APHIDS Team

Co-Directors

Lara Thoms (she/they)
Lara Thoms is a queer artist interested in socially engaged, site-specific and participatory possibilities in contemporary art and performance. Much of Lara’s work is collaborative with people beyond the arts including past works with an ex funeral director, Indonesian Metallica fans, and over 300 Western Australian women. Projects include The Director which toured to the Sydney Opera House, SICK! (UK) and ANTI festival (Finland); Ultimate Vision Monuments to Us MCA C3West, Before The Siren for Perth International Arts Festival and A Singular Phenomenon at The Malthouse. Her work with child activists and asylum seekers on Nauru for We all Know What’s Happening with Samara Hersch was awarded the prestigious Patronage Prize and the Audience Prize at Theatrespektakle, Switzerland. Lara is also a member of arts collective Field Theory who co-won the 2020 Melbourne Sculpture Prize.
lara@aphids.net

Mish Grigor (she/her)
The work of Mish Grigor is situated in the performing arts as a maker, writer and performer. Using autobiographical tools, humour, and fiction, she is intent on problematising the frames of power from which art and identity emerge. In 2019, with APHIDS, Mish toured The Talk to Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts and premiered Exit Strategies at ArtsHouse. Based in Melbourne since 2017, Grigor is also co-director of POST, formed in 2003, a company who work between popular entertainment and experimental art practices. Their recent work Ich Nibber Dibber was a Sydney Festival/Campbelltown Arts Centre commission which toured to Sydney Opera House and Malthouse Theatre. Oedipus Schmoedipus, a commission from Belvoir St Theatre and Sydney Festival toured across Australia, and in collaboration with Hong Kong Rep Theatre and West Kowloon Cultural Precinct POST directed an all-Cantonese adaptation of the work at Black Box Festival, Hong Kong. Grigor is a current PhD candidate at the Monash University.
mish@aphids.net

Triad

The APHIDS Triad is an artistic brains trust made up of experimental artists Sammaneh Pourshafighi, Amaraa Raheem and Amrita Hepi. 

Dr Amaara Raheem (she/her) is a choreographer, performer and writer researching methods of ‘in-residence’ as ways to reveal alternative narratives within colonial and decolonial systems.

Amrita Hepi (she/her) 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.

Sammaneh Pourshafighi (she/he/they) 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.

Graphic Designer

Rebecca McCauley (she/her)
Rebecca McCauley is an artist, arts worker and designer. Trained in graphic design and museum studies she brings her formal training to her work at APHIDS. Through APHIDS and freelancing her work has been associated with projects held at; 2020 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Monster Theatres, Art Gallery of South Australia (SA), Mona Foma (Tas), Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (WA), Australian Performing Arts Collection (Vic), Sydney Festival (NSW), Festival of Live Art (Vic) and Arts House (Vic). Recently, working in collaboration with Aaron Claringbold, she is a Next Wave 2020 commissioned artist, and a finalist in 2019’s Darebin Art Prize, Bundoora Homestead, & Incinerators Art for Social Change Award, Incinerator Art Gallery. In 2019 she was Thinker-In-Residence at the Basic Spell feminist library, and in 2020 is an Artist-In-Residence at RMIT’s Photo Futures Lab. Originally a SUPERMASSIVE intern she has been employed as a designer for APHIDS since 2013 and stepped into an Operations Manager role from 2017 to 2020. She is now APHIDS resident graphic designer.

Consulting Producer
Freya Waterson

Bookkeeper
Au Nguyen, FAME Group

Financial and strategic consultant
Michaela Coventry

COMMITTEE OF MANAGEMENT

Chair
Angharad Wynne-Jones
Senior level arts management and strategy

Angharad 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.

Deputy Chair 
Georgie Meagher
Senior level arts management and governance

Georgie is a values-driven leader with a background in the contemporary visual and performing arts. She was Director of interdisciplinary arts organisation and biennial festival Next Wave in Melbourne from 2014-2018, and previously led public engagement at the Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney. She was the recipient of a Cultural Leadership grant from Australia Council for the Arts in 2012, received a Dunlop Fellowship for the Asialink Leaders Program in 2017. Georgie has contributed to a range of advisory boards and committees across the arts and higher education and is currently a board member at Description Victoria, who create accessible and inclusive arts experiences for people who are Blind or have low vision. She is currently Project Lead, New Student Precinct at the University of Melbourne.

Secretary
Rebecca Liley
Legal, governance and policy 

Rebecca lives and works on the unceded lands of the Kulin Nation.  She holds a BA/LLB(Hons) and a Masters in Public Policy and Management from The University of Melbourne. Rebecca has worked in community legal centres and community justice advocacy, and has practised as a criminal lawyer.  Rebecca has worked for the Victorian Public Service since 2013, with a focus on criminal justice policy reform.  She has extensive experience in leading complex policy and operational projects for government. She has expertise in project management, governance, policy development and developing solutions for complex issues.  She deeply believes in the value of community building and engagement through art.

Treasurer
Monir Safari
Finance, risk and compliance 

Monir has over 17 years’ experience in various executive finance roles including KMPG and Tennis Australia and has worked with various Boards and Audit & Risk Committees across not-for-profit and charitable entities. She has broad-based expertise in financial reporting, governance, compliance, and accounting disciplines. Her diverse experience includes key roles in operational transformation, management planning, budgeting, and financial strategies across global and multinational organisations. Mon is an accountant by training but also shares a passion for the arts. She is currently the Senior Finance Manager at the National Gallery of Victoria.

Members

Dr Meredith Martin
Advocacy, strategy and fundraising

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. Meredith completed a PhD in museum studies in 2009, has published and presented widely on culture-led regeneration, and collaborated on numerous projects with Nikos Papastergiadis and Scott McQuire from the Research Unit in Public Cultures. She is a member of the Board of the Public Galleries Association of Victoria and co-chairs the PGAV’s Research and Advocacy Committee. She is Fellow of the Centre of Visual Art and a member of the Grimwade Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation Advisory Committee. She was previously the Associate Director Cultural and Public Engagement at the University of Melbourne, where she led whole-of-University partnerships with major cultural organisations and peak bodies.

Marc Goldenfein
Marketing and publicity

Marc is a marketing leader with an extensive background in technology, media and the arts. He is currently the co-founder of ArtsPay, a new initiative to help support the arts through tiny transaction fees. Prior to ArtsPay, Marc ledmarketing for Australia’s largest independent innovation consultancy, IE and has extensive experience in event technology and marketing strategy. Over the past 10 years he has held leadership roles at various companies including TryBooking and Fairfax Digital.

 

Previous Committee Members
Vivien Allimonos, David Young, Shourov Bhattacharya, Cynthia Troup, Rosemary Joy, Greer Evans, Willoh S. Weiland, Eugene Schlusser, Hugh Adamson, Louise Curham, Margaret Cameron, Peter Humble, Natasha Anderson, Colin Sneesby, Geoffrey Morris, Bec Reid, Fiona Brook, Tristan Meecham, Tim Webster, Tom Supple, Alexia White and Donna Luker.