Shelley has spent many years developing nationally used curriculum resources through many respected organisations including SBS Learn, supporting educators to embed First Nations perspectives in meaningful, respectful and practical ways. Her work centres on cultural understanding, wellbeing, identity and the role education plays in shaping more informed and inclusive futures.

As a facilitator and keynote speaker, Shelley regularly works with educators and organisations across Australia, creating spaces for reflection, dialogue and deeper learning and connection to the beauty within First Nations cultures and histories. She is a lifetime Ambassador for the Indigenous Literacy Foundation and the author of We Are Matildas and brings a strong focus on storytelling as a tool for connection, critical thinking and change.

Indi is advancing First Nations self-determination as an elected representative to the First Peoples Assembly of Victoria, playing a pivotal role in Victoria’s Treaty process. Indi also supports the preservation and celebration of Aboriginal culture and heritage as Co-Chair of the Koorie Heritage Trust. Indi graduated from Monash University with a Master of Indigenous Business Leadership in 2023.

Having worked as an Indigenous Affairs Reporter for the ABC, Jedda’s career has always been grounded in storytelling, truth, community voice and representation. During her time at the national broadcaster, Jedda’s impactful reporting earned her the Victorian Rural Press Club’s Young Journalist of the Year Award in 2021 and since then, she has channelled her expertise into training grassroots campaigners and community advocates to amplify their messages effectively in the media. Known for her active presence across the Victorian Aboriginal community, Jedda continues to uplift First People’s voices and push for better outcomes in her community.

Moving fluidly across mural painting, drawing, screenwriting, performance, and graphic design, Brown explores the pressures placed on First Nations storytellers while insisting on joy, humour, and experimentation as forms of resistance. At 25, Brown is one of the youngest artists ever selected for the National Indigenous Art Triennial at the National Gallery of Australia, exhibiting in ‘AFTER THE RAIN’. She has created art for Amyl and the Sniffers (2023), Belfast rap group Kneecap (2025), The Kid Laroi (2025), and Emma Donovan, while partnering with Volley Australia (2025), Converse, Puma, Greenpeace, and more. Her influence across art and youth culture has been profiled in Vogue Australia multiple times, and widely across numerous national media outlets.

Although far apart, each of these special places have kept Lowell strongly connected to the ocean his whole life. Lowell is a multi award winning artist who creates sand art and uses drone photography to capture the scale of his works within breathtaking landscapes, which all started simply, as a way for him to get out and connect with culture, Country and sea. Using only his feet, Lowell carves stories into the sand using the same foot movements he was taught through Traditional dance movements his people have practiced for countless generations. Lowell’s artworks tell stories of family, identity and connection.

A former school teacher who pioneered teaching science and mathematics through the medium of the Māori language and contributed to development of the Māori language school curriculum. A double Marsden researcher and author of the book ‘Māori Philosophy: Indigenous thinking from Aotearoa’ (Bloomsbury, 2021). Current research is on ecopedagogy, with forthcoming works on Gaia theory, human-nature connections, and Māori environmental ethics.

The collective creates and presents theatre that centres storytelling from our sea of islands, expands opportunities for Pasifika artists and champions artists holding full agency over their work at every stage.

Emma completed her Certificate III in Live Production and Technical Services traineeship at Arts Centre Melbourne, specialising in Sound & Vision in 2023. She then won Trainee of the Year at the 2024 Victorian Training Awards and Runner-Up Trainee of the Year at the 2024 Australian Training Awards, and has gone on to become an influential ambassador for on-the-job vocational training in the industry.

Since completing her traineeship, Emma has engaged in a variety of roles within production, primarily in her role as Production Coordinator with BlakDance, and recently as Production Manager for The Shepherds by Alisdair Macindoe and Carly Sheppard. Alongside her technical roles, Emma has also pursued theatre design pathways through ILBIJERRI Theatre Company’s BlackStage program and Melbourne Theatre Company’s Future Creatives program, with a range of design credits in sound, lighting and AV design.

Working predominantly with First Peoples companies, artists and creatives, Emma’s work spans across theatre, dance, musicals, ballet and opera, in a variety of roles across working with a wide range of organisations and projects.

Drawing on their Rotuman, Fijian, and wider Māʻohi heritage, their collaborative practice explores the intersections of ocean and biodiversity custodianship, place, ancestry, and cultural sustainability. Over the past five years, with their team they have undertaken an extensive journey of cultural research alongside Elders, knowledge holders, artists, and communities across Oceania, investigating traditional textiles, adornment, music, ritual, and performative arts. Through Rako Pasefika, they create pathways for reconnecting with ancestral knowledge systems, nurturing new generations of creative practitioners, and strengthening community connections through cultural exchange, creative expression, and innovation, while celebrating the living cultures of the Pacific.

Sione has worked with the Australian Museum and many other institutions across the Pacific. Sione brings a deep wealth of cultural knowledge to their craft and continues to champion traditional craft knowledge internationally.

Lanzilotti was a 2022 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Music for “with eyes the color of time,” which the Pulitzer committee called, “a vibrant composition . . . that distinctly combines experimental string textures and episodes of melting lyricism.” Other prestigious honors include a Creative Capital Award, a Native Arts & Cultures Foundation’s SHIFT – Transformative Change and Indigenous Arts Award, and recognition as a 2025 USA Fellow. Lanzilotti has received additional distinguished fellowships & residencies through The Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center, Casa Wabi, and the MacGeorge Fellowship at the University of Melbourne among others. As a composer, Lanzilotti’s works have been presented at international festivals such as Ars Electronica (Austria), Sonic Arts Biennial (The Netherlands), Un-Earthed: a festival of listening and environment (UK), Ojai Music Festival (USA), and Thailand International Composition Festival; and in halls such as the Philharmonie de Paris and Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre.

Vicki is the Chairperson of the Victorian Aboriginal Corporation for Languages, VACL; the state peak organisation for First Nations language reclamation and revitalisation. VACL has been established since 1994 and continues its work from offices in Docklands.

At RMIT University, she is Lead of Yoonggama, the First Nations Transdisciplinary Research Cohort she co‑designed to forge sovereign, self‑determined, Country‑led approaches to knowledge creation and Indigenous language revitalisation. A respected ARC DECRA Fellow, her research advances revitalisation of Maar languages through Indigenous methodologies grounded in relationality, yarning, and land-based learning.

Vicki is also a Senior Knowledge Custodian for the Possum Skin Cloak Story, renowned nationally for her pivotal role in revitalising possum skin cloak making across south‑eastern Australia. Her multidisciplinary creative practice spans public art, mixed media, performance, and community-based cultural renewal, all oriented toward cultural sovereignty and intergenerational knowledge transfer. Together, her academic and creative work enact a living legacy of language, culture, and Country.

I bring to this role a long history of working to support and promote the health and wellbeing of Aboriginal Peoples, drawing on our strengths in culture and connection to Country. I have worked in rural and remote roles as well as working in the city, in health, education, droving, and heavy haulage, providing me a lifetime of lived experience in a range of settings that I now use in teaching Aboriginal culture and health. I have held various external engagement roles on committees focused on improving wellbeing for Aboriginal Peoples, most recently including the Aboriginal Health Research Ethics Committee (AHREC) overseen by the Aboriginal Health Council (AHCSA) in South Australia.

She is the founder of Mindful Mob Wellness Institute, an award-winning cultural collective, guided by Elders in Victoria and led by healers and trauma informed practitioners promoting the importance of spiritual health and well-being. She has over 15 years of experience working across community-led healing, cultural leadership, creative practice, and public-sector environments. Her practice sits at the
intersection of arts, well-being, creative research and governance, walking the path with firm accountability to Elders, community and Country.

He also currently sits on the Board of Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute, is an Honorary Fellow through the Faculty of Fine Arts (Dance) at University of Melbourne and previously sat on the Board as an Associate of A New Approach (ANA), Australia leading cultural think tank .In 2020 he was appointed as a Lecturer in Contemporary Dance at the University of Melbourne, Victorian College of the Arts, where he launched and led Kummarge, a self-determined mentoring program for First Nations dance students.. Daniel is highly experienced in conducting masterclasses, facilitating workshops and teaching professional company class for a range of organisations, educational institutions and dance companies across Australia and around the world.

In addition to her artistic endeavors, Bianca completed Heke Poutuarongo Reo in 2023, a three-year immersion degree in te reo Māori me ōna tikanga through Te Wānanga o Raukawa. Her accolades include the FAME Mid-Career Award (2024, PANNZ), the Tup Lang Choreographic Award (2019, CNZ), and the Eileen May Norris Scholarship (2013). Her academic background also includes a Bachelor of Performing and Screen Arts from Unitec (2009).

She has worked with various artists and organisations across the Pacific including Sydney Opera House, Oceania Centre for Arts, Culture and Pacific Studies, Netflix and Mad Ones Films, ABC Australia, Creative Australia, Creative New Zealand and Sony Australia. Her work centres on Indigenous Oceanic storytelling, exploring themes of temporality, memory, kinship, technology and knowledge transmission. She has tutored across performing arts and design technology at Te Kura Toi Whakaari o Aotearoa: NZ Drama School, WAAPA, NIDA and guest lectured at Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University (Miramar Creative Centre) and Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT). Emele is a founding member of Studio Kiin, an Indigenous-led creative studio and collective, served as the Creative Director of Talanoa, a platform dedicated to Oceanic digital storytelling, the curator of Melanesian and Oceanic arts event series Tok Talanoa and Tadra Vata, and alongside her husband is a co-founder of the Yavu ni Mataka, an Indigenous Futures focused social enterprise.

Lisa brings a relational, creative approach to the challenging work of shifting the stories and norms of dominant systems. WonderLab’s signature project, Tomorrow Party | Te Pāti Āpōpō, draws on Indigenous conceptions of folding time. Hosted across Oceania, Africa, Europe, and North America, these time-travel encounters invite guests to bring lessons from the past into the future to offer clarity on what matters in the present. It is these playful, embodied experiences that ground Lisa’s commitment to seeding new imaginaries and forging new possible worlds.

By working to whakamana | empower others in reo, tikanga and pūrākau Māori, Kahlil hopes to start discussions on how the systems that shape our world can be shifted to work in harmony with our wider taiao environment. Living on Wurundjeri land, he is excited for the opportunity to commune with other Indigenous tangata peoples, and learn more about this ātaahua | beautiful Country.

The family then moved to Winton where Marlene spent her formative years. Growing up under the cloud of the Aboriginal Protection Act of the 1950s and 60s, Marlene had a ‘grassroots’ upbringing in a very politically aware family.

Marlene’s life is the story of her people and she tells it through her art, her lyrics, her on-stage performance as both an actress and singer and more recently through documentary film making. Marlene refined her skills as a blues saxophonist and songwriter at the Berklee College of Music Boston in the mid-90s and has been performing live for as long as she can remember. A regular broadcaster on Koori Radio with her renowned blues show, ‘Marloo’s Blues’, Marlene won Broadcaster of the Year at the 2009 Deadly Awards and Gadigal Information Broadcaster of the Year 2015. In recent years Marlene has represented Koori Radio at the Byron Bay BluesFest as a roving reporter interviewing major blues artists from around the globe. Also an actor and storyteller, Marlene played the role of Beenie in Nardi Simpson’s play ‘Black Drop Effect’ premiering at the Sydney Festival in January 2020. In 2014 Marlene released her first full-length album, Koori Woman Blues to coincide with the premiere of her biographical documentary film Black Panther Woman that she co-wrote with Rachel Perkins.

Over the past 20 years Marlene has performed with her band at festivals, events and clubs throughout Australia. Considered one of Australia’s foremost Indigenous female blues writer and performer, Marlene knows the blues from an Aboriginal woman’s perspective. Her story is one of vulnerability, strength and survival. A career highlight was performing on saxophone with Charles Neville (Neville Bros) at Snug Harbour New Orleans in 2017.

Marlene presents a biographical journey through her music; a myriad of political, social and personal experiences that content her lyrics and songs. With a mixture of original and traditional blues numbers, the centrepiece and original song is the stirring epic blues anthem, ‘Koori Woman’. Marlene dedicates this song to Aboriginal women everywhere as they were, in her words, ‘the backbone of the struggle’.

His markings are etched into the clay, and are linked to the designs carved into the trees by his Ancestors.

A community weaver, educator, storyteller and musician, Rachel is guided by a deep understanding that Country is our oldest Elder; an ever-present teacher whose wisdom is revealed through relationship, observation and deep listening. She sees patterns and relationships everywhere, understanding that nothing in nature exists in isolation and that it is through recognising these connections that we come to know ourselves, each other, and our place within the living world. Drawing on experience across community development, cultural education, wellbeing and emergency services, Rachel creates spaces where people feel safe to gather, share stories and learn together. Her work honours Indigenous ways of knowing and being while building bridges across cultures, inviting connection, reciprocity and a deeper sense of belonging.

His work has focused on Indigenising ethnodrama to serve as a responsive and culturally safe method of Truth-telling to serve educators, a continuation of his commitment to support the Truth-telling agenda of the survivors of Kinchela Boys Home, along with the experiences of the descendants of the Stolen Generation.

Ron is a deeply cultural man. Coming from a small town of 1000 people, Ron has performed around Australia and internationally as a Didgeridoo soloist and storyteller – from New York to Canada, India to Singapore, Jordan to New Zealand. He also performs regularly as part of the Reconciliation duo, Kinja with his wife, Sarah James, bringing together Indigenous and Celtic Australian music.

As a cultural educator, Ron is passionate about sharing his knowledge on Aboriginal history, the environment and the positive contributions Aboriginal people make to Australian society (Master of Education RMIT University 2009) to challenge racist attitudes and stereotypes.

His most proud work is in the justice sector where he has delivered cultural healing programs over the past 35 years to Aboriginal boys and girls in youth detention (Parkville, Malmsbury & Cherry Creek YTCs) and in out of home care. Using the power of music, storytelling and artifact-making to inspire pride in culture and hope in young people.

Renowned for his bold, multidisciplinary practice, Jacob creates work that moves effortlessly across stage, screen, and large-scale public ceremonies—shaping some of Australia’s most iconic arts events and festivals.

She was raised into an extended whānau including all her grandparents and siblings. She is the eldest of seven, and to date is a part of a five generational whānau. Tūī raised the first 19 mokopuna with her sisters and the first two mokopuna tuarua.A highly skilled Māori performing artist, Tūī is an expert in Mau rākau a Matarua (Weaponry Māori). She specialises in patu (short clubs) and teaches these arts with people throughout Aotearoa, Australia and London. Tūī is also a creator, composer, tutor and first female leader of Te Matarae-i-Ōrehu 1994 – 1997 (top National Kapa Haka), and over the last 35+ years has been a judge for Māori performing art forms from primary through to tertiary level, including senior regionals for Te Matatini and various ahurei and ahurea throughout Aotearoa New Zealand, Hawai’i and Australia. She has performed herself in the ‘creme de la cream kapa haka’ throughout Aotearoa including: Ngāti Rangiwewehi, Te Arahi, Te Rautahi, Tūhourangi-Ngāti Wāhiao, and Waihirere. Tūī has toured extensively nationally and globally leading kapa haka tours and performances as an experienced Cultural Ambassador for Aotearoa New Zealand.