MAV has a profound commitment to arts and artists shaping the narratives that define who we are as a multicultural nation.
Meet the artists and communities
Dancer and Instructor
Lerato Masiyane AKA Lee, is one of the top dance performers and instructors in Melbourne specializing in Afro Dance and Dancehall. She has opened for International Dancehall musicians such as Beenie Man and performed with some of Australia’s highest profile musicians including Sampa the Great and Baker Boy. She shares her culture by teaching Afro Dance to diverse communities around Victoria.
Composer, Music Producer and Multi-instrumentalist
Beven Elankumaran is an Australian composer, music producer and multi-instrumentalist with a Sri Lankan Tamil heritage. A graduate from the Berklee College of Music (2019) Beven dual majored in Film Scoring and Electronic Production and Design.. He currently serves as the “Music Advisor” for Apple’s upcoming TV show “Shantaram.”
Writer, Performer, Editor and Filmmaker
Angelita Biscotti is a writer, performer, editor, and filmmaker excited by experimental, non-linear investigations into eroticism, queer embodiment, wellness and social justice. Her interviews, essays, reviews, fiction, and poetry have appeared in respected global and Australian publications, including Jacobin, Overland, Cordite Poetry Review, and elsewhere. She has studied at the Ateneo de Manila University, Brooklyn Institute for Social Research, and La Trobe University. She was a 2017 Hot Desk Fellow at the Wheeler Centre, a 2021 Making Space resident at Siteworks, a 2020 Fellow at Democracy in Colour and coHealth’s Create Change Fellowship for young BIPOC campaigners, and a 2020 mentee for the Progressive Tech Network. She is a Melburnian of Filipinx-Spanish descent, based on unceded Boon Wurrung Country. Pronouns: She/they
Psychedelic Artist
Influenced by mythology, legend and the stories that are told, Amicus Atman works to construct cross-dimensional and highly immersive artwork while interrogating the constantly evolving circumstances. Coding NFT's while constructing Wayang Kulit, making spicy meals and playing with interactive projection art are all part of the creative process that Amicus uses. As a South-East Asian creative, they are committed to staying true to their ancestral history, respecting tradition and looking to the future, while navigating current realities of living in colonized spaces.
Extended Reality (XR) Artist
Sarah Tan is an Extended Reality (XR) artist, who combines XR technologies such as augmented reality, virtual reality and visual art to convey emotions and perspectives in an immersive way.
Digital Designer
Quynnn is a digital designer who is passionate about cultures, gender equality and women empowerment.
Explore the works
Mercan Kasikci
Mercan’s digital drawing tells the story of her relationship with her mother, which has been affected by generational trauma and the friction many children of immigrants are familiar with growing up in a culture vastly different from what their parents know. She hopes people realise that in her experience, parents love their kids no matter what even if they may not know how to show it very well.
Lah Eh Soe
"My song, My Love, is about making promises to a loved one and them being the only one you love forever. I wrote it with my friend, Pwayz and we had fun making this song. I'm very happy to share this with MAV and everyone."
Jay Pops
This work is based on a spoken word piece by Jay about his own experiences with depression and loneliness. By sharing his story of vulnerability with such courage, Jay hopes to let others going through similar things know that they are not alone.
Nargis Alsakir
Nargis has created a poetic video work about the loneliness of the pandemic. It is a way of reaching out to others who she knows must be out there, who went through similar things. This work is a vessel for communicating vulnerable, lived experiences that she hopes more people can be brave enough to talk about and be listened to with compassion and understanding.
Po Tu Tu
"The project that I was doing is about Karen Traditional Weaving, about how we weave and how we traditionally make our clothes. It is very important for us because it is a heritage that we learned from our great grandparents and we want to keep alive by teaching our younger generation. I am hoping my video will be shared amongst wider communities so other people can learn of our tradition and how unique our style and process is."
Nadia and Yvette Niyubushobozi
Nadia and Yvette have developed a podcast series exploring issues around friendship and peer pressure, trying to guide people to create the change they’d like to see in the world by forming strong, enriching friendships. These podcasts feature the sisters in conversation, sharing their own incredible experiences with personal struggles and offering insight into different types of friendships. Their hope is for this work to help others choose the right people to keep in their lives, empowering them to make their own decisions and make themselves the priority. For Nadia and Yvette, a better world is a world in which people know how to be a good friend, supporting and helping others instead of leading them astray.
We make art as a visceral response to the forces of bigotry and intolerance, which seek to undermine the hard-fought battle for pluralism.
We make art to understand who we are as migrants on Indigenous land.
We make art to draw attention to the work that is still needed to future proof our identity as a society that deeply values its diversity.
Arts as diverse as our people.
We champion culturally diverse artists and communities to create systems of cultural production and participation that uphold equity and self-determination.
We champion culturally diverse artists and communities
We privilege non-western ways of doing, knowing and being, to tell stories that illuminate our humanity and improve intercultural understanding;
We strive for cultural democracy, sharing our knowledge and skills with partners across the arts and cultural sector to build platforms for engagement and visibility;
Diverse communities see themselves represented in and by us, in work that resonates with their truths, underpinned by shared values and dreams of new futures; and
We are outspoken in our support of cultural participation as a human right, from which we derive social, cultural and economic benefits for the development of individuals and society.