Accessible Arts and Diversity Arts Australia are delighted to announce the eight participants selected for the 2026 Ripple: Disability and Culturally Diverse Internship Program.
Now in its fourth year, Ripple is a unique professional development opportunity designed for people with disability or who are d/Deaf and who also identify as culturally and linguistically diverse. The program combines specialised industry training with a paid, part-time internship at leading arts and cultural organisations across NSW and the ACT over a 14-week period.
We are thrilled to welcome the 2026 Ripple cohort:
Senjuti Maitra – APRA AMCOS
Senjuti is a Kolkata-born, Sydney-based musician and creative professional whose work spans community radio, research, and storytelling. With a music practice rooted in the rich tradition of Hindustani Classical Music, and songwriting, she strives to tell stories of her lived experiences in the form of song through music. Though music is her first love, she discovered her love for the written word by accident and has not been able to let go ever since. In her work as a creative professional, she is passionate about amplifying diverse voices and exploring the intersection of music culture, and mental health.
Anya – Performing Lines
Anya (she/her) is an emerging writer and editor. Born in India, raised in Indonesia, and now studying in so-called ‘Australia’, Anya’s writing focuses on the nuances of belonging and identity. Her work has appeared in Honi Soit, Pulp Magazine, Indian Link Media Group and The University of Sydney’s 2025 Anthology. Anya is editor-in-chief of Sydney University Arts Students Society’s annual 1978 publication and will join the editorial team of USyd’s 2026 Anthology. As an aspiring teacher, she is interested in the role of creativity in shaping how young people understand themselves and the world.
Elena Akami Hammer – Tuggeranong Arts Centre
Elena Akami Hammer is an emerging artist passionate about experimenting with and combining different visual mediums: illustration, textiles, sculpture, collage, printmaking, graphic design, and photo and video editing. They are drawn to themes of identity, self-image and autonomy, often informed by their own experiences of queerness and disability, as well as their Japanese-Australian background.
Sehej Kaur Sehmbhi – UTP
Sehej Kaur Sehmbhi is an emerging artist working and living on Darug Country. Travelling between sterile, domestic and interwebbed worlds, Sehej seeks out points of tension and overlap, interested in embracing the forever flux of her body amongst extractive structures in the so-called West. Sehej utilises the digital landscape and its natural multiplicity as a method of non-linear re-archival and reclaim. How can acts of merging and disrupting offer an autonomous way of world building? How can we re-imagine modes of storing and storying beyond material practice?
Denise Nolasco – Blue Mountains Cultural Centre, Blue Mountains City Council
Denise Nolasco is a third culture Filipino-Australian writer and community practitioner based on Awabakal Country, born and raised on Kaurna Country. She works primarily in place-making, collage and long-form reflective writing – drawn to forms that hold space for complexity, and to the idea that meaning is made by turning toward what already exists and sitting with it until something new becomes visible. Her writing has been featured in Neoterica (Adelaide Festival, 2024) and Mga gamit ng isang makata (Nexus Arts, 2024). She is currently studying Global Indigenous Studies at the Wollotuka Institute, University of Newcastle.
Mei Lin Meyers – PHIVE, City of Parramatta Council
Mei Lin Meyers (he/they) is an emerging Queer, Trans and Disabled artist of Chinese, English and Ashkenazi Jewish heritage, living on unceeded Wangal Country. Their creative practice weaves together painting, drawing and sculpture as a way to explore complex feelings of dis/comfort, grief, longing and dis/orientation. He is a budding community organiser, with an interest in access coordination, zines and lino printing.
Lara-Marie Wilkinson – Chau Chak Wing Museum
Lara-Marie is a multimedia artist working primarily in the mediums of sound, sculpture and photography, with the goal of finding clarity and catharsis in the midst of persistent pain. She moulds her pain to create artwork that responds to historical and contemporary, personal and collective, physical and emotional pain. With an emphasis on sublimating the abject experiences of disabled and colonised peoples, Lara-Marie aims to manifest a holistic rendering of suffering in the hope of fostering community and radical understanding.
Sione Puloka – PHIVE, City of Parramatta Council
I am a Tongan-American storyteller, journalist, and sports talking head who is enthusiastic about using media and knowledge about sports to bring people together via true human experiences. Living with cerebral palsy has molded my viewpoint, resilience, and dedication to promoting voices that are frequently ignored. As a Communications (Journalism) student at the University of Technology Sydney and a contributor to Basketball.com.au, I combine storytelling, culture, and creativity to inspire meaningful conversations. Whether through sports journalism, music, or community advocacy, my goal is to celebrate diversity, build understanding, and create work that resonates across cultures and generations.
Ripple is led by Accessible Arts in partnership with Diversity Arts Australia and is funded by the Australian Government Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and Create NSW. Diversity Arts also receives support from Creative Australia.
We congratulate the 2026 Ripple interns and look forward to supporting their professional development and seeing the impact they make across the arts and cultural sector.