About

You Are Here is a Canberra based, independent arts organisation dedicated to supporting artists in developing their practice and fostering critical community. 

Our purpose

Foster critical community, nurture artist development.

Deeply embedded within the community, You Are Here aims to nurture the development of Canberra artists. You Are Here is constantly becoming; never finished or polished; rather open and alive to the possibilities present in failure. 

Our organisation is producer and artist-led. We believe in tangible support for artists, and inclusivity and accessibility for artists and audiences. We believe in opening out and challenging the definition of art, and blurring boundaries between art forms. We keep barriers to entry low with collaborative and engaging experiences for artists and audiences. 

What we do

We’ve become more than a festival.
We are:

An artist and producer development program

That means that we help Canberra artists to develop their artistic practice, skills, relationships, values, audiences and opportunities. We work with artists from all artforms who are engaged with some form of experimentation. We also work with emerging creative producers, and train them in You Are Here’s unique model of producer engagement.

An artist’s residency

Our core activity is an 8-month program called Cahoots. We select a diverse group of Canberra artists and/or producers (8 per year), and create a bespoke development experience for each of them. We identify a way to measure the development of their practice in a way that makes sense for them, and then we work alongside them to make sure that development happens. Cahoots artists are selected through an open public callout at the start of each year.

A critical community of artists

Canberra artists have told us the thing they want the most is to be part of an artistic community that is supportive, critically engaged, and intellectually rigorous. A place where their own artistic practice is forced to develop against a high standard, where they feel safe to experiment and take creative risks. Cahoots aims to model this kind of environment on a small scale, so that it can be ultimately achieved in the Canberra arts community as a whole.

A value-driven organisation

You Are Here has a strong set of guiding principles that drives what we do, what we won’t do and where to focus our efforts. These are driven by our primary values – accessibility and inclusion for artists and audiences, relationship-building as the core of best practice, and experimentation as an essential societal and artistic need. Any working model we create for artists and audiences is based around these values.

An arts and events presenter


The secondary activity of You Are Here is to connect experimental artists with audiences. We produce an annual season of arts events that represent the shared ideas and values of our Cahoots artists and the creative communities that they are a part of. Cahoots Lab takes place over the last three weekends of September. We exclusively present work that is in development by Cahoots artists and their collaborators.

A peak body for experimental and innovative arts in the ACT

Across ten years of operation we have developed unique expertise in the areas of artistic production and innovation, across all artforms. Our models for connecting general and specific audiences to innovative and exciting arts activity are the equal of any in Australia. Our staff and board are experts in the many nuanced details and mechanics that make up high quality arts production.

Who we are

Our organisation is producer and artist-led.

Staff

(they/them)

Ketura begins their fourth year with You Are Here in 2022. They are an arts administrator with over a decade of experience. They have worked as a stage and production manager for independent theatre companies around Australia and are highly experienced in event management. They have worked for Canberra based arts organisations as a creative producer or event manager including Ainslie Gorman Arts Centre, Dionysus (Art, Not Apart) and Little Dove. Ketura was the Front of House Manager at The Street Theatre, and an events manager on the Haig Park Experiments. Ketura is also the Creative Producer for CLUBSCORE, a Canberra based queer art and sport collective. Ketura is a performer and director, has studied performance with Perform Australia and holds a Diploma in Live Production from Melbourne Polytechnic. Ketura is the Deputy Chair of the Minister’s Creative Council.

(any/all)

Former You Are Here President

Nick Delatovic is a creative producer and interdisciplinary artist from the ACT.

Nick has served as a creative producer for You Are Here since 2011, and in this time has produced hundreds of art events across dozens of different artforms. He has also worked in an artist development/ creative producer role for Screen ACT and Noted Festival. Nick is an alumni of The Street Theatre’s Hive program for emerging writers and has acted as a writer, producer and performer on multiple national and international touring works. He has been active as a musician and bandleader in the ACT music scene since 2002.

(she/her)

Julia Boyd has over a decade’s experience in arts marketing. Julia is passionate about working directly with artists to communicate about the Arts in an accessible way. Having worked at the ANU School of Art & Design, Belconnen Arts Centre, White Cube Gallery (London), as a freelancer with Shout Out Arts and You Are Here, Julia brings a wealth of experience to her marketing and producing roles. Highlights include executing campaigns for the ACT’s Community Cultural Inclusion Program and for the completion of Belconnen Arts Centre’s Stage 2 capital works program. Having joined Cahoots in 2019 in a development role, Julia has utilised her new Creative Producing skills in professional roles with You Are Here.

(she/her)

Zora\Linyi Pang is an organiser and a creative producer whose practice cares for the creative communities she is in and contributes to the process of making creativity accessible and paid. Her recent collaborative projects included #Water_Voices (on-going since 2019) and Wǒ-in-process (wǒ[我]: I, me) (2020). Zora works collaboratively or collectively, and sees supporting, resourcing, documenting, organising, facilitating and reflection as part of her creative process.

Board

(She/her)

Vanessa Wright is a creative producer based in the NT with experience in multi-arts festivals and grass roots creative spaces. Vanessa has worked nationally for organisations including Melbourne Fringe Festival, Liveworks Festival of Experimental Art, Ainslie and Gorman Arts Centres and is currently the Senior Producer at Darwin Festival. Vanessa has previously participated in Next Wave’s Kickstart Helix program and is an Australian member of the Asian Producers Platform. She started her producing career at You Are Here Festival in 2011, and was a co-director from 2013-2016. She has been a member of the You Are Here Board since 2016.

(She/her)

Rochelle has worked as a performer, theatre director, dramaturge, writer, educator, producer, event manager and tour manager. Rochelle’s experience is broad traversing main stage to independent theatre and performance, festival management and curation, dramaturgy, and creative development for different cultural communities across Australia. Rochelle is currently Program Manager at Ainslie and Gorman Arts Centres, delivering a multi arts program of activities for artists and audiences. She deeply cares about the role of arts and culture in contemporary contexts. She was part of the producing team for You Are Here Canberra in 2016 and 2017, and is a passionate supporter of independent arts practice.

(they/them)

Morgan is a producer of many things – video games, arts festivals, and creative arts projects. They have worked as a Producer for Crack Theatre Festival (Newcastle, NSW, 2018-19) and You Are Here festival (Canberra, ACT, 2015-2017), and as a Creative Producer on a number of shows that have toured across Australia.

They are particularly interested in developing sustainable practice for artists and festivals, to avoid creative burnout and mitigate environmental impact. Currently based in Naarm (Melbourne, VIC), Morgan works as an Associate Producer on Gods Unchained, a digital trading card game.

(She/her)

Deb Cleland is an artist, a political adviser and a visiting fellow at the ANU’s School of Regulation and Global Governance. Over the last 15 years, she has worked on various community boards and government committees, as well as in physical theatre, academia and conservation. On the You are Here board, Deb aims to bring her work on participatory democracy, justice, sustainability and social inclusion into arts governance.

Ordinary members

(She/her)

Alice Fleming is a creative producer in theatre and film. Her producing practice is focused primarily on community-engaged projects. She has extensive experience in touring performance work to international markets. For Australia’s Back to Back Theatre, she produced their first feature film SHADOW, created in collaboration with the ensemble of actors who are perceived to have intellectual disabilities. The project also undertook an ambitious internship initiative that nurtured 30 artists identifying as having a disability to work as paid placements across the entire production in all departments. She is currently co-designing a project in Berlin for the Humboldt Forum which will work with a group of young people over a five-year period modelled on previous projects commissioned by the London International Festival of Theatre which she co-designed. 

(She/her)

Joanne is a Conservator and specialises in objects, photo, film and sound, time-based media, plastics and materials analysis.  She is currently a Senior Conservator at the Australian War Memorial in Ngunnawal and Ngambri country. Prior to this, she worked in the Middle East for 15 years in Conservation and Art History. She completed degrees in Conservation Science, Middle Eastern and Central Asian studies, and Media Arts, and has a deep interest in experimental and contemporary art practice. She also currently sits on the ACT Historic Places Advisory Committee and is Secretary of the AMaGA Art, Craft and Design National Network.

(he/him)

Maarten is a lawyer, radio producer, DJ and event organiser, with experience in running not-for-profit organisations and being an artist. A litigation lawyer with some 20 year’s experience, Maarten has transformed his legal practice from predominantly dispute resolution matters into providing advice to musicians and the music industry (record companies, festivals, and the like) over the last 10 years. Maarten runs a radio program, Liquid Sunshine, which was first broadcasted here in Canberra on Artsound FM and then 2XX FM. Liquid Sunshine show now broadcasts on The Face Radio in Brooklyn, NYC to a significant local and worldwide audience. 

(they/them)

Jess (Semler) is an emerging visual artist & organiser working on stolen Ngunnawal & Ngambri lands, with a love for experimental arts practice and for sustainable, intentional and tender teamwork. From 2020-2021 they worked with Tributary Projects (ARI & Gallery) in assisting the establishment of a new working team. They continue this interest in building sustainable working practices – with a focus on conversation & relationship as methods in both arts and organising practices’. Currently they work out of their backyard studio, practice breathing in the garden, and work on odd jobs across town.

(she/her)

Lavanna Neal is the head of people and place at local cultural development and place management company, Dionysus. In her work she focusses on curating places and experiences that are welcoming and bring joy to people’s lives. Lavanna has previously worked in event management, festival curation and small business management; as well as many years in hospitality and the cinema industries. As the festival manager for Art, Not Apart for two years, Lavanna has worked with hundreds of Canberra and interstate artists, and continues working with creatives in her role at the City Renewal Authority as the precinct place manager. This includes managing multiple programmes, activations, installations, and stakeholder interactions across the City, Braddon and Dickson. Lavanna is a keen advocate for public art and inclusiveness in public spaces; a connector of people; and a fierce supporter of the under-represented.

You Are Here is supported by the ACT Government through artsACT