Featuring RINA. Nejmere, Megan Cope, Sirena Varma and Facilitated by Dylan Prins.

The role of the artistic collective in the current arts landscape”. In today’s CALD arts scene, collectives are redefining collaboration, creativity, and community. This panel brings together artists to discuss the power of working collectively—how it fosters innovation, amplifies voices, and shapes the cultural landscape.

Sirena Varma

Sirena Varma is a multidisciplinary designer with a background in architecture and a decade of experience across graphic design, branding, and exhibition design. She co-founded Twig, an interdisciplinary collaborative offering flexible design solutions for global brands and academic institutions. Her commitment to community care and creative activism also led to Magan-djin Creatives for Palestine, a grassroots collective that unites local creatives in solidarity with the Palestinian cause. Through projects like Blatt & Matonelli, Sirena’s work merges traditional practices with contemporary design, using interdisciplinary collaboration to explore identity, heritage, and the power of collective art making.

Megan Cope

A Quandamooka artist from Moreton Bay/Minjerribah (North Stradbroke Island). Her site-specific sculptural installations, video works, and paintings investigate issues relating to colonial histories, the environment and mapping practices. In 2024, she received the Creative Australia Award for Emerging and Experimental Arts and in 2017–19, she was the official Australian War Artist, commissioned by the Australian War Memorial. She is a member of Aboriginal art collective proppaNOW, recipients of the 2022–24 Jane Lombard Prize for Arts and Social Justice, and is represented by Milani Gallery, Meanjin/Brisbane.

Nejmere

A Magandjin-based DJ and co-creator of Yalla Collective – an Eastern Mediterranean collective that focuses on community building and cultural exchange. She has been a member of our music scene for many years, first starting out at 4zzz and now DJing at clubs across magandjin and interstate. As a co-creator of Yalla Collective, Nejmere has felt what it means to create meaningful spaces together and the importance of this work.

RINA

A singer, songwriter, and poet from Far North Queensland, grew up on the ancestral lands of North-East Arnhem Land, planting her roots in Brisbane. Her soulful sound and captivating storytelling explore themes of love, vulnerability, and personal empowerment. Her music embodies divine femininity, encouraging women to honor their truth and follow the voice of their spirit with conviction. Recently, she released Heal Sistah in collaboration with SOLCHLD – a heartfelt love song dedicated to sistahs in need of extra love and support. As the co-creator of Soul Deep, RINA helps cultivate a space for creatives to explore decolonial and holistic practices, honoring connection, community, and healing through art.

Dylan Prins, Moderator

The Founder of Kaju Creative and the host of the Creator Tales podcast, which platforms underrepresented artists. “Kaju” is the South Asian word for Cashews which is probably also his favourite nut. Dylan was born in the UAE to Sri Lankan parents, grew up in Western Sydney, Australia, and completed a 4 year motherland stint in Sri Lanka prior to moving to Magan-djin / Brisbane in 2022. He rekindled his love for filmmaking in Sri Lanka after a 10-year break and started Kaju Creative in 2017 as a digital nomad at the time. He is also an audio engineer in broadcast radio, and closely connected with local community groups such as Pedal Party Magan-djin and Bring a Plate dance.

Produced by Aleea Monsour + Eyal Chipkiewicz for Brisbane Multicultural Arts Centre (BEMAC). Live stream feed by BEMAC. Podcast recording produced by Dylan Prins for Kaju Creative.

https://bemac.org.au/event/bemac-discussions-why-collectives-live-and-streamed/

Roman MC is an award-winning artist, freestyle MC, and storyteller who has been performing on international stages and engaging with diverse audiences for over a decade.

A multi-talented creative visionary, rapper, singer and writer, MUDRAT has gained acclaim for blending of punk, metal & hip-hop influences alongside passionate delivery & raw lyricism. Creating music that draws from his perspective of the world, life experience and cultural roots and political beliefs he has quickly cultivated a reputation for his versatility, raw energy & powerful live performances.

IG Rollcall

Mudrat

Kaju Creative

Host : Dylan Prins

Hailed as "one of the freshest feeling projects in

Matt’s mythos as an inimitable music auteur creating unpredictable and exquisite music way off Australia’s well trodden ‘indie path’, is rapidly snowballing with comparisons to genre-defying artists like Andre 3000 (both his Outkast and ‘what-even-is-music flute era), Cosmo Sheldrake, Shugo Tokumaru, Mid-Air Thief, and Alabaster DePlume, with the live presence of Kokoroko meets Polyphonic Spree —

In solo artist mode, Matt uses the moniker Matt Hsu’s Obscure Orchestra as his multi-instrumental exhaust valve, creating otherworldly music that celebrates difference and the juicy spaces between cultures, drawing from his ‘punk-trained composer’ roots as a founding member of beloved protest band The Mouldy Lovers. With a signature maximal-minimalism and uncanny hungriness for weaving found objects, odd instruments, eclectic collabs and DIY ethos into

The radically-inclusive 24-piece Obscure Orchestra gang might be Meanjin’s most eclectic lineup of alternative/experimental musicians, queer noise artists, indie figures, conservatorium defectors and hip hop luminaries; comprising of First Nations, BIPOC, disabled, neurodiverse, non-binary and trans artists. Surfacing as one of Australia’s most sought after projects (recently opening the 2024 QMAs) Obscure Orchestra challenges both the ‘white dudes with guitars’ indie music canon, and the pomp and formality of classical orchestras, bringing a fresh burst of joyful anti-colonial noisemaking, DIY spirit and POC-led diversity to the Australian music landscape. MHOO are steadily usurping cultural meccas like a trojan horse - a ‘really really big indie band’ in the vague outline of an orchestra, gleaming with alt-pop/ hip hop/weird folk/activist/noise experiment weirdness - gaining the attention of ABC’s Art Works and

When Matt isn’t making sounds, he can be spotted in Meanjin floating on a handbuilt bicycle, craving

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Matt Hsu’s Obscure Orchestra

Dylan Prins insta

Kaju Creative insta

Nadiah "NfuZion" is Australia’s first and only internationally recognised freelance dancer, educator and choreographer who specialises in Dancehall, various styles from the African

Allirah Fisher is a proud Ewamian, Cobble Cobble, Birri and South-Sea Islander Woman, Sister and Mother. Born and raised in the outer suburbs of Meanjin, Allirah has always had strong passions and values within the social justice and the creative arts realms. Allirah has worked within the Indigenous health, community development and social service spaces while channeling her artistic expression through ceremony, performance, choreography and facilitation. More recently, Allirah is developing her own aspirations as a creative entrepreneur as the Founding member of The First Creatives and Co-Founder of Yir'un-Yalangi Womens Healing. Interconnecting her experience and passion in both social work and creative arts, Allirah creates safe-spaces for First Nations stories and experiences to be shared and explored at a grassroots level to develop artistic work that is transformative for both the storytellers and listeners. With strong values for breaking the cycle of intergenerational trauma, Allirah is using her purpose to empower First Nations communities to move to a place of healing through creative expression and re-claiming of our traditional practices.

Sudhesh Somu is a proud Queenslander who arrived in Australia as an asylum seeker from Sri Lanka. His life experience and community development background drives his passion for supporting disadvantaged Indigenous youth, and combating family violence through men's behaviour change programs. Sudesh longs to have the love for his state of Queensland to be reflected back to him.

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https://www.instagram.com/sudhesh_somu/