Collectives, Culture and Community

Join editor and founder of Bia! Zine, Victory Nwabu-Ekeoma (Ireland) and writer, curator and Where are you from? founder Sabina McKenna (Melbourne) in conversation with Melbourne-based art collectives, Saluhan and MÄHALLÄ محلة, for a discussion about creative approaches to building community.

Often designed to reject the individualistic and hierarchical nature of the mainstream arts sector, collectives have become likened to a type of family unit. They replicate the habits of kinship and provide a sense of solidarity and understanding among likeminded artists.

For people of colour, these family-like groups often testify to a shared lived experience of marginalisation. Because people of colour can be systematically denied access to certain spaces – including galleries, museums and publishing houses – they instead forge creative communities to cultivate opportunities of their own. Foregrounding urgency and agency within their work, and bringing people together as a means of resistance.

Speakers

Victory Nwabu-Ekeoma

Victory Nwabu-Ekeoma is a Nigerian-Irish writer, artist, zine-maker, content designer and the founder and editor of Bia! Zine – an independently published publication that explores the immigrant experience in Ireland through food

biazine.com

Sabina McKenna

Sabina McKenna is an Australian writer and curator of Nigerian-Irish heritage. She is the creator of the Where are you from? project, a photojournalistic series about cultural identity.

whereareyoufrm.com/

Saluhan

Saluhan is a Filipinx/o collective based in Naarm, Melbourne on Wurundjeri Country.

Saluhan was created to establish a network between creatives in Australia and the Philippines and has since expanded to include collaborative projects that combine arts and community development. Their practice is underpinned by notions of kinship, reciprocity, and the desire to create spaces that interweave artistry and community.

saluhancollective.com/

MÄHALLÄ محلة

MÄHALLÄ محلة is an inclusive and creative community hub for the Middle Eastern & Anatolian diaspora in Naarm & beyond.

@mahallamelbourne