Living Stories — CMY Ballarat
Youth-centred multi-arts project: videopoems, a short documentary, and podcast episodes centering young people in Ballarat.

Role: Creative Producer & Film Director

Overview

Living Stories is a youth-centred, multi-arts project by Centre for Multicultural Youth (CMY) Ballarat, supported by the Australian Government’s Regional Arts Fund through Regional Arts Victoria, and delivered in partnership with Ballarat Central Library and the Ballarat International Foto Biennale.

The project brings Ballarat’s diverse stories and culture to life by creating safe, flexible spaces for young people to explore identity, belonging, language, family and mental health — and to share their voice through words, sound and movement.

As Creative Producer and Filmmaker, I designed and led the filmmaking stream of the project, coordinated creative workshops with local artists (collage, spoken word and movement), facilitated documentary storytelling workshops, and provided one-on-one creative mentoring to young people.

As the project developed, I worked alongside migrant and multicultural young people as they transformed written poems into moving image and sound. This process resulted in Mosaic of Voices: Video Poems (three original video poems), Mosaic of Voices: The Short Film, and three podcast episodes (soon to be released).

To extend the reach of the project, I initiated and facilitated key partnerships with the Ballarat International Foto Biennale and Ballarat Central Library, enabling the works to be presented within major regional arts contexts and engage broader public audiences.

At its core, Living Stories is about perspective — listening deeply, and creating space for young people to be seen, heard, and valued within their communities.