Being Biracial

Leah Manaema Avene is a Tuvaluan-Irish mother, researcher, musician, therapist, broadcaster and artist.

Theresa ‘Tea’ Angela is a Filipino-Australian artist, storyteller and wellbeing facilitator and the communications manager at MAV.

Lauren Mullings is an Afro-Caribbean artist, writer and the CEO of MAV.

We interviewed Leah, Tea and Lauren, as part of Multicultural Arts Victoria’s Block Partee.

We chat about:

• Everything being relationships
• Cultural safety
• How productivity can destroy the creative process
• The arts ecology
• Stretching and settling time
• Retracing the history of MAV
• Land-based practice
• Unpacking the violence of assimilation
• Closing your voice
• The larger than life characters that make up our lives
• Art threading all of life together
• Having the space to speak our truths

Hosted by: Maria Birch-Morunga and Kate Robinson

Guests: Leah Manaema Avene, Theresa Angela and Lauren Mullings

Music by: The Green Twins

Edited by: Kate Robinson

Special thanks: Multicultural Arts Victoria, City of Darebin, Creative Victoria, Creative Australia, Melbourne Polytechnic, Victoria Government and VicHealth’s Future Reset Program.

This podcast was recorded on the lands of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung peoples of the eastern Kulin Nations.

You can find us on Instagram @beingbiracialpodcast or send us an email at [email protected]

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Matisse Laida is an artist whose practice is based around community and food. They are the founder of We Eatin’ Good, a platform for queer people of colour to come together.

Anthony 'Banda' Bandalan is a producer who cares deeply about community cultivation and uplifting his creative counterparts. 

Nickila De Silva is an artist who creates across video, music and writing. Her work explores collaboration and how it can exist alongside hierarchy and power. 

We interviewed Matisse, Banda and Nickila, as part of Multicultural Arts Victoria’s Block Partee.

We chat about:

• Hierarchy and power in the arts
• Networking being a white concept
• Performative leadership
• When gatekeeping is good
• Queer people becoming removed from our cultures
• Connecting people through food
• Art is archival and friendship
• Code switching your practice 
• Reflections on creating art together and apart 
• How sharehouses shape us
• The challenges of working within institutions 
• Food that makes us feel the most

Hosted by: Maria Birch-Morunga and Kate Robinson

Guests: Matisse Laida, Anthony Bandalan and Nickila De Silva

Music by: The Green Twins

Edited by: Kate Robinson

Special thanks: Multicultural Arts Victoria, City of Darebin, Creative Victoria, Creative Australia, Melbourne Polytechnic, Victoria Government and VicHealth’s Future Reset Program.

This podcast was recorded on the lands of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung peoples of the eastern Kulin Nations.

You can find us on Instagram @beingbiracialpodcast or send us an email at [email protected]

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Vijay is an audio-visual and laser artist of Sri Lankan Tamil and Cornish descent, born in Naarm. His practice fuses analogue sound synthesis with cutting-edge creative technologies. Vijay is known for creating immersive environments under the moniker Xenosine. 

We chat about: 

• A Glastonbury love story
• Family attempts to break up his parents
• A Hell’s Angel member ends racism
• Leaning into music as an identity
• Exploration and play in creative practice 
• The Melbourne Electronic Sound Studio
• Bringing Oblation to life
• Working with Pirashanna Thevarajah & Hari Sivanesan
• Dislocation and taking up space

Hosted by: Maria Birch-Morunga and Kate Robinson

Guest: Vijay Thillaimuthu

Music by: the Green Twins

Edited by: Maria Birch-Morunga

Special thanks: The Substation

This podcast was recorded on the lands of the Boon Wurrung and Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung peoples of the eastern Kulin Nations. 

You can find us on Instagram @beingbiracialpodcast or send us an email at [email protected]

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ayman Kaake is a photo-media visual artist and performance creator whose work explores the complexities of isolation that come from starting a new life away from Lebanon.

MzRizk is a Lebanese Australian DJ, radio presenter, live performer and event curator. 

Ezz Monem is a photo-based artist, who repurposes and transforms images, drawing on his experience growing up in Egypt and migrating to Australia. 

We interviewed Ezz, Ayman and MzRizk at the Arts Centre Melbourne, as part of Art Souk.

We chat about:

• Everyone being an Engineer
• Coming out as an artist
• Dan’s first radio show at 6 years old
• Zaffé 
• The rebrand of gossip to community news
• Manipulating found footage
• Dance as resistance
• Using your camera to talk
• How family relationships change when you leave home
• Nostalgic supermarket pieces
• Halal v Haram art projects
• Sally Field was the real kickstart for Islamophobia

Hosted by: Maria Birch-Morunga and Kate Robinson

Guests: Ayman Kaake, Ezz Monem and MzRizk

Music by: the Green Twins

Edited by: Kate Robinson

Special thanks: Multicultural Arts Victoria, Arts Centre Melbourne, Creative Victoria, Creative Australia, City of Melbourne and MzRizk for curating this incredible event.  

This podcast was recorded on the lands of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung peoples. We pay our respects to the Elders of these lands past and present and also acknowledge the neighbouring Kulin Nation groups, the Boonwurrung and Bunurong people. This always was and always will be Aboriginal land. 

You can find us on Instagram @beingbiracialpodcast or send us an email at [email protected]

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Bexx Djentuh-Davis is a Māori and Ghanaian filmmaker, producer, event curator and queer youth worker.

Gabriela Gonzalez is a Chilean visual artist, sound producer, photographer and broadcaster. 

We interviewed Bexx and Gabriela at the Arts Centre Melbourne, as part of Art Souk.

