Zoë is an applied social researcher, community arts producer, and a founding director of Storyscape. She has over fifteen years of experience in international and community development, community arts, and applied research and training. Zoe has experience working with communities across Australia and the Asia Pacific region, and in Africa. She speaks Chinese (Mandarin) and has lived and worked in Asia for over four years. She has worked as a freelance consultant with a range of national and international organisations, including the Australian Red Cross, Koorie Heritage Trust, Plan Australia, ChildFund PNG, Oxfam and UNICEF. Zoë also worked with Clear Horizon Consulting as a Principal Consultant and Team Leader of the Community Development & Social Justice Team for three years, providing training and evaluation services to local, national and international organisations working in this sector.

Pip is a Community Engagement/Arts Practitioner, Creative Producer, Program Design/Evaluation Consultant, and a Founding Director of Storycape. She has worked for the past 18 years across the international development, community engagement, arts and social services sectors applying creative and participatory approaches to planning, evaluation, advocacy and arts projects. Prior to founding Storyscape in 2009 Pip worked as an independent consultant on the design and evaluation of community programs, and produced many short films that aimed to document and share evaluation findings. She has spent six years living and working in Asia and Europe and has worked with AusAID, Oxfam Australia, the Australian Red Cross, Plan Australia and Timor Leste, PNG Child Fund and UNICEF. Prior to working in the international development and community sectors, Pip worked for five years in film, television and digital media in Australia and internationally. She has a Masters of International Development and a Bachelor of Arts (Communications), and also runs training programs and lectured at Monash University, LaTrobe University, RMIT University. Since founding Storyscape Pip has also worked with many Aboriginal organisations and communities in Australia and is committed to supporting people to tell their own stories, to gain agency for change.

Straight from the vaults of his underground Solar Powered shipping container comes Melbourne’s bass master Monkeymarc. From his early beginnings with his party political Sound System “Labrats” and “Combat Wombat” to his more recent discography, Monkey has been busy making waves across the globe. Sonically rugged he mashes up hip hop and dub in a down under style like no other. Monkey splits his time making music in Australia and overseas, and also spends a lot of time running workshops with Aboriginal people in remote communities across Australia. Check out this awesome review on THUMP about Monkey and his work in Australian desert.

Mantra is one of Australia’s most respected and recognisable voices in Australian Hip-Hop. His band (Illzilla) won the Triple J Unearthed Competition and a John Butler “SEED” grant and he was voted best freestyler by OzHipHop.com. Renowned for his picture- perfect songwriting, dextrous flows and remarkable live performances, his solo albums “Power of the Spoken”, “Speaking Volumes” and “Telling Scenes” have received wide acclaim from critics and fans alike. He has established himself as a conscious and active voice in the local music scene, and is also involved as a mentor and facilitator on many youth and community arts projects.

Born on Woiwurrung and Boonwurrung country and of southern Italian origins. Visual storytelling, filmmaking and guiding yoga and meditation are the practices Becka enjoys exploring. She has been making films and digital content for fifteen years and exploring body, breath and healing modalities for the past ten years. Becka enjoys being in collaborative spaces where people can come together to share stories, connect, heal and grow in community. “I met Pip and Zoe from Storyscape in 2008 and have collaborated with them on many digital storytelling projects. It’s been awesome to see the Yalinguth community grow and be involved in story gathering days, editing content for the app and creating content for social media. I am passionate about social and ecological change and love spending time in the ocean and the bush, surfing and camping and learning about belonging to this place.”

Michelle is the Director of Collective Insights, a consultancy that specialises in: the design and facilitation of program logics; design of Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Frameworks; program evaluation; and assessment of Value for Money. Michelle has 15 years’ experience working in international development. She brings experience working with a range of organisations from small grass roots community-based organisations to international NGOs, UN agencies and government. Michelle is a Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) accreditation reviewer. Michelle lived and worked in the Middle East for 7 years, including for UNICEF and UNDP, and has undertaken consultancy work throughout Australia, Asia, the Pacific and Africa. She has a strong background in social inclusion and in integrating issues of gender, disability inclusion and child protection into design and monitoring and evaluation processes.

Lauren is the Director of String Theory, a consultancy that helps programs build awesome monitoring and program development systems that set them up for useful evaluations. She has particular expertise in assisting people who have been previously seen running in fear from surveys, to collect and use excellent data that make their programs better. She is adept at working with new programs where the outcomes are not clearly defined, and using ‘evaluative thinking’ to clarify their program models and build their data systems. Lauren has significant knowledge and expertise of the social service sector in Australia. She is skilled in workshop facilitation, program design (program logic, theory of change, logical frameworks), qualitative inquiry, survey design and quantitative inquiry, building monitoring frameworks, and building program development frameworks. She has also been known to give hugs to harried program managers.

Reko is a Kamilaroi/Gamilaraay/Gummaroi man, born in Melbourne. Through his art, Reko explores what it means to be an urban Aboriginal in contemporary Australian society. He received no formal artistic training but as a teenager discovered graffiti, which would become an all-consuming passion, and he quickly began producing original art on the streets of Melbourne. His art and installations continually explore issues of identity, race, law and justice, land rights, stolen generations and other issues affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in contemporary society. Reko has also facilitated many workshops in urban and remote communities across Australia.

Born in Nigeria, instructor Dagogo’s talents have taken him all over the world, teaching and performing in more than 15 countries. He has received wide acclaim for his show stopping talents including 2 times Couples Dance Champion and Runner Up in the Let’s Dance West Africa. As an in-demand and accomplished choreographer, Dagogo has choreographed and taught dance creative development classes in more than 50 schools and choreographed productions made up of more than 1,000 people for various carnivals, events and shows. His work has featured in numerous musical productions. He has also Featured as an Ambassador at the Australian Open 2022. He has made an impact In the dance community by infusing the act of fun when learning or visiting his dance classes.

How Far Films is a Melbourne-based production company specialising in innovative documentary, commercial and promotional videos for television and online audiences. With extensive experience as a digital content producer and filmmaker, Creative Director Stuart Mannion brings his passion for cinematic imagery to each project. Our team’s decades of creative and technical experience ensures our productions reach your audience.

Melbourne Playback Theatre Company is a leading interactive theatre company working throughout Victoria creating performances and workshops that respond directly to individual community’s stories and challenges. They aim to empower, entertain and affect change. Since its inception thirty years ago, Melbourne Playback has been using performance (actor based) improvisation with live music to engage with various community groups. The performances create, build and foster community, develop respect between individuals, address social inclusion, equal access and diversity while supporting a forum for cooperation, sharing and honesty. In a Playback performance, the facilitator invites audience’s members to share experiences. From the audience’s narratives, the performers create a piece of theatre instantaneously. It is the interaction of the sharing and ‘playing back’ of these stories from which the performance is created. Storyscape has worked collaboratively with Melbourne Playback, using the playback approach to assist in defining themes of photography and film projects, and to combine theatre with other multimedia elements in screenings/performances.