Minutes:
MAV (Multicultural Arts Victoria) Annual General Meeting 2024
Date: Tuesday 28 May 2024
Venue: Melbourne Polytechnic - Building F, Elaine Forde Lecture Theatre
The Meeting opened at 6.20pm
1. WELCOME AND APOLOGIES
1.1. Acknowledgement of Country
The AGM takes place on the lands of Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung peoples, of the Kulin Nation. We are the recipients of 65,000 years of storytelling and gathering, on Country. It is with the deepest respect MAV acknowledges that we live, work and celebrate on unceded Aboriginal land. We thank all Elders, past and present for their care, knowledge and generosity as custodians of the world’s oldest continuing culture. We pledge our support towards truth telling, reparation and decolonisation. We open our hearts and minds to deep listening, learning, sharing and connecting- in solidarity with First Peoples here in Australia and around the world.
1.2. Welcome
Master of Ceremonies Samuel Gaskin welcomed everyone to the AGM and spoke about the purpose of MAV’s Annual General Meeting, which is:
• To give members and the public a report on the organisation's activities and finances for the previous year
• To elect and welcome new directors to MAV’s Board.
• To provide an opportunity to meet the people behind the organisation and the community it serves.
Indicate where food, toilets and voting booths are. Inform audience that votes will be cast on the way out, and when the elected Board Directors will be announced.
2.
The AGM marks an opportunity to bring our communities along with a shared vision. Beyond the experience the AGM, we hope everyone will share the experience of growth, as we evolve with purpose.
1.3. Apologies
We received apologies from Board members Emiliano Zucchi, and Ayesha Bux, and Patron Jason Yeap OAM.
Reports
Chairperson’s report: Linda Catalano:
In 2023, we celebrate 50 years of Multicultural Arts Victoria (MAV). This significant milestone offers a timely opportunity to reflect on MAV’s rich history, the origins and importance of multicultural arts, and why our current work championing culturally diverse artists and communities remains as vital as ever. As we embark on our next 50 years, we do so with a strong commitment to ensuring MAV continues to be a critical voice for the empowerment of diverse creatives and their communities. We aim to build on MAV’s remarkable legacy with renewed energy, new leadership, and a new office at Melbourne Polytechnic, where we will be able to welcome our community of artists, supporters, and friends into a world of creativity and inclusivity through the arts.
We are delighted to welcome Lauren Mullings to MAV as Acting CEO. Lauren brings boundless energy, immense creativity, and thoughtfulness to her role, and we are grateful for her leadership. Following the departure of Andy Miller as Co-CEO/General Manager, Lauren stepped up to take on the role of Acting CEO. We thank Andy for his long service and commitment to MAV and acknowledge his significant contributions over the past nine years.
Under Lauren’s leadership, MAV is developing a new approach to programming that will build upon the outstanding programs delivered at home and abroad in 2023. MAV supported Sangam, a festival of music, dance, spoken word, comedy, classical, and experimental performances, created pathways for young artists with Future Reset, in partnership with Vic Health and through the NewPrint program supported up-and-coming live event producers from culturally diverse backgrounds to make their mark on the local arts scene. MAV had a presence at the Melbourne International Jazz Festival with the Beyond Words panel discussion and delivered the ambitious Resonance, a performance at Melbourne Museum featuring 50 live performers from our Diaspora program. We also toured Purbayan in South Africa which marked a return to international work following the pandemic.
The board makeup shifted in 2023. I was honoured to be elected as MAV’s first female Chair this year, taking the reins from Michael Van Vliet, who continues to serve on the board as Secretary. We said goodbye to Shankar Kasynathan and thanked him for his service, and we welcomed new board members Ayesha Bux and Emiliano Zucchi. They joined existing board members Neda Rahmani (Deputy Chair), Ursula Dyer Lepporoli (Vice Deputy Chair), Sandeep Agrawal (Treasurer), Siu Chan, Amarantha Robinson, Aditi Razdan, Srini Srinivasan, and Aala (Board Observer).
