SPEAKERS ...

International Speakers 

	Kim Gowland is Principal Manager: Audience Development at Manchester Art Gallery. She has worked in marketing communications and audience development in arts and cultural organisations in the UK for over 14 years. She has high level arts experience in strategic audience development, marketing communications, media relations, brand development, fundraising communications, events organisation and partnership working.
	Ali Khangela Hlongwane is Curator of MuseumAfricA in Johannesburg and former Chief Curator at the Hector Pieterson Memorial & Museum in Soweto. He is co-editor with Sifiso Ndlovu and Mothobi Mutloatse of Soweto 76 - Reflections on the liberation struggles. He has published essays in numerous journals of African history and Cultural Studies. His main research field is memory, commemoration and the life histories of PAC activists.
	Karen Knutson Ph.D. has a background in art history and art education (curriculum studies). Her research interests include understanding visitor learning and organizational practices in museums, and ways in which academic disciplines are designed and enacted in informal learning environments. As Associate Director of the University of Pittsburgh Center for Learning in Out of School Environments), she works with museums on studies of learning in programs and exhibits.
	Victoria Lu, born in Taipei, is the Creative Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai and a Professor at Shih-Chien University, Taipei. Her long career has spanned both the USA and Asia from her first exhibition in 1965. Victoria curated the 1st International Chinese Animation and Comic festival and will share her insights from her time as Director of the Moon River Museum of Contemporary Art, Beijing.
	Philippe Mora is a French-born Australian film maker and artist currently working in Los Angeles. He draws archives and museums for films which combine the historian’s knowledge and the artist’s eye. Many of his works have been archived as important historical and social documents in the National Archives of the United States and Australian Archives, raising fascinating questions about the uses of historical collections and the diverse ways in which history is interpreted, collected and valued in our society.
	Prapassorn Posrithong has been a dominant force in the field of Thai traditional art and intangible cultural heritage since the early 1990s. Trained in Art History and Museology in both Thailand and India, she is currently manager of the Sirindhorn Museum, Kalasin, Thailand. Prapassorn exhibits, lectures and publishes extensively about her fields of expertise, Thai culture, textiles and museum studies.
	Dirk Staat graduated from Leiden University as a military historian. After a period as researcher with the Army Military History Section, he was in charge of Museum Bronbeek, the museum of colonial military history, for ten years. He transferred to the National Army Museum (Legermuseum) in 2004 as Director of Collections. He is currently occupied with the merger of the Army and Airforce museums into a new National Museum of Military History.
	Jane Wilcox is the Marketing Manager at Manchester Art Gallery in North West England. She has worked in the culture and heritage sector for over twenty years, mostly in market research, marketing, communications and audience development. Jane Wilcox is part of a group that commissions and interprets audience research on behalf of partner venues across the city of Manchester and the North West region.

National Plenary Speakers

Debbie Abraham has been the Director at Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery in NSW since early 2000. She was heavily involved in the processes of building the new gallery which opened in May 2001 and then consequently the extension finished in 2008. During the past 9 years, Abraham has overseen in excess of 150 exhibitions and projects. In particular, she has been responsible for the gallery building a strong and lasting relationship with the local Aboriginal community through many community and cultural development projects resulting in 90% of gallery programs containing Aboriginal content.
 

Aunty Sue Blacklock is a respected Elder of the Tingha community in northern NSW and a descendant of one of the survivors of the Myall Creek massacre. She works tirelessly in her community to care for children, educate women and achieve reconciliation.
 

Sebastian Chan is currently the Manager of the Web Services Unit at the Powerhouse Museum. Coming from a background in social policy, journalism and media criticism as well as information technology, he has been building and producing websites and interactive media since the mid 1990s. The Museum’s online collection database recently won the gold medal for ‘online presence’ at the 2008 AAM Awards in Denver.
 

Jane Clark: From 1982 until 1994, Jane was Curator of Major Special Exhibitions and then Curator of Australian Art at the National Gallery of Victoria: responsible for exhibitions including The Great 18th-Century Exhibition in 1983, Golden Summers: Heidelberg and beyond (with co-curator Bridget Whitelaw) in 1985 and Sidney Nolan: Landscapes & legends in 1987. In 1994 she moved to Sotheby’s, serving as Deputy Chairman of Sotheby’s Australia until 2007 when she joined David Walsh’s new Museum of Old and New Art as curatorial consultant. MONA will open in 2010 and will be the largest private museum in Australia.
 

Carina Clement has worked in public library management in Australia and the UK over a 25 year period. More recently she has undertaken a project management role in the research, planning and implementation of Albury Library Museum – Australia’s first fully converged, award winning Library and Museum complex. Carina’s role as Cultural Manager covers the management of cultural development, audience development, exhibition and educational programming and customer services across library, museum and art gallery services in the City of Albury.
 

Vicki Couzens is a Keerray Wurrong/Gunditjmara woman from the Western Districts of Victoria and has been a practicing artist for the past 20 years. She manages an arts business Kaawirn Kuunawarn Hissing Swan Arts through which she creates her own art works and develops and consults on community art and culture projects. Vicki Couzens received the inaugural Deadly Art Award in 2003 after two of her works sold to the National Gallery of Victoria and is represented in the collections of numerous public Australian galleries. She has undertaken numerous public commissions, most recently to produce a possum skin cloak for the 2006 Commonwealth Games.
 

Edith Cuffe has been Chief Executive Officer of the Abbey Museum of Art and Archaeology since 1995. She co-ordinates the annual Abbey Medieval Festival, the museum’s major fundraiser. The festival is the largest medieval re-enactment event in Australia and attracted over 22,000 patrons in 2008. In 1998, Edith developed a highly successful and innovative archaeological dig program for high school students. It is utilised by thousands of students every year. This program won a Special Commendation at the 2006 GAMA Awards for its educational innovation.
 

Bryon Cunningham: “I ran from a country high school as a math science graduate to pursue my passion in art and design. I left university as a product designer but spent the last 25 years as an exhibition designer running a design practice with a team of architects, interior, graphic, industrial, and multi media designers developing interpretive exhibitions in large cultural institutions. I rate the Immigration Museum and the Australian War Memorial amongst my most satisfying achievements”.
 

Lee Darraoch is a proud Yorta Yorta woman from Dhungula (Murray River). Lee has worked in community arts & community arts education as the Koori Arts Worker for East Gippsland Aboriginal Arts Corporation part-time for the past ten years. Lee is a Director for Riverbark Arts Pty Ltd, a Koori arts & cultural company that she runs together with Treahna Hamm & Vicki Couzens. They, together with Amanda Reynolds, have written a book about possum skin cloaks. Lee’s artwork can be found in many of the major public collections.
 

Donna Fernando is from the Muruwari language group in North West NSW. Fernando began her career in Indigenous education, policy and politics at the Aboriginal Research and Resource Centre (ARRC), University of NSW. Fernando worked with the Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Commission and Australian Electoral Commission and continues her work with the Federal Government on Indigenous policy and projects. Yapang marruma is the second exhibition curated by Fernando for Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery.
 

Patrick Filmer-Sankey, Director of Launceston’s Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery (QVMAG) has more than 25 years of experience in museums, including Deputy Director of the Australian Museum, Sydney and Director of the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory. Filmer-Sankey’s achievements include facilitating a major reorganisation of QVMAG.
 

Lorraine Fitzpatrick has over 15 years experience in the cultural industries sector, including Aboriginal art and craft, museums, art galleries, heritage, local government, community cultural development and management advisory services. She is experienced in project management, research, strategic planning, interpretation plans, curating, writing, art gallery and museum venue planning and management, travelling exhibition development and management and staff and volunteer training. Currently President of Museums Australia, Western Australia.
 

John Heath is a Goori from the Biripi-Dhungutti peoples who is currently employed as an Aboriginal Community & Cultural Development Officer by Port Macquarie Hastings Council. He has almost 40 years experience in Aboriginal community development. John is also a published historian and commenced researching the Thomas Dick Photographic Collection in 1974 on discovering several members of his immediate family were subjects in the photographs. A partial outcome of his work in this area is the upcoming exhibition to be staged at the Port Macquarie Glasshouse.
 

Jacqui Hemsley is currently the Group Leader - Cultural Services at Albury City. She has been working within the Australian public arts industry for nearly 18 years. Jacqui Hemsley has worked in QLD, NSW, Victoria and New Zealand in various management roles within the regional gallery and museum network and has a Masters in Arts (Cultural Heritage) degree in Business and two postgrads in Accounting and Arts & Entertainment Management.
 

Professor Barry McGaw AO is a Director of the Melbourne Education Research Institute at the University of Melbourne and also works as a consultant through McGaw Group Pty Ltd. In the latter capacity, he is working with Delfin- Lend Lease Pty Ltd on the development of the education services model that is used in its community development projects. He also serves as one of the three Editors-in-Chief of the Third Edition of the International Encyclopedia of Education scheduled to be published in 2008. Prior to returning to Australia at the end of 2005, Professor McGaw had headed the work on education at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) from September 1998, serving as the OECD’s foundation Director for Education from September 2002.
 

Libby Newell has over the past two decades has worked as a volunteer, curator, museum adviser and consultant in the volunteer-managed and regional museum sectors. Libby Newell is working as a consultant with the Albury City Library Museum and as a Museum Adviser for Lockhart and Bland Shire Councils. Before setting up her consultancy, she worked as a curator at the Army Museum at Bandiana and Shear Outback: The Australian Shearers Hall of Fame at Hay.
 

Vicki Northey is currently Director of Education & Public Programs, Western Australian Museum. After beginning her career at the Powerhouse Museum in 1986 she took up the position as Director of the Albury Regional Museum where she remained for four years. In 1993 she was appointed as Exhibitions Co-ordinator at the National Museum of Australia. In 1997 she was appointed Head of Gallery Development at the Australian War Memorial where she remained for ten years managing all of the major building and exhibition redevelopment projects. Vicki took up her current position as the Director of Exhibitions, Design and Public Programs at the Western Australian Museum in June 2006. She is currently President, Museums Australia WA Branch.|
 

Amanda Reynolds is a Curator at the National Museum of Australia. She has a particular interest in collaborating with Indigenous communities to develop projects that are beneficial to both the communities and the museum. She has worked on a wide range of programs including collections, exhibitions, festivals and publications. Most recently she edited Keeping Culture: Aboriginal Tasmania.
 

Andrew Sayers is Director National Portrait Gallery, Canberra. After studying at the University of Sydney, he began his career at the Art Gallery of NSW before moving to Newcastle Region Art Gallery as Assistant Director. Previous to his appointment at the National Portrait Gallery he was the Assistant Director (Collections) at the National Gallery of Australia. Andrew has been responsible for several exhibitions of Australian art, particularly in the area of drawing and portraiture. He has written extensively and is the author of Aboriginal Artists of Nineteenth Century (Oxford University Press, 1994) and Oxford History of Art: Australian Art (Oxford University Press, 2001).
 

James Wilson-Miller is the Section Head and Curator of Koori History and Culture, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney and a PhD student in the SELF Research Centre. He is a Koori historian and the author of the book Koori: A will to win. He holds a Centenary of Federation Medal for contributions to Aboriginal issues.
 

Jenny Wright studied Education at University and worked and travelled extensively before returning to Australia and taking up the position at Mowanjum. Previous work included training Aboriginal people to manage a fine art gallery at Birrukmarri, craft marketing, and management of The Artists Foundation of WA. At Mowanjum, Jenny is looking forward to the completion of the museum and interpretive centre. Jenny Wright is very proud to work with the Mowanjum people to realize their dream of a centre that celebrates and preserves their culture.