not make more (un)easy caps? This beige cotton baseball cap with blue embroidered text is one size fits all — unlike effective economic policy.

Our last batch of capz sold out in a hot minute, so if you missed out – then pick up your very own APHIDS cap via our online store here.

Saturday 19 February is Melbourne Art Fair’s Precinct Night — and it’s all happening at Collingwood Yards. From 3pm you’ll find music, art, panels, talks and exhibitions throughout the galleries, open spaces and studios all open till late. Check out the program here. 

Swing by APHIDS HQ to chat to the APHIDS team, buy some limited edition merch from APHIDS’ collaboration with gig-economy workers in EASY RIDERS and watch their latest moving-image project DESTINY which will be screened on loop from 5pm to 7pm.

Grab a coffee or a beverage, and enjoy the open spaces while you make a (late) night of it.

We are beyond thrilled to announce Anna Nalpantidis as our new Executive Producer.

Anna Nalpantidis (she/her) is a creative producer and arts manager with a deep commitment to the independent arts. She has come from being the Program Manager (Independent Arts) at Melbourne Fringe where she had a key role in delivering the yearly arts festival (in particular, managing the Open Access program) as well as a year-round program of artistic development, sector leadership and support for Melbourne’s independent arts sector. Prior to working at Melbourne Fringe, she was working as a solicitor at the Office of Public Prosecutions. Anna has a Bachelor of Performing Arts / Bachelor of Laws (Honours) from Monash University, having completed her Performing Arts degree at the University of Exeter (with a focus on Interdisciplinary Spatial Practices and Site-Specific Art).

Over the past 10 years, Anna has developed and delivered various creative projects as a director and producer of experimental and contemporary performance – including two Melbourne Fringe Festival shows (The Ministry – Best Live Art in 2015; and Between Two Lines – Best Words & Ideas in 2016). Anna is an Ian Potter Cultural Trust Fund recipient and undertook research and development in the field of immersive interdisciplinary arts practice in the USA from 2017 – 2018. She is currently a member on the Green Room panel for Contemporary & Experimental Performance.

It’s an exciting moment in APHIDS’ trajectory and Anna is thrilled to bring her experience, skills, ethics and ambitions to support the co-directors in expanding and maintaining strong relationships with the many communities served by APHIDS.

WHO ARE WE

APHIDS is a 27-year-old artist-led experimental art organisation based in Naarm (Melbourne), Australia. Collaborative and future-focused, APHIDS is led by Co-Directors Lara Thoms, Mish Grigor and Eugenia Lim. The work of APHIDS is feminist, intersectional, angry and funny; bringing artists into meaningful exchange with audiences through performance, critical dialogue and unpredictable encounters in the public realm.

THE OPPORTUNITY

The Executive Producer is a new role who will be an integral member of the team, supporting APHIDS’s program and ensuring the company runs smoothly. We are looking for a skilled, excellent person who can work in a nimble and responsive way, in collaboration with the directors and our artistic community. The company works with stakeholders large and small, on experimental projects multi-year and miniscule, and has an unusual structure of multiple artists as directors. This democratic model is an exciting challenge and to be met with gusto by an adventurous mind who can manage both top level business alongside getting their hands dirty in the day-to-day. A sense of humour and love of the arts is a must. We can’t wait to hear from you.

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and encourage applicants with diverse backgrounds and experiences. Please let us know if you would prefer to apply in a different format or if you have any questions, through contacting Lara at lara@aphids.net.

Join our art syndicate — the APHIDS coven. APHIDS is a 27-yr-old art organisation dedicated to expressing urgent ideas across performance, screens and public space. By joining us you will help support the future of feminist artists and important new artworks. As a not-for-profit organisation with charitable status, we graciously accept tax deductible donations of all sizes. This year, we are pleased to offer our art coven some loving custom gestures and gifts to further welcome you into the fold.