We chat about:

• Bexx on her Nana’s boxes of letters and photos
• Gabriela talks bad break up one liners
• Collaborating across the world 
• The necessity of creating art while the world is burning
• Art as a personal archive
• Gabriela’s pivot to pottery to move away from misinformation on screens
• Bexx stepping into her creative main character energy 
• The tightrope of creating personal art - Am I ganna get smacked?
• Pointless meetings 
• The We Eatin Good Bitch film

Hosted by: Maria Birch-Morunga and Kate Robinson

Guests: Bexx Djentuh-Davis and Gabriela Gonzalez

Music by: the Green Twins

Edited by: Maria Birch-Morunga

Special thanks: Multicultural Arts Victoria, Arts Centre Melbourne, Creative Victoria, Creative Australia, City of Melbourne and MzRizk for curating this incredible event.  

This podcast was recorded on the lands of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung peoples. We pay our respects to the Elders of these lands past and present and also acknowledge the neighbouring Kulin Nation groups, the Boonwurrung and Bunurong people. This always was and always will be Aboriginal land. 

You can find us on Instagram @beingbiracialpodcast or send us an email at [email protected]

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Scotty So is a Melbourne/Narrm-based artist who works across media, including ceramic, painting, photography, sculptures videos, and drag performance.

Joel Bray is Wiradjuri artist, dancer, choreographer, actor and writer. We interviewed Scotty and Joel at MPavilion, as part of their season 11 Homeground series.

We chat about:

• Kimono collections
• Playing with perspective
• Double entendre
• Incorporating sex into art
• Scarlett So Hung Son popping up on the news
• How humour shows up in their practice
• Lip synching to cello
• Joel’s guide to audience participation
• Scotty is a time traveller
• Joel’s two degrees of separation from Beyonce
• Creating site specific work
• Collaborating with Elders
• Foyer chats and openings: yay or nay? 

Hosted by: Maria Birch-Morunga and Kate Robinson

Guests: Scotty So and Joel Bray

Music by: the Green Twins

Edited by: Maria Birch-Morunga

Special thanks: MPavilion

This podcast was recorded on the lands of the Boon Wurrung and Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung peoples of the eastern Kulin Nations.

You can find us on Instagram @beingbiracialpodcast or send us an email at [email protected]

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the final episode of season 2 of Being Biracial! Today we are chatting to each other about:

• Our reflections on this season 

• How age impacts our conversations about being mixed-race

• Processing identity through the creation of art

• Maria’s experience at the Matariki wānanga 

• Threads at the Immigration Museum

• The difficulty of creating work about deeply personal things

• Family secrets

Hosted by: Maria Birch-Morunga and Kate Robinson

Music by: the Green Twins

Edited by: Kate Robinson

This podcast was recorded on the lands of the Boon Wurrung and Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung peoples of the eastern Kulin Nations.

You can find us on Instagram @beingbiracialpodcast or send us an email at [email protected]

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Steph Tisdell is Aboriginal (Yindiji) and white Australian. She is an actor, tv writer, former comedian and author of the YA novel The Skin I’m In.

We chat about: 

• Her white Dad’s surprising DNA results
• Hearts mown into lawns
• The responsibility we feel in our family units
• Diversity within diversity
• Well intended white teachers
• Bringing The Skin I’m In to life
• How the characters relate (and don’t relate) to Steph’s life
• The self indulgent joy of writing young adult fiction
• Reactions to her book
• Kinship adoption

Hosted by: Maria Birch-Morunga and Kate Robinson

Guest: Steph Tisdell

Music by: the Green Twins

Edited by: Maria Birch-Morunga

This podcast was recorded on the lands of the Boon Wurrung and Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung peoples of the eastern Kulin Nations, and our guest joined us from land of the Turrbal and Jagera people. 

You can find us on Instagram @beingbiracialpodcast or send us an email at [email protected]

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Faustina Agolley (Fuzzy) is Ghanaian and Chinese Malaysian. She hosted Video Hits, was a DJ for Oprah and is a writer, producer and presenter. 

We chat about: 

• A london love story ft The Temptations 
• Growing up in a multi-generational Chinese household
• Having too much on her plate to study Chinese
• Learning about her dad through his music
• Going to Ghana
• Blackness being a celebration of the self 
• DJing for Oprah
• Hosting Video Hits
• Learning from Alicia Keys

Hosted by: Maria Birch-Morunga and Kate Robinson

Guest: Faustina Agolley

Music by: the Green Twins

Edited by: Kate Robinson

This podcast was recorded on the lands of the Boon Wurrung and Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung peoples of the eastern Kulin Nations, and our guest joined us from land of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation.
You can find us on Instagram @beingbiracialpodcast or send us an email at [email protected]

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Olana Janfa is an Ethiopian-Norwegian, Naarm-based artist. We interviewed Olana at The Walker Street Gallery and Arts Centre in Dandenong where his exhibition Too Much Drama is showing till September 2024.

We chat about: 

• How Olana began creating
• The works in his current exhibit Too Much Drama
• Olana’s iconic font and art style
• What home means to him
• Being black in Australia and Norway
• What’s next for his art career

Hosted by: Maria Birch-Morunga and Kate Robinson

Guest: Olana Janfa

Special thanks to: The City of Greater Dandenong & The Walker Street Gallery and Arts Centre

Music by: the Green Twins

Edited by: Maria Birch-Morunga

This podcast was recorded live on the lands of the Boon Wurrung people of the eastern Kulin Nations.
You can find us on Instagram @beingbiracialpodcast or send us an email at [email protected]

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.