I extend my heartfelt thanks to the volunteer board members for their enthusiasm, knowledge, dedication, and the hours they tirelessly dedicate to MAV. I also want to express my deep gratitude to Michael for his extraordinary service and commitment to MAV over nine years, including five as Chair, as well as for his generosity and support as I transitioned into the Chairperson role. Srin Srinivasan, who has served on the board for six years, will also be departing. I thank Srini for his wonderful contribution, commitment, wisdom, insight, and experience. I am so grateful to both Michael and Srini for their work and support of MAV.
I believe it is important to acknowledge the distress caused by conflicts across the globe and the impact these conflicts have on the multicultural communities we serve. The conflict between Russia and Ukraine and the growing crisis in the Middle East are profoundly affecting many in our communities. Our hearts are with those who are suffering or grieving the profound loss of friends and loved ones because of these conflicts.
Finally, I would like to extend my sincere thanks to our dedicated staff for their outstanding work, and to all our members, funders, and supporters who continue to back our programs. Your support is invaluable and deeply appreciated. It is an enormous privilege to lead MAV, and I look forward to the exciting journey ahead.
Acting CEO Lauren MullingsAs the incoming Acting CEO, I am thrilled to be sharing this space and talk about MAV’s journey over 2023 with you. Welcome - our community of artists, supporters and friends.
I am delighted you could join us in our new home at Melbourne Polytechnic. I think it fair to say after experiencing a year uncertainty, I can’t help but feel we are living the dream right now. What a joy - to be part of a bigger network of Melb Polys throughout the state and to be on Wurundjeri country, cared for by the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Traditional Owners. How lucky are we?
We are so grateful to so many of you - our valued patrons, former CEOs and Executive Team, board members and board members to be. MAV operational team whose names for their resilience, hard work and generosity over the last months and years. There have been difficult times to say the least.
There are too many people to mention so I thought I’d disappoint everyone by paying respects to my own Elders instead, Victoria Mullings, my mum BritishAustralian mother and my Father, Jamaican father Winston Mullings. I was pleased to see my own coordinates of belonging - look that up on our Retrospection page later if you are not sure what that it - embedded at MAVwhen I opened the book giving voice and saw the face of Uncle Sassy staring back at me. “Chef” as he is known in my community, was one of the many Caribbean diaspora people, that left Jamaica at the height of violence in the 80s and ended up in my home in Jordanville (if you haven’t heard of it, it’s because they took it off the map). This is the kind of people my parents were, and this was the way they approached community - with love and kindnesswelcoming everyone in. I think of those values when I think about MAV and our commitment to making sure culturally diverse artists and artforms are recognised and valued in our society.
It is NOT enough to point out the excellence such creatives have to offer or their contributions that can be seen, listened to and watched all over the country. If we have a dream at MAV, it is that artists come home to us, and to a place where they can celebrate their whole selves.
So to 2023 and the year of sustained effort to ensure artists and communities and their livelihood remained at the centre of every conversation - connected to and counted on these lands.
The ground may have been shaky, and yet there we were: finding our feet again, deep in foundational work, supporting extraordinary new works of cultural significance such as Sangam, celebrating the emergence of groundbreaking youth-determined frameworks in partnership with VicHealth on Future Reset, and gently guiding diverse artists to redefine music industry practice through Newprint.
We secured our future and demonstrated our relevance to the wider Australian creative ecology through securing a new round of multi-year funding beginning in 2025, with a newly rebranded Creative Australia. We held on to our connections with artists, while delivering social impact and resources, refining strategies for employing artists through the Cultural Agency and connecting them with resources through Auspicing and Avenues of Support.
Our goals were no less ambitious. We collaborated interstate through the tour of Purbayan Chatterjee and across the shores in South Africa, as Beyond Words sought market intelligence and brought a fresh exchange of practice and knowledge with artists on Yorta Yorta country.
And on one unforgettable day in July, six culturally significant Artists Of ColourVicki Kinai (PNG), MzRizk (Lebanon), Katherine Gailer (Colombia), Julie Ann Minaii (Japan/Hawaii), Irihipeti Waretini and Bella Waru (Aotearoa) - wove their scared art forms into one incredible performance featuring 50 live performers, disrupting the Melbourne Museum with movement, song, ceremonial collaboration, feasting, film and immersive art. Produced from within the cultural support of a burgeoning Diasporas community, Resonance was not just visually arresting but a triumph; a tapestry of mapping ancestral journeys to the sacred Kulin lands the artists now call home.