$100 — Coven Ally
– Lots of love online (social media shout outs and online acknowledgement)
– A VIP invite to our program party event

$500 — Coven member
– Lots of love online
– A VIP invite to our program party event
– Limited edition APHIDS 2021 merch hat
– A personal tour of our beloved Collingwood Yards home
– Access to behind-the-scenes work-in-progress events

$1000 — Bosom Buddy
– A VIP invite to our program party event
– Limited edition APHIDS 2021 merch hat
– A limited edition APHIDS publication
– A personal tour of our beloved Collingwood Yards home
– Access to behind-the-scenes work-in-progress events
– Plus opening night invitation to our keynote APHIDS performance

$5000  — Total Gem
All of the above plus
– An intimate VIP dinner with the APHIDS directors, chair and selected collaborators at Collingwood Yards

$10,000 — Ultimate Angel
All of the above plus
– a limited edition A3 framed photographic print from APHIDS’ work EASY RIDERS signed by Eugenia Lim, Lara Thoms and Mish Grigor

‘Seeing these worker’s performances in Trades Hall is powerful, and it’s left me reconsidering my relationship to all the apps that have made my life so much easier, particularly in the past year.’ — Hannah Reich

In the lead up to our lockdown thwarted performance at RISING, ABC’s Hannah Reich profiled EASY RIDERS for Radio National. In this profile she spoke with worker-performers Jess Wen and Cher Tan, and Eugenia Lim.

You can tune in from 39:10

APHIDS would like to honor the tenacity, care and leadership of Vivien Allimonos, the departing chair of the APHIDS committee, of which she was a member for ten years! Vivien played a key role in supporting the current directors, assisting the company through the impacts of COVID-19 and the recruitment of our new chair, Dr. Meredith Martin. We thank Vivien for her amazing contribution to the company which will be felt in years to come.

We are beyond thrilled to announce Dr. Meredith Martin as our new chair. Meredith has over 20 years’ experience working at the intersection of higher education, the creative industries and the public sector as a researcher, senior manager and strategic advisor. Throughout her career she has maintained a strong interest in the social impacts of cultural and public engagement, with a focus on accessibility, social inclusion and gender parity. She is the Director of the Pathways to Politics Program for Women, which she established at the University of Melbourne with Carol Schwartz AO in 2015, to redress the underrepresentation of women in Australian parliaments. Welcome to the coven Meredith!

In early March APHIDS opened the doors for our community at West Space, in our new home of Collingwood Yards. In a collaboration with conceptual catering duo Long Prawn, a series of pies was made to represent different works associated with the 2021 program. Eugenia, Lara and Mish shared key ideas and visions for upcoming works, and toasted to a bold new year of feminist experimental art making — with works exploring the gig economy, class, death and Disney.

Many thanks to Sui Zhen for the music, Noisy Ritual for the wine, and xxflos for the flowers; and to all of our newest, nearest, and dearest, that made it down.

In this interview APHIDS’ Lara Thoms and Eugenia Lim chat to Jessamy Gleeson about our residency throughout February–March at Queen Victoria Womens Centre for Feminist Futures, a programme of workshops, developments and events based on the intersection of care, work, class, and feminism. We also reflect on the history of the organisation and our vision, and include a mini-interview with a mini-APHID.

Feminist Futures initiative is made possible through generous funding from Creative Victoria, The City of Melbourne, and support from the Queen Victoria Women’s Centre.

Artist callout for a one-day paid creative development opportunity

APHIDS is looking for two female / non-binary Victorian-based artists interested in the intersections of art, technology, the body and moving image to join us for a paid, full-day workshop on Wednesday 3 February 2021 at Queen Victoria Women’s Centre in Melbourne. The workshop will be held in-person (in Covid-safe conditions) and led by choreographer/filmmaker Sue Healey. Two selected artists will join a small group of approx 7-8 participants in total, including APHIDS artists and collaborators. Each artist will receive a fee of $320 + GST and superannuation. Together we’ll workshop and learn more about the potential of drone-operated cinematography.

WHO ARE YOU?
Women, non-binary people, queer, trans, people of colour, disabled and First Nations artists are encouraged to apply. You have some experience of working with video/moving image and/or choreography and performance. You are a practising artist at any stage of their career who wants to learn more about the artistic possibilities of tech. You are available on Wed 3 Feb to attend in person.

