Multicultural Arts Victoria (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
DJ
Originally from Colombia and now based in Melbourne. Cuerpo Negro is a music selector who started out with the aim of sharing the vibrant rhythms of South American Folktronica in the Southern Hemisphere. Over time, the project has expanded to incorporate a range of world electronica elements, resulting in a sound that is both innovative and eclectic.
Music selector
Otorongo is a music selector originally from Chile but currently based in Naarm (Melbourne). He is known for transporting audiences to pristine ecosystems: tropical floodplains, mountain rainforests, or wherever your imagination feels the most comfortable. Otorongo's sets are filled with ethnic percussions, nature samples, and exotic instruments, and are driven by ancient rhythms carefully blended to ensure you feel free to dance. Usually playing from ethnic downtempo to eclectic Afrofuturism, passing through chillrave and tribal tech. This time he will share his taste for cumbia from yesterday and tomorrow.
5-piece band
SunSeeds lyrics are mainly about our connection with the land, the universe and everything that surrounds us, giving a mindful message about our presence on this planet, appreciation and gratitude, connection with our ancestors, spirituality and awakening, social rights, justice and dignity, love and passion.
Collective
Bellaqueo is a Reggaeton party collective founded in Melbourne in 2021 by three Colombian friends with the purpose of spreading urban latin rhythms in Australia.
Producer
Mai is a 30 year old Colombian event producer based in Naarm (Melbourne) Australia. She has a professional degree in business administration and more than 8 years experience managing teams in different industries in Colombia and Australia.
Collective
Slo is made up of filmmakers, Ivy Mutuku, Kalu Oji, Mimo Mukii, Ranima Montes and Gabriel Francis. Together they write lines to be imagined and memorised for the screen. 'what ties us apart' first project as a collective.
Explore the works
Indian Care
Indian Care's Project SASS and Wellbeing aims to support the social and emotional wellbeing of South Asian International Students in Melbourne. It is a student-led co-design project will develop and deliver culturally appropriate, evidence-based strategies to facilitate and foster connections with each other and the community by providing a safe space to share their stories. The creative workshops offered participants an opportunity to develop creative, communication and technology skills, assisting with job readiness skills and over all support for emotional wellbeing during a challenging time post COVID-19 lockdowns. The overall objective of this project was to build resilience by connecting the South Asian international students with each other and the diaspora to increase their social capital using the medium of creative art. The project offered free workshops in podcasting creation with facilitators Ayan Shirwa and Karina Aedo, and understanding power structures with Dr. Priya Srinivasan.
Peril Magazine
No Compass is shared space between Asian Australian Studies Research Network; It’s Not a Compliment; Peril Magazine; Teh Cha; and Writing Through Fences. No Compass builds on the idea of “diaspora as methodology”, deploying diaspora as a political verb rather than administrative noun, to challenge the idea that diverse communities are “hard to reach”, instead considering them “easy to love” and challenging the justice of health, social, community and other systems. Neither “about the virus”, nor “not about the virus”, No Compass invites perspectives that engage with race, culture and the contemporary challenges of navigating Australian identity in the context of COVID-19, showcasing the lived reality of “Australian” communities, reflecting their dignified, complex and nuanced experiences, their self-defined identities and histories.
Pasifika TOA
Triumph Over Adversity is a digital series by Pasifika TOA featuring Victorian-based youth, of diverse backgrounds, who chose to share their real-life stories in order to raise social awareness, promote cultural understanding and support youth expression. Moreover, amid a Covid affected world, Triumph Over Adversity is a youth outreach initiative that connects our youth and community together. All who participated in this series did so with the hope that their story may help others who may be going through similar experiences.
Camp Mana
Camp Mana and the scheduled time it was meant to run, fell victim to COVID and the recidivism of its young participants. However, a contingency plan was made to develop, produce and deliver an engaging online program despite the circumstances. To grand success, a productive online program was delivered over 14 days, with daily mentorship, creative writing workshops, music soundtrack development, filmmaking and photography. Camp Mana (Online) shape-shifted into a short film project we have called 'Unlocked', a collaboration and collection of anonymous stories, poetry and spoken word from BIPOC youth who have been in and out of the justice system. Unlocked has now inspired a long-term film and music production to capture young peoples stories over the next few years.
Ana Maria Gomides
claustrofobia is about the refusal to forget the violence perpetrated on my ancestors for my skin to reach its lightness. It’s about reminding myself and others that white colonisers failed in their calculated attempt to erase entire races of people, while the world at large encourages us to forget. re-telling our histories and stories is an act of defiance.
Vanessa Estrada
Cancion de despedida, the song chosen to create this piece of work is an intimate and personal experience, which tells my story of love, farewell, letting go and moving on. It is the story of a woman having to overcome a rupture, a loss, being away from home. It is a story of resilience that I needed to tell through image as well as music. and movement, as I wanted to express the feeling with my whole body and create a real ritualistic experience of healing and empowerment. The song itself is a South American rhythm which mixes elements of the Chilean cueca and Argentinean Chacarera, since the moment I decided to produce a video, I had the idea of including the dance and the handkerchief as a symbolism of my own culture. With the director (Gabriela Gonzalez), and the choreographer (Kathleen Gonzalez) we explored the ideas of different and symbolic ways of saying good bye to a loved one. Through empowerment, movement, and specific elements of my own culture in the clothing, accessories and choreography. We had weekly meetings with Kathleen Gonzalez (choreographer) to produce the choreography, we studied the elements of the "Cueca" and the "Chacarera" dance, we created our own version of them and incorporated contemporary movements. We decided to use the hood and handkerchief symbols as a way of representing the "letting go" and "liberation" feelings. With Gabriela Gonzalez (director), we had weekly meetings to decide the location (Blue lake in Bundoora) and work on the script, the story, the outfits, the art. Gabriela and I share a strong connection with my story, and we knew what we wanted to express, therefore it was easy to make decisions. Neisha Smith did a fantastic work in creating the outfits and having an incredible input in the art of the project. The rest of the production team did an amazing work in understanding the needs of the work, the expectations and the sentiment in general. I am very thankful of every single person involved in this project. This work exceeded all my expectations, I am incredible grateful for receiving the support to create this beautiful piece of art. This project gave me healing, a voice, a space and opened so many new doors in my artistic career. I am extremely happy to be one of the artists of AHEAD OF THE CURVE program and have this extra support to exhibit my work alongside many other amazing local artists. Its so important for us independent artists to have this spaces and opportunities. Thanks to MAV and my amazing team for making this possible and believing in my art.
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.