We were generously bestowed experience, cultural insight and advice from our Advisory communities, which included Elders and stalwarts of the creative sector.
We rode the waves of many challenges, acknowledging always that recovery from the impacts of COVID will take time and well targeted resources. We learnt through difficult moments and sometimes burnout that our wellbeing must be considered, too, if we want to connect meaningfully with our artistic community.
We remain optimistic. But specific to our role in the sector, we understood that a future- facing MAV must acknowledge and address the barriers our culturally diverse artists face in ways that challenge our very own critical thinking, andlean toward practices that uplift and empower, that actively dismantle white supremacy and racist systems of oppression.
We must continue to ‘stand on business’ and build trust. Access to resources across the arts funding landscape - as widely reported in the media - remains a serious challenge, and especially brutal given the intersection of artists we work with. Unpredictable and extreme weather continues to impact the livelihoods and well-being of local and global communities, disproportionately impacting marginalised communities, refugees, women and First Nations peoples.
Our web of trust, cultivated in our shared love of art, has suddenly become the essential toolkit for survival. Art and artforms that advocate for truth, First Nations representation and promote immigration as a key asset have become the very fabric of our networks of support as communities experience displacement, flee war and persecution, or are systematically silenced. We must continue to be driven by this profound commitment to exceptional artists, whose art is crucial to defining who are and want to be as a society.
MAV’s engagement may be a brief window into an artist’s practice, but for that moment it is our duty to celebrate, recognise and credit their creative contributions, labour, bravery and the excellence they bring, and to ensure their contributions are not overlooked, now or in the future.
MAV remains focused on building a post-pandemic equitable future - exploring real world pressures of employment and participation, through artistic practice and exploring themes such as social connection, mental health, arts leadership, and social record through arts practice.
We are working closely with new and emerging communities to connect them with opportunities that increase participation and economic opportunities, while cultivating our legacy communities.
We are deeply grateful to our funders, partners, sponsors and donors who enable us to create such positive social impact and visibility for critically underrepresented artists, providing not just financial means, but connection, networks, care, advice and opportunities to further our vision. Thank you to the MAV Team for your hard work and dedication in the face of such challenging times. It is through your safeguarding of artistic expression, care for artists, and ability hold space that MAV continues to grow, support and redefine the role of culturally diverse artists in the creative sector and in history.
3. MINUTES OF THE PREVIOUS MEETING
3.1. 2023 Minutes
These were distributed by email to members prior to the AGM. The Secretary asked the members for questions or amendments on the Minutes of the 2023 AGM. There were no questions or amendments.
3.2. Motion for the Minutes of the 2022 AGM held in 2023 to be accepted.
3.2.1. Motion Moved by Ursula Dyer Lepporoli (Deputy Vice Chair)
3.2.2. Motion Seconded by Chidambaram Srinivasan
A vote was taken to accept the Motion.
Motion passed unanimously.
4. FINANCES
4.1. Treasurer’s report andsubmission of annual financial statement to members by Sandeep Agrawal. Sandeep reported that there had been a marked improvement in our 2023 financial performance with a small deficit of $14,000 reported.
5. DEPARTING BOARD MEMBERS
5.1. Departing Board Members Michael van Vliet, Chidambaram Srinivasan, Aditi Razdan and Amarantha Robinson were thanked and presented with gifts.
FAREWELL SPEECH by C.S.Srinivasan (Srini)
I wish to thank the Chairperson, Board Members and the staff for all your assistance and cooperation to me in my work with MAV over the last 6 years. I value the friendship and the many kindnesses you have shown to me over the 6 years I have had the good fortune and privilege to work together with you.
I learned a lot from you all and hopefully became a better person. If I may take the liberty of a few comments based on my learnings from the work at MAV and with the communities.
In your work, I encourage you to adopt the positive attitude of "playing with the cards dealt to us", as they say, understanding the limitations and doing the best you can instead of tilting at the windmills.
However, one should not hesitate to speak up or advocate with all concerned Government and other Agencies, on issues which are important and beneficial to our diverse arts communities even though they may not seem popular.
I know you all have the wisdom and strength to do this prudently. As Edmund Burke said, "the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men(& women) to do nothing".
