Dr Bilquis Ghani is a Lecturer in Arts at the University of Canberra. Her research focuses on the mobilisation of the creative process through moments of social and cultural rupture. Bilquis is the lead for Hunar Symposia, a collective of academics and artists creating spaces of decolonisation, discourse and collaboration between practice and theory. She is also on the board of directors for Diversity Arts Australia and HADIA Foundation. Her book, A Sociology from Art Praxis in Afghanistan, will be released by Palgrave Macmillan in 2026. Before returning to academia, Bilquis worked for many years as a DEI practitioner, including as Head of Inclusion at the Sydney Opera House.

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.

Denise Thwaites is an Australian curator, writer and researcher of Uyghur and British descent. Her transdisciplinary research (re)configures text and image to examine contemporary political and economic imaginaries. She is Senior Lecturer in Interdisciplinary Arts at the University of Canberra, having previously worked in the museums, galleries and festival sector, while publishing writing in artistic journals and reviews.

Hi I’m Dr Luis Eduardo Quintão Guerra. I’m a Brazilian researcher living and working in Australia. I am interested in artistic practices and memory conflicts in Latin America. My PhD thesis combines memory studies and social movement studies to investigate third-generation memory activism in post-dictatorial Brazil. I currently teach in the School of Communication at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and in the School of the Arts and Media at the University of New South Wales (UNSW). I am also a member of the collective Hunar Symposia.

Contact: luis.quintaoguerra@uts.edu.au

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0681-5038

GlowLing Band is the first traditional Chinese music band based in Canberra, Australia. Each member boasts over a decade of professional performance experience, specializing in instruments such as the erhu, pipa, guzheng, and dizi.

The band is dedicated to building cultural bridges between China and the West through music. Their performances preserve the beauty of Chinese traditional music while infusing modern creativity, attracting a growing audience and music enthusiasts locally.

GlowLing Band is also open to various commercial performances and collaboration opportunities. Follow their latest updates on Instagram or TikTok by searching “GlowLing Band”.

Irfan Master grew up in Leicester and currently lives on Ngunnawal land. He is an award-winning writer of novels, poems, performances and projects, often working with sound, visual and text artists, composers, musicians and performers. His work has been presented in books, magazines, on radio and web, at events and festivals, over many years. He is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Canberra.

Ketura Budd is a queer producer and artist living on Ngunnawal country. They are passionate about supporting artists and creating experiences that build community through art, conversation, and care. As Creative Director and CEO of You Are Here, they have collaboratively created and led programs fostering collaboration, experimentation, and artist development. They are also a founding member and Executive Producer of CLUBSCORE, a queer art and sports collective amplifying trans and gender diverse voices. With over a decade of experience in arts administration, event production, and performance, Ketura has worked with leading organisations across Australia. They currently serve as Chair of the Minister’s Creative Council, advising on policy and government regulation to improve the arts and cultural sector in the ACT. They break hearts as their drag persona, Mister Butch, and write songs about crushes and exes in their band, Keith.

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.

Nuria Khasim is an Uyghur human rights advocate and lawyer living in Melbourne. She is the Editor of Uyghur Resistance.

Piumi Wijesundara is a Sri Lankan actor, director, playwright and arts advocate passionate about creating socially conscious devised theatre. She holds an MA in Theatre Directing from East 15 Acting School, University of Essex (UK), and has trained in Biomechanics at the Russian Institute of Theatre Arts (GITIS), Moscow. Formerly Co-Artistic Director of Stages Theatre Group, Sri Lanka, Piumi has directed, produced, performed in, and written for numerous local and international productions. Now based in Australia, she previously served as Program Manager at NIDA and was part of the 2025 Shifting the Balance of Leadership program by Diversity Arts Australia. She currently works as a Program Producer for the Cultural Facilities Corporation, a teaching artist with Canberra Youth Theatre, and an artist-researcher exploring the intersection of technology and performance with the Robots, Arts, People and Performance Lab at the University of Canberra. Her notable theatre credits include Awa/Kaawa/Giya: An Anthology on Migration and Ovaryacting! (Colombo, Sri Lanka), Thought Curfew (Kigali, Rwanda), Girls at Checkpoints (Mercury Theatre, UK), and Ruins at Seymour Centre with Clockfire Theatre Company.

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.

Recognised as Australia’s most successful hip-hop journalist, Simone Amelia Jordan’s career spans print, radio, TV, and digital media. Her debut book, Tell Her She’s Dreamin’, won the 2021 Richell Prize and is out now through Hachette Australia.

At 23, Simone founded Urban Hitz Magazine, the country’s highest-selling rap and R&B publication. Roughly a decade later, in a full-circle moment, she served as the content director of The Source, the New York City-based “Hip-Hop Bible” that inspired her reporting and social consciousness.

Alongside her media achievements, Simone has extensive experience in lifestyle marketing, event management, programming and content strategy, which she has leveraged in senior roles at Media Diversity Australia and Diversity Arts Australia. Simone also mentors racially diverse women in media, the arts and entertainment through her passion project, The Dream Collective.

Sophia Cai 蔡晨昕 is a curator and writer based in Kamberri/Canberra, Australia. Sophia’s ongoing research interests include Asian art histories, the intersections between contemporary art and craft, and building communities of practice rooted in feminist and anti-racist work. Sophia is the current Artistic Director + CEO of Canberra Contemporary, one of Australia’s leading contemporary art organisations, and the Deputy Chair of NAVA, a peak advocacy body for Australia’s contemporary arts sector, while maintaining an independent writing and curatorial practice.