Artists and cultural workers globally are grappling with the urgency of climate change and ecological collapse, asking how creative practice can illuminate pathways forward, strengthen community resilience, and imagine different relationships with the more-than-human world. Across Australia, leading thinkers and practitioners are developing new models of care, sustainability and cultural responsibility—whether through regenerative practices, food systems, music, writing, or reworlding.
This afternoon gathering brings national voices into dialogue with South Australian artists and industry at a moment when many are questioning how their work can respond to the climate crisis. It is both a morale boost for the small-to-medium sector and independents, and a supportive framework for resilience and creative reclaiming. The event acknowledges that COP has been proposed for Adelaide in 2026. While confirmation is still pending, this is a timely touchstone for the sector—sharing what is known, what might be relevant, and how artistic practice can contribute meaningfully in the lead-up to this international moment.
Speakers include: Angharad Wynne-Jones (Creative Climate), Craig Wilkins (Heaps Good COP Working Group), Pippa Bailey (Cultural Practitioner, NSW)
Also featuring invited friends, curators and cultural producers who will contribute to the informal and formal elements and discussions across the afternoon including:
Local organisations:
Andy Packer (Slingsby), ANAT, Nescha Jelk (ActNow Theatre), POP Gallery and Studios and more!
Plus visiting friends:
Maya Martin-Westheimer (curator, Floor Plan Studio, NSW), Lana Nguyen (curator and practitioner, Site School, Creative Climate, VIC), Sebastian Henry-Jones (curator and practitioner, Site School, Cementa, NSW).
Together, the event will be an urgent and generative space for sharing strategies, practices and inspiration—while also exploring the balance of love and loss, and how art might cultivate resilience in times of crisis.
Creative Climate – mobilising through culture and the arts.
Funded by Creative Australia as the national culture, arts and climate action peak body, we come together with a shared intent to respond to and support the sector in climate justice and adaptation. We’re working across policy, practice, research, advocacy, and public programs to build and strengthen the mycelium of artists and organisations working towards climate-aligned cultural transformation. Creative Climate is a First Nations and artist-led national consortium made up of four powerhouse organisations, Green Music Australia, A Climate For Art, Centre for Reworlding and pvi collective and two experienced facilitators and an environmental consultant. https://www.creativeclimate.org.au/about-us
Presenters, Local + Visiting Curators / Practitioners:
Pippa Bailey is an independent producer/director/consultant based on Wangal Land in Sydney. 
Pippa is slow travelling to Adelaide to be with us, and avoids flying as much as possible to try and meet the UN emmissions recommended target of 2 tonnes per person per year (currently 6tonnes - average Australian is 15-18tonnes). Pippa has attended three COP meetings in the past in various capacities and has plans to co-convene a multi-location international cultural symposium to coincide with COP31. She is committed to connecting artistic practice to growing imagination and plans for a fairer future through rehearsing liveable future experiments. Pippa started her career as an actor and reporter/producer with SBSTV. She held leading roles in the UK including The Museum Of on London’s South Bank, oh!art at Oxford House in Bethnal Green, The World Famous – company of pyrotechnicians and Total Theatre Awards at Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Since 2013 Pippa has worked as Senior Producer with Performing Lines, Sydney Festival and in the First Nations team at Carriageworks with Narungga Kauna leader Jacob Boehme, who she continues to work with. All of Pppa's current work explores the role of arts and culture in the Earth Crisis and associated systems change towards transition. She co-convenes the Cultural Gardeners – Australian Cultural Alliance for Climate Justice, is a coordinator with Culture Declares Emergency UK, member of the Australia Institute's Coalition for Climate Ambition, organiser with Rising Tide and Vice Predident of IETM – International Network for the Performing Arts.
Sebastian Henry-Jones (He/Him)
Based in Sydney on Gadigal and Bidjigal Country
Sebastian Henry-Jones' curatorial approach is led by an interest in DIY thinking, and situated in the context provided by the gentrification of Sydney and Melbourne’s cultural landscapes. He is the curator of Cementa 26, an arts festival happening every two years in Kandos, NSW.
In 2024 Sebastian delivered 'Site School (is cool)' with Lana Nguyen as part of Parallel Structures, an ARC research grant initiative. 'Site School (is cruel)' was a context-responsive pedagogical project developed with local members of a community farm in Albury Wodonga. During his time as the curator at West Space, Seb also developed ‘Overgrown’, a day of collective learning through the practices of artists, centred on the notion that looking after the natural environment constitutes significant cultural work, particularly in the context of climate emergency.
Nescha Jelk (She /Her)
Based in Adelaide on Kaurna Country
Nescha graduated from the Flinders University Drama Centre in 2010. For the State Theatre Company of South Australia, Nescha has directed Euphoria (co-pro with Country Arts SA), Single Asian Female, Jasper Jones, Terrestrial, Switzerland, Straight White Men (co-pro with La Boite), Gorgon, Volpone, Krapp’s Last Tape in the ‘Beckett Triptych’ (2015 Adelaide Festival, 2016 MOFO), Othello, Jesikah and Random. Other directing credits include How to Kill Your Husband (State Opera South Australia), Meet Me At Dawn (Gavin Roach Productions), Yerma (Foul Play), Sepia (RiAus/Emily Steel), Hamlet (Actors Folio), Alice and Peter Grow Up (Milk Theatre Collective), As One (Tiny Bricks) and Deluge (Tiny Bricks in association with Brink for the 2016 Adelaide Festival).
Nescha was the Resident Director for the State Theatre Company of South Australia between 2013-16 before co-founding RUMPUS in 2019, an artist-run venue that supported the creation and presentation of independent theatre by South Australian artists. She was also the Artistic Associate of Floods of Fire (Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, Adelaide Festival and the University of Adelaide), a large-scale participatory weekend-long event in the 2024 Adelaide Festival.
Maya Martin-Westheimer (she/her)
Based in Sydney on Gadigal and Birrabirragal Country
Maya is a curator, researcher, and writer whose practice centres around socially engaged art, ecological storytelling, and navigating cultural dialogue. Co-founder and creative director of Floorplan Studio, Maya develops exhibitions, publications, programs and projects that foreground creative storytelling to nurture empathy, community dialogue, and ecological awareness. Her collaborative approach responds to the complexities and urgencies of the present moment, advocating art as integral to deepening connections between people, place, the environment and more than human worlds. Maya is a Sessional Academic at the University of New South Wales and Curatorial and Programs Assistant at Woollahra Gallery at Redleaf.
Floorplan Studio is a curatorial and publishing platform with a focus on ecology, art and culture. Floorplan Studio believe in the power of creativity to reveal meaningful stories and make sense of the world around us. They are committed to facilitating and producing a variety of creative outputs, and we see creativity as a part of everyday life. Led by curator and researcher Maya Martin-Westheimer, Floorplan engages with alternative models for creating social and cultural critique; works have taken the form of exhibitions, documentation, programming and design. Floorplan Studios are fascinated by creative practices and the people behind them and are invested in creating unique platforms for creative engagement.
Have a lovely day!
Lana Nguyen (She/Her)
Based in Melbourne on Wurundjeri Country
Lana Nguyen practices as an independent curator, cultural organiser and producer on projects that stem from the politics of place. Interested in experimental, live and public art, she has worked across the small to medium contemporary arts sector and has recently focused on creating spaces for critical conversations, collective learning and context responsive practice.
In 2023 in partnership with Eliki Reade, Lana Nguyen started A Climate For Art, an organisation that builds the collectivisation of climate response in the arts through fossil fuel divestment in small to medium organisations, as well as growing critical climate dialogues through a community of practice built from an ongoing series of events, creative projects, reading groups and gatherings.
Andy Packer (He/Him)
Based in Adelaide on Kaurna Country
Andy is an award-winning director of theatre, music theatre and opera. He has also worked as creative producer of multidisciplinary arts programs, creative director of large-scale events and festival director. In 2007 Andy co-founded Adelaide based theatre company Slingsby. The company is now well-established as a leading international immersive theatre company, having toured to more than 170 venues, with over 1,000 performances across 13 countries and counting.
Andy is renowned for creating original live performance moments that are emotionally powerful and visually bold. His work across theatre for young audiences, opera, cabaret, music theatre and symphonic concerts has pushed him to develop a distinctive theatrical aesthetic that is at once personal and epic.
Craig Wilkins (he/him)
Based in Adelaide on Kaurna Country
National Director Murray Darling Conservation Alliance, in discussion