To apply, please tell us in 100 words or less:
– about you and your art practice, including any experience with video, choreography and performance
– If you have particular access requirements or live regionally in Victoria, please let us know and we will do our best to accommodate you
– a link to your website or past work (if sound/moving image-based, no more than 5mins duration)

Applications due Wed 20 Jan, 11.59pm via this form. Applicants will be notified by Fri 22 Jan of the outcome.

This workshop is part of APHIDS’ Feminist Futures initiative and is made possible through generous funding from Creative Victoria, and support from the Queen Victoria Women’s Centre.

Monash Design students have spent a big part of 2020 delving deep into APHIDS 2015 performance A Singular Phenomenon. Led by their teachers Warren Taylor and Damiano Bertol, the students made a series of posters, videos and paraphernalia to the theme of the project, and were asked to consider the concept of theatre as both an original form and as a text that is reshaped through various iterations and performances.

‘A Singular Phenomenon explores an iconic moment in Australian popular culture through a multitude of related and random events which together form a bizarre narrative of signs and symbols, an inter-connected framework of influence, circumstance and cultures.’ — Warren Taylor and Damiano Bertol

We love them!

After a solid 10 years on the APHIDS committee we are farewelling our Chair Vivien Allimonos. Vivien has been with us through multiple iterations of APHIDS and has overseen recent transitions. We thank her hugely for her time, energy and guidance.

Aphids is seeking an experienced Chair of the board to support APHIDS into the future.

Specific Responsibilities:

To ensure the Committee functions effectively, covering the following:
– Together with the Committee Members and the Chief Executive/Artistic Director(s), identify the skills and experience required on the Aphids Committee.
– Source new Committee Members and support effective succession and the strengthening of the Aphids Committee.
– Chair meetings effectively to reach clear, consensual decisions in line with the objectives and strategy of Aphids.
– Work closely with the Chief Executive/Artistic Director(s) to ensure the development of high-quality agendas and outputs for Aphids Committee meetings
– Encourage the effective and positive participation of all Committee Members at Aphids Committee meetings and on behalf of Aphids more generally, developing a strong sense of active engagement and shared responsibility.
– Work with the Committee Members to ensure effective Aphids Committee development is in place including comprehensive Committee Members induction.

You can view the full position description here, and please get in touch for more information through info@aphids.net

APHIDS stands in full support of artist Casey Jenkins, and her work IMMACULATE, which has recently had its funding rescinded by the Australia Council, in an intervention that sets a deeply concerning precedent for artists across the country.

In 2016 APHIDS paid homage to past work of Casey Jenkins in Howl, a performance work based around artworks that have caused public controversy throughout the western canon. APHIDS firmly believes that works such as IMMACULATE are vitally important in this country, to promote conversations and awareness of the lived experiences of those put into marginalised positions by our society, and conversely, to uncover the way society can and has been deeply unsettled by art.

The removal of funding by the council, without any legal grounds, is an intervention that signals to a conservative set of morals that sit outside of the jurisdiction of the funding council to enforce. As Vitalstatistix’s Director Emma Webb notes: ‘The Australia Council, whose function is to support artists and uphold freedom of artistic expression at arms-length from Government, needs to feel empowered to stand by artists – especially when they are subjected to concerted campaigns by the IPA, religious conservatives and other assorted haters.’

As Webb states: ‘This kind of extraordinary intervention sets a precedent for all artists funded by the Australia Council. It has created an enormous amount of fear and trepidation amongst artists, especially those most vulnerable to these types of attacks, such as queer artists and artists whose practices are embodied and/or experimental, as well of those who have stood up for Casey.’

Finally, APHIDS is excited to hear of the recent support for IMMACULATE provided by Switzerland’s Gwärtler Foundation.

You can read Casey’s statement here

And the referenced statement from Vitalstatistix here

We want to speak with YOU! Are you an emerging artist who wants input on something you’ve had cooking? An experimental artist who wants help thinking through a fresh idea or a new form? Do you want to confess your wildest artistic desires or thorniest dilemmas?

Following the success of last years SUPERMASSIVE Drop In Centre we are returning Monday October 5th and offering ~free~ Drop In sessions held online in a pandemic-friendly format. Get in quick as we booked out fast last time.

