Benjamin Akuila (b.2000) is a multidisciplinary artist of Tongan and Irish descent living and working in Eora and Dharug country. Akuila’s work explores ideas of cultural authenticity, and identity performances within the Tongan-Australian diaspora through the material use of clay. Through investigating societal constructs of history, identity, and gender, Akuila utilises humour and heliaki (allusion) to subvert these preconceived notions. Akuila's work reinterprets traditional Tongan artmaking and applies these practices to contemporary materials to explore new narratives of identity.  

Image Credit Jack Rockliffe

Morgan Hogg is an artist and creative producer of Cook Island Māori (Ngāti Tāne), Tahitian and English descent, living and working on unceded Wangal and Dharug lands. Through the perspective of her Kūki Airani heritage, Hogg utilises installation and performance as visual representations of her own exploration of cultural displacement and identity. Making space within her practice to rely on oral exchange between her familial relations and community, Hogg continues the story of her ancestry through maintaining traditional practices within a contemporary lens.

She has completed a BVA(Hons)/ BAS (Film studies) at Sydney College of the Arts, The University of Sydney. Currently completing a Masters of Fine Arts at the University of Sydney. Hogg has exhibited and performed works at Firstdraft, Performance Space, Beirut Art Centre, Sculpture by the Sea, Bankstown Arts Centre, SCA Gallery, Casula Powerhouse, PICA, Carriageworks, Blacktown Arts Centre and the Art Gallery of NSW.

Bria McCarthy creates art for theatre, literature, film and education, specialising in experimental shadow puppetry. She created the ‘Shadow House’, a textile sculpture shown at the Art Gallery of NSW and Penrith Real Festival. Her solo show ‘Dragon Hearts’ won the 2023 Sydney Fringe Award for Best Emerging Artist. She was the 2022 ACE Indigenous Artist Resident, and her debut manuscript was shortlisted for the 2022 Text Prize. She is an autistic artist with Wiradjuri and Irish heritage. Her work is characterised by an emphasis on multispecies storytelling, neurodivergent imagination, and it is always a little magical.

Image Courtesy of the artist

Yuwaalaraay wirringgaa Lucy Simpson is Creative Director and Principal Designer / Maker behind Gaawaa Miyay; a First Nations process-led studio based practice inspired by country, relationships and notions of continuity and exchange.

Grounded in and guided by the timeless and sophisticated philosophies of Aboriginal design, Simpson’s Wangal / Sydney-based multi-disciplinary practice connects to narratives of country and continuity through function, materiality, and transfer. Her practice as a designer/maker and exhibiting artist encompasses a wide range of applications spanning commercial, conceptual, and community-based projects and collaborations, utilising a diverse range of materials and techniques including fibrework, textiles, jewellery, glass, graphic design, illustration, ceramics, sculpture, and public art.

A graduate of UNSW Art and Design and current PHD Candidate at the University of Technology Sydney, both Lucy’s creative practice and research focuses on the continuing role of First Nations design as tool and conduit to baayangalibiyaay / interconnected notions of wellbeing (people and place).

Chris Chen is a Gadigal / Sydney based photographer with a diverse folio of work encompassing food and lifestyle, interiors, portraits and travel. Lucy and Chris have worked together for fourteen years and exhibited collaborative works at the Australian Design Centre, Canberra Glassworks, the Powerhouse Museum, Granville Centre Art Gallery, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, and most recently at the Passage du Grand Serf with Galerie IDIA France.