These knowledge-sharing sessions are designed to create meaningful opportunities for Hatched artists and graduating Fine Art students to exchange insights, share personal experiences and explore key areas of professional practice.
Each session is co-facilitated by an industry expert and a member of the PICA team, fostering an open and supportive environment for discussion. Artists are encouraged to submit questions ahead of time and take an active role in the conversation, promoting valuable peer-to-peer learning.
The first two sessions of the day – ‘Getting your work out there’ and ‘Accessibility for contemporary artists’ – are designed for all Hatched artists to attend together. The following four sessions, with two running concurrently, are designed to be smaller focus-groups.
Please register for the two focus groups (one for each time slot) that feel most relevant to you, using the dropdown menus.
We will break for morning tea at 10:45am and for lunch 12pm-1pm.
10–10:45am
Getting your work out there: applying for exhibitions, residencies and funding
Facilitators: Miranda Johnson, Public Program & Studio Manager, PICA & Alana Culverhouse, General Manager, PICA
A practical guide to navigating applications for exhibitions, residencies and funding opportunities.
11:15am–12pm
Accessibility for contemporary artists
Facilitators: Claire Billie Bushby (artist) and Jenn Garland, Learning & Access Manager, PICA
A session focused on enhancing accessibility in contemporary art through inclusive practices in creation, presentation and audience engagement.
1–1:45pm
Focus Session: IP and copyright for artists working with new technologies
Facilitators: Helen Simondson, Manager, WA Museum Boola Bardip & Lillian Silk, boorda yeyi Program Manager, PICA
An introduction to intellectual property and copyright essentials for artists exploring and creating with new and emerging technologies.
Register below.
1–1:45pm
Focus Session: Devising and choreographing performance for the gallery
Facilitators: Jo Pollitt, Vice Chancellor’s Research Fellow, ECU
An introduction to devising and choreographing performance specifically for gallery settings.
Register below.
2–2:45pm
Focus session: Developing an environmentally sustainable practice
Facilitators: Susan Hauri-Downing, artist
A practical session on building an environmentally sustainable art practice through mindful materials, processes and long-term ecological thinking.
Register below.
2–2:45pm
Focus session: Artist collectives, self-organising and artist-run spaces
Facilitators: Saar Amphmeijer, artist and former Director, Watch This Space ARI and Mia Palmer-Verevis, Hatched Curatorial Associate, PICA and Cool Change Contemporary, and former board member, Blindside ARI
A discussion about how artists collaborate through collectives, self-organise projects and create and sustain artist-run spaces.
Register below.
Meet the speakers
Claire B. Bushby is an artist and curator based on Whadjuk Noongar Boodjar with over 20 years of experience in galleries, archives, and museums. As Curator at DADAA Gallery in Walyalup/Fremantle, they centred accessibility in their curatorial approach—presenting exhibitions by disabled artists and creating inclusive, multi-sensory experiences. Informed by crip theory, chronic illness, and their experience as an Autistic person, Bushby’s practice focuses on care, interdependence, and ecological connection. They hold a Master of Visual Arts and a BA Honours (Textiles) from ECU, with projects exploring collective making and the impact of social media on creativity. Bushby has exhibited in Taipei, Shanghai, London, and across Australia. As the long-time curator of Stations of the Cross, they brought contemporary, often secular or multi-faith responses to sacred themes in Perth, Bunbury, and Geraldton. They’ve undertaken residencies in Taiwan, Iceland, China, and locally with Spaced, PICA and SymbioticA which continue to inform their participatory, disability-led practice.
Alana Culverhouse is a seasoned arts manager, having been involved in the WA arts and culture sector for over 30 years. Prior to commencing her role as General Manager at PICA, Alana was the Executive Director at Co3 Contemporary Dance. She has helped steer government investment into the WA arts sector through her role at the Department of Local Government, Sports and Cultural Industries and was previously Business Manager at Artrage. With a strategic focus, her areas of expertise include business and financial management, future thinking, strategic planning, event management, fundraising, government administration, contract management and Governance in the nonprofit sector.
Miranda Johnson is a curator and writer based in Boorloo/Perth. She is currently Public Program & Studio Manager at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts and Curator for SPACED. She was previously Chairperson and a founding member of Cool Change Contemporary (2018-21), and director of Moana Project Space (2017-19), both artist-run initiatives. Miranda graduated from Goldsmiths University, London with a Masters with Distinction in Contemporary Art Theory in 2015. She has contributed to arts publications including for Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, PICA, and sweet pea, and is a regular contributor to Seesaw Magazine and ArtsHub.
Jenn Garland is a Boorloo/Perth based arts worker and visual artist with ten years’ experience in social science research for sustainability policy at the CSIRO. She is currently Learning & Access Manager at PICA. As a management committee member for artist-run-initiatives she has supported the local arts community and contributed to strategic direction. This involves being a Committee Member for Cool Change Contemporary (2020-2021), and Co-director and Gallery Manager roles at Paper Mountain (2017-2019). Jenn graduated from Curtin University of Technology with a Bachelor of Arts in 2012, and a Bachelor of Science in Psychology with First Class Honours in 2005.
Lillian Silk is a curator and producer specialising in performance and emergent technologies. She is currently Program Manager, boorda yeyi at PICA. With significant roles at cultural institutions including Carriageworks and Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, she has managed trans-disciplinary artistic programs spanning live performance, visual arts, and multimedia projects. Their curatorial and production work emphasises form, intersection, collaboration and collective advocacy while championing the potential of digital and experimental art practices.
Dr Jo Pollitt is a dancer by trade who lives on Whadjuk Noongar County and works as a Vice Chancellor’s Research Fellow at Edith Cowan University with the Centre for People, Place & Planet and the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts. Her work is grounded in a twenty+ year practice of working with improvisation as methodology across multiple performed, choreographic, curatorial and publishing platforms. As performer, choreographer, writer and dramaturg her work has been commissioned and presented at local and international festivals and venues (Performing Writing in Aotearoa, Judson Church in New York, AGWA, Perth Festival, PICA). Jo was an inaugural Forrest Creative Fellow, is convenor of Dance Research Australia, co-lead of #FEAS: Feminist Educators Against Sexism, & author of The dancer in your hands < >. She is currently working on the multi-year research project Staging Weather.
Saar Amptmeijer is an artist and arts worker working across sound, sculpture, installation, curation and writing. Drawn equally to concepts and materials, their practice follows a kind of magpie logic, forever in awe of the shiny wonder world of material and conceptual exploration. They see art as a vehicle of change, connection and beauty as a way to imagine and experience the radical potential of our world.
Originally from the Netherlands, Saar graduated from the Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht and has exhibited and collaborated at institutions such as the Centraal Museum Utrecht and W139 in Amsterdam and many DIY and non-institutions both in the Netherlands and ‘Australia’. In 2012, they moved to Naarm/Melbourne, and later lived and worked in Mparntwe/Alice Springs, where they supported artists and their making at Bindi and as Director of Watch This Space. They are currently based on Whadjuk Noongar Boodja, working from their studio at Fremantle Arts Centre.
Mia Palmer-Verevis (she/her) is a curator and arts worker from Melbourne/Naarm, based in Perth/Boorloo, with an interest in presenting and producing experimental contemporary art by emerging creatives. Mia is currently the Hatched Curatorial Associate at PICA and is a newly appointed Board Member with Cool Change Contemporary. She has previously served as Public Programs Coordinator and Media Coordinator at Blindside ARI, and has curated exhibitions at Linden New Art, Blindside ARI, and George Paton Gallery.
Susan Hauri-Downing’s art practice focuses on biocultural diversity, ecological grief and interspecies relationships. She has 20 years of experience working with people from diverse backgrounds and her trauma sensitive practice is dedicated to strengthening and improving well-being and the natural systems in which we live.
Helen Simondson is a creative cultural producer, focused on art technology and innovation. She is deeply invested in the nexus of the start-up innovation and the creative and cultural industries. She co-designed and delivered the first Australian Museum led, Creative Tech Business Accelerator, ACMI Xcel: Creative Tech Accelerator. Xcel fosters groundbreaking innovation and helps creative Industries practitioners build viable global businesses.
Her personal interest is in how technology activates innovative ways to engage with new and diverse audiences, and she believes there is cultural and social value in the participatory culture which is rapidly expanding with the rise of portable media platforms.
She is always seeking new challenges where she can apply her broad skill-set in the successful development and delivery of innovative and creative programs.