Sessions will be a 30 minute conversation with one of APHIDS co-artistic directors, Lara Thoms, Mish Grigor or Eugenia Lim. Sessions can be booked solo or in small groups and no formal preparation is required.

We look forward to meeting you!

APHIDS are excited to announce that from February–December 2020 four new SUPERMASSIVE artists will be joining us in-residence at our new studio in Collingwood Yards. Derisee Tan, Kasey Gambling, and Roshelle Fong and Keziah Warner work across theatre, performance and experimental site-specific practice; they will be mentored one-on-one with APHIDS co-directors, and share our space throughout the year. Meet them and see some our past SUPERMASSIVE artists here.

The studio residencies and mentorships are part of our ever-evolving SUPERMASSIVE program, in which APHIDS looks to forge and sustain relationships with early career artists, building partnerships and pathways for future opportunities.

International Theatre Festival of Kerala held in Thissur, India was a hotbed of political performance and commentary. It is a well loved festival with a broad and diverse audience, who witness programming across three categories, local, national and international as well as talks, and films. We arrived to our hotel to hear a muzak rendition of a funeral song from our show in the lift. This was on repeat our entire stay.

Attending the artist talk of Inua Ellams we quickly learnt that theatre goers in Kerala are invested, engaged and fearless questioners. This was emphasised by the queue to buy tickets which could stretch to several hundred people in line for three hours. Our own theatre space was probably at triple capacity as half the audience squished on the floor under the fans. We were concerned The Director may not resonate in a country which has a much less commercialised death industry but were surprised by the chats after the show, speaking about the commodification of rituals and how grateful everyone was they weren’t going to die in Australia.

It was inspiring to hear Australian artist Jacob Boehme speak from an Indigenous perspective on the subject of movement and citizenship on the eve of Invasion Day. As India struggles with politicians introducing horrifying migration and citizenship laws it was clear curator Amitesh Grover programmed work that looked deeply at the questions of migration, ritual and community in a fractured world.

In March 2020 Howl returns!

An exciting paid opportunity for 4 South Australian artists to join the APHIDS team in presenting live performance work Howl in March 2020. A performance at the intersection of parade, protest and procession, Howl is a glorious celebration of controversy in the art world.

From depictions of sexuality and the human body that have challenged the status quo, to acts of civil disobedience, Howl commemorates 15 artworks that have challenged the acceptable and changed the conversation about legitimacy and art forever. This is a requiem that is unquestionably queer, arguably dangerous and probably obscene.

Created by APHIDS, one of Australia’s leading experimental and feminist arts companies, Howl will be performed with South Australian collaborators in the heart of Adelaide’s art world in an ambitious collaboration between APHIDS, the Art Gallery of South Australia, RCC and Vitalstatistix for the Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Monster Theatres.

Thanks to the Australia Council for the Arts, Eugenia is repping APHIDS in China this September for Independent Art Spaces Beijing. Independent Art Spaces is organised by i:project space Beijing and brings together experimental and independent artists, curators and spaces from across China (and invited international participants) for knowledge exchange.

Arts Day on the Hill is the National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA) annual focus on national advocacy development for sustained government engagement with a long-term policy focus. Selected as the Victorian representative, APHIDS’ Mish Grigor is one of eight Arts Day on the Hill participants who will gather in Canberra during the Parliament’s winter sitting on 31 July 2019 to set the contemporary arts agenda alongside Clare Armitage (NT), Selena de Carvalho (Tas), Nadeena Dixon (NSW), Shaun Edwards (Qld), Emma Fey (SA), Miranda Johnson (WA) and Bec Selleck (ACT).

For more information visit NAVA

For us, the first six months of this year has been about philosophical wrestling. We want to believe that change, big and small, is possible. We want structural change to the institutions that organise the world. We’re starting with ourselves.

As artists, we have come together as an experiment. We want to run this company as we run our practices: responsive, political, audacious. In this climate, this is a big ask. It’s a long game: we are pushing back against pressure for endless growth, against spectacle, and against the neoliberal demands of constant productivity and output. We are an unapologetic bunch of intersectional feminists, mothers and queers with radical ideas.

At the end of this financial year reach into your wallets for loose change, big or small, to support us in this fight.

Help us enable our ambitious vision of urgent art for urgent times; for deepening SUPERMASSIVE, which provides sustained support to the next generation of artists. Our works critique corporate control of the death industry, question mobility and privilege and pay uber drivers a better wage to make art. Help us build a bridge between discourse and practice and get these seen. Help us to keep asking the big questions.

DONATE HERE

‘This election year and forever more, we want politicians and their constituents – you, us, economists, farmers, kids, scientists, teachers, workers – to understand that art is not something to be contained within a spreadsheet, a set of KPIs, or a ‘creative industries’ portfolio. As we face the possibility of mass extinction, the rise of populism, toxic masculinity, continued displacement due to climate change, war and racism, it is a vital yet indefinable part of making us humans, whole – not because it has any answers, but rather because it helps us articulate our questions. We want those in power to make real space for the voices and perspectives of artists in culture. A space that honours and respects people who identify as women, queer, First Nations, non-binary, people of colour. To pay attention to kids and elders as the past and future leaders of our society…

At its most basic, working together is a reaction against a singular vision: we refuse to be auteurs, we disperse knowledge, and we rebel against any hierarchy. We will endeavour, in difference and complexity, in conversation and argument, to take this organisation into its third iteration. Our stubborn rejection of conventional frameworks will be our gesture towards world-saving, We hope that this rejection becomes an embodied practice and reaches far beyond this company’s governance.’

In February 2019 the National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA) invited Mish, Lara and Eugenia to respond to their hopes, visions and fears; and their intent on working together at APHIDS as a reaction against a singular vision.

APHIDS invites you to celebrate the announcement of new Co-Directors of the organisation Eugenia Lim, Mish Grigor and Lara Thoms, and raise a glass to outgoing Artistic Director Willoh S. Weiland and Artistic Associate Lz Dunn. Starting in 2019 these artists will be taking the company in an new collaborative and deeply feminist direction.

Come party with us at MPavilion on Friday 2 November; hear more about our plans for 2019, drink some bubbles and shed some tears – with cameos from some special guests and sets by JR Brennan and Sullivan.

Aphids is thrilled to announce a new direction for the company, with the appointment of three leading Melbourne-based artists – Eugenia Lim, Mish Grigor and Lara Thoms – who will form a new co-directorship for Aphids. Driven by a feminist methodology in which collaboration, deep listening and radical leadership is key, the trio of artists will lead the company into its third iteration from 2019.

This announcement sees the artists’ individual practices evolve with the support, history and vision of a 25-year-old company. As a co-directorship, Aphids will privilege diversity as a guiding principle of its remit, bringing over 10 years of collective experience across experimental theatre, live art, performance and visual art. In 2019 and beyond, Aphids will make and present art that is provocative, loud, ambitious, urgent and formally promiscuous.

“We want to be active in shaping an artistic and cultural landscape that gives space to multiple voices – a sense of welcome, dialogue, criticality, experimentation and support for diverse artists and audiences,” said Lim, Grigor and Thoms.

Artistic director Willoh S. Weiland has stepped down after seven significant years at Aphids. Weiland is moving on to a creative associate position at Mona Foma in Hobart, Tasmania and will continue her work as an honorary fellow at the Microsoft Research Centre for Social User Interface at the University of Melbourne. She and Artistic Associate Lz Dunn, who is currently touring her incredible work Flyway to Toulouse after presentations in Melbourne, Lithuania, Bulgaria, The Netherlands and Germany, will remain on the Aphids committee.

Aphids is an artist-led organisation formed in 1994 by artistic director and composer David Young, writer and musician Cynthia Troup, visual artist Sarah Pirrie and fashion designer Kath Banger. In 2010, Weiland joined the company as artistic director, putting her own unique mark on the company ethos with an experimental and innovative program fusing music, performance and new technologies.

Stay tuned for an Aphids celebration in November 2018, to welcome our new directors and raise a toast to the significant contributions of Lz Dunn and Willoh S.Weiland.