Lauren Swain is a proud Dabee Wiradjuri person also with mixed settler heritage. She grew up in a rural town in the mountains of Ngarigo Country (Cooma, NSW), and is now based in the big smoke of Naarm (Melbourne). Lauren’s upbringing in a small town but in a big family, underpins a multidisciplinary artistic practice grounded in community consciousness, care and working with what you’ve got. Lauren has spent many days building imaginary worlds in the back paddock, rummaging through the recycling bin for costume materials and putting on theatre shows in the lounge room with her cousins (little did Lauren know this would be the foundations of their practice as a theatre maker for years to come). Lauren is an artist with Polyglot Theatre Co and Bloomshed Theatre Co. She is also the program producer for the Australian First Nations Circus and Physical Theatre Circle and can be found teaching devising skills at the VCA, University of Melbourne.