I am confident that you will all keep working on important initiatives to promote services to the diverse arts communities. Also, please advocate vigorously for Arts and Culture initiatives which need to be given more attention and funding as they will go a long way to enable sharing of cultures and values.
This will provide a great boost to empowering the migrant communities through encouraging them to be confident about their identity, cultures and traditions while at the same time being engaged citizens and not living isolated from others.
Our society in Victoria is a fine example for multicultural success with relative harmony. However, one of our main challenges is how we harness further our civic & arts potential and how we promote social cohesion and inclusion, as engaged citizens, for the benefit of all Victorians with the whole society and not just the “mainstream”.
If I can be of any assistance to MAV in future in any of your initiatives, I am ready and willing to serve, in the hope that my life experience, knowledge of community arts issues and community connections may be of some value.
Finally, I’d like to applaud Michael van Vliet who has served MAV over many years in his own quiet and unassuming manner.
(Michael also gave a short speech thanking MAV for the opportunity to serve).
6. PERFORMANCE
6.1. Nyarath Gatkuoth is was introduced by Sam. Nyarath is an Australian/South Sudanese spoken word poet, writer and facilitator balancing the conflicts of her creativity on the unceded land of the Boonwurrung and Wurundjeri people. With loud passion, she hopes to bring together life’s quiet moments to unite audiences. Through her practice, she hopes to inspire others to create, make and most importantly, connect.
7. GUEST SPEAKER
7.1. Leah Manaema Avene of Co-Culture is a mother, musician, broadcaster, facilitator and educator of Irish and Tuvaluan ancestry whose work focuses on personal, relational, collective andsystemic repair, healing andtransformation. Leah has been working closely with the team to support them in facilitating the next journey and era of MAV.
8. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Our funders:
• Creative Australia, the Australian Government’s principal arts and investment body.
• Creative Victoria.
• City of Melbourne
• City of Darebin
• Greater Shepparton City Council
Our hosts:
• Melbourne Polytechnic including Chief Executive Frances Coppolillo and Trent McCarthy, Director of Precincts and Sustainability
Our Patrons:
• Jason Yeap OAM
• Hon. Ted Baillieu AO
Guest speaker and artists:
• Spoken word poet Nyarath Gatkouth
• Leah Avene from Co-Culture
The operational team behind MAV
• Lauren Mullings, Acting CEO
• Renata Zimbarg, Programs Manager
• Theresa Angela, Marketing Communications Manager
• Miriam Abud, Artist Development Co-Ordinator
• Jose Tortabu, Administrator
• Adriana Garcia, Accounts Assistant
• Oscar Jimenez, Music Projects Producer
• Damon Paraha, Cultural Agency Coordinator
• Noah daCosta, Digital Media Officer
• James Emmanual Mckinnon, Creative Lead
• Ane Fotu, Shepparton Culture Kitchen Coordinator
Board of Management 2023:
• Linda Catalano, Board Chair
• Neda Rahmani, Deputy Chair
• Ursula Dyer Lepporoli, Vice Chair
• Michael van Vliet, Secretary
• Sandeep Agrawal, Treasurer
• Aditi Razdan
• Amarantha Robinson
• Ayesha Bux
• Chidambaram Srinivasan
• Emiliano Zucchi
• Kylie Crane
• Sui Chan
• ... and board observer, Alaa Karrar.
9. ELECTION OF BOARD MEMBERS.
9.1. Each prospective Board Member was invited to speak for one and a half minutes. There were 22 nominations as follows:
• Anindita Banerjee
• Annisa Li Zhang
• Ayesha Bux
• Belle Lim
• Dada Li
• Daizy Maan
• Daniele Noel
• Deepa Mani
• Effie Nkrumah
• Emily J Hoe
• Francesca Valmorbida
• Johannes van Delft
• Kai Kasad
• Manjusha Manjusha
• Mei-Leng Hooi
• Molina Asthana
• Neda Rahmani
• Patrizia Fimiani
• Sandeep Agrawal
• Shivani Narsai
• Sneha Varma
• Vin Vijayan
The elected candidates were Neda Rahmani, Effie Nkrumah, Sandeep Agrawal, and Daizy Maan. Each has been elected for a three-year term.
7. Close 8:30pm