Meet Our Team

Lena Nahlous is an experienced CEO, producer, curator, artistic director and facilitator with a long-term commitment to racial equity in the arts, screen and creative sectors. She is currently the CEO of Diversity Arts Australia and host of The Colour Cycle podcast.

She has extensive experience in designing and delivering training and education programs in a variety of tertiary, secondary, community and arts settings. Lena has over 20 years-experience in arts, cultural and media organisations where she has developed artist brokerage and training programs focusing on creatives from culturally and racially marginalised backgrounds and young people.

Lena’s recent achievements include receiving a Churchill Fellowship in 2023 and the NSW Premier’s Arts and Culture Medal, dedicated to Carla Zampatti, in 2024. She was honoured with the Western Sydney Woman Leader of Change Award in 2020.

In her former role as Executive Director of Arts and Cultural Exchange, she established initiatives like the Arab Film Festival, Switch digital media centre and Artfiles, an artist employment and engagement program. Lena’s recent projects include: the Shifting the Balance leadership report; the Creative Equity Toolkit; the Fair Play capacity building program, and I am Not a Virus Australia.

Paschal Daantos Berry is a performance maker, curator, writer and dramaturg whose practice is focused on interdisciplinary, cross cultural, collaborative and socially engaged processes. In 2022, he was in the curatorium of Rivus, the 23rd Biennale of Sydney, as well as the curator of programs for Brook Andrew’s internationally acclaimed NIRIN, the 22nd Biennale of Sydney. He has led the programs of Blacktown Arts, the Biennale of Sydney and the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Currently he is working on a wide range of artistic projects through BANG-ON Collective, a cohort of creatives working internationally.

Joanne has over 30 years’ experience in office administration in a range of industries such as construction, project management, insurance, IT, childcare working across government, private and not-for profit sectors. Her previous roles have included small business management, contracts, finance, personnel admin, tenders and operational duties.

Glaiza (she/they) is a writer, editor, and digital producer based in Darug country. They are a graduate of Macquarie University with a Bachelor of Arts in Writing and a post-graduate Diploma in Digital Information Management from the University of Technology, Sydney.

In the past, Glaiza was the former Associate Producer for Diversity Arts’ national Stories from the Future project. More broadly, they are interested in the resonance and power of speculative fiction, decolonised histories and stories across the world.

Ivy is a current PhD candidate in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Technology Sydney. Her research interests are in Asian diaspora, race, sociology of education, and family relationships. Prior to joining DARTS, she worked in marketing and communications, and has been a researcher in parenting, social media, pedagogy and migration.

Born in Kuala Lumpur, Kevin Bathman is a visual designer, storyteller, curator, writer and social change advocate based in Sydney. He is interested in using creativity to address environmental, cultural and social justice issues, and believes that the arts is an untapped avenue for catalysing change. As the founder of social enterprise, Coalition of Mischief, Kevin has worked on numerous social justice projects with not-for-profit and arts organisations to help them communicate their message more effectively.

His main areas of interest include multiculturalism, sustainability, storytelling and the arts. In 2010, he commemorated the life of the late Yasmin Ahmad, the Malaysian film maker and visionary with his visual arts and film exhibition, ‘In Her Own Words: A Celebration of Humanity and Universal Love’, that toured in Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Melbourne. In 2013, he co-founded an arts initiative called Carnival of the Bold, a festival and movement of social change through the arts. Since 2012, Kevin has been researching the history, connections and crosscultural stories between the Chinese and Indian culture for his project, The Chindian Diaries. In 2014, it showcased as part of Parramasala, a South Asian Arts festival in Sydney and in 2016, he showcased the Chindians of Auburn, to highlight the growing Chinese and Indian families in the Auburn area in Sydney.

Simone Amelia Jordan is an author, essayist, and journalist renowned for her innovative work in hip-hop media. As the founder of The Dream Collective, she champions diversity and mentorship, fostering growth for multicultural women in the arts and entertainment. Her debut memoir, Tell Her She’s Dreamin’, won the 2021 Richell Prize.

Colombian-born, Carolina is an experienced cultural manager, researcher, and academic whose work has spanned three continents. She has over 16 years of experience in the arts, not-for-profit, and government sectors, where she has led award-winning initiatives and developed numerous projects supporting underrepresented artists and cultural expressions. In 2017, Carolina won the New South Wales Premier’s Multicultural Community Medal – Arts and Culture for her work with Settlement Services International (SSI).

Carolina is currently undertaking doctoral research at the University of Sussex in the UK, where she lived for three years before joining DARTS. Her PhD thesis examines the experiences of professional theatre artists who have migrated to the UK. It engages with current debates in migration scholarship and creative labour studies, informed by feminist and critical perspectives. As an academic and researcher, Carolina’s interests lie at the intersection of migration and creative labour, with a particular focus on the intersectional inequalities faced by artists and creatives with migration experience. More broadly, she is interested in labour geographies, the sociology of migration, and cultural studies.

Ayesha is a current undergraduate at the University of Technology Sydney, pursuing a combined Bachelor’s in Law and Communications, majoring in Social-Political Sciences. Her research interests involve understanding and fostering change at the intersection of legal and sociological issues, particularly examining the significance of grassroots anti-racist arts organisations in settler-colonial societies and their impact in effecting equitable progress.

Dr Görkem Acaroğlu is a Creative Director, Mentor and Educator with over 20 years experience in programming, producing, teaching and artistic practice. Görkem has specialist expertise in cross-cultural engagement and working with diverse stakeholders. She provides vision and practical expertise to the realisation of multiple projects from the ground up and has worked in a range of arts and creative roles, including currently as Creative Director, Metanoia Theatre, as Arts Participation Manager at the City of Melbourne, and Program Producer at Federation Square. Gorkem was an inaugural Sidney Myer Creative Fellow and was awarded a PhD in 2015 for examining the capacity for technological actors to perform competently with human actors on stage.

Artistic Director/ Editor/Facilitator/Trainer Paula Abood is a writer, community cultural development practitioner, creative producer and educator. She has worked with diverse communities in capacity building projects for 30 years. Her productions include The Cartographer’s  Curse (2016), Auburn Cartographies of Diversity (2016),  Sacred Women’s Voices (2013 / 2011), Parenting Stories (2010), Hurriya and her Sisters (2009), The Book of African Australian Stories (2006), Poetry on Rooftops (2006), and Of Middle Eastern Appearance (2001). Paula was awarded the 2007 Western Sydney Artists’ Fellowship for the blogging project Race and the City and was the 2013 recipient of the Australia Council’s Ros Bower Award for lifetime achievement in community cultural development practice.  She has developed resources and taught widely on subjects including cultural diversity, advocacy, and community development at TAFE and in community education settings. Paula co-developed the Certificate IV in Community Arts and Cultural Development that runs out of St George TAFE in Sydney, and is a leading trainer and educator on human rights approaches across the community, arts and education sectors. Paula was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy from UNSW in 2007 in the area of cultural studies.

Sonia Mehrmand received her Master’s degree in Public History and Museum Studies at the University of California, Riverside. She’s passionate about increasing access to the arts and cultural resources. During her graduate studies, Sonia discovered her interest in recording oral histories as a way to diversify the historical narrative of her home city, Los Angeles. She collected interviews for a variety of projects, including one that focused on a former resident of Chavez Ravine, which is now the site of Los Angeles’ Dodger’s baseball stadium. She also co-curated an exhibit entitled “States of Incarceration”, which explored mass incarceration in the United States. Her area of focus was on the phenomenon called the “school to prison pipeline”. For this exhibit, she interviewed residents of Riverside, California who were directly impacted by the prison system, as well as local organisations who work with young people to keep them in school and out of prison.

Sonia’s interests extend outside of history and into the arts, having recognised the need for diversity in both of these realms. Her own mixed ethnic background – Iranian and Italian – has informed her interest in wanting to see more art and artists that reflect migration and first-generation experiences. Coming from one extremely multicultural city into another is an exciting opportunity for her to learn new practices and perspectives on increasing access and creating an arts sector that is truly reflective of the people who consume it.

Dr. Margaret Mayhew (she/her/they/them) is a highly experienced advocate, consultant and specialist in Disability Action Planning with arts organisations. They are currently working with Creative Australia to develop their Disability Action Plan and were involved in developing the Disability Inclusion guidelines for the NAVA Code of Practice. They have worked in training and consultancy with Arts Access Victoria since 2022, and was heavily involved in developing the Fair Play Equity and Inclusion in the Creative Industries program with Diversity Arts Australia from 2019-2023. Prior to working in advocacy, Margaret taught and researched in cultural studies, gender, sexuality and diversity studies, public policy and design. They still continue to make work in visual arts and queer performance in Melbourne and Sydney.

Radio Producer| Writer| Educator | Web and Social Media Management| Passionate about telling the stories of different communities and teaching the next generation of journalists.

Vir Kaula is currently working as an audio engineer on FORM Dance project’s new podcast “Formidables.” His interest in podcasting began with Diversity Arts’ StoryCasters workshops, of which he is a member. Through recording and editing the stories of artists, Vir has a passion for spotlighting art and diverse artists in Western Sydney.

Rohini is poet / creative writer, arts-based researcher and academic. Rohini completed a PhD from Western Sydney University (2022) which focuses on marginalised migrant women in Oceania’s sporting platforms which she explores using an intersectional lens and arts-based methods. Rohini has worked on many research projects in the Western Sydney region with focus on migrant women of colour in sports, ageing citizens from CaLD backgrounds, people with disabilities, refugees, and LGBTIQA+ communities in Australia and Oceania. She is passionate about doing meaningful research with underrepresented communities in Western Sydney which she has called home for the past 14 years.

Rohini also has a strong teaching background with 20 years of experience in high schools, tertiary institutions and community covering areas of: English literature & language, cultural studies, intersectionality, engaging teaching pedagogies, sports sociology, adolescent health, disability studies and migrant women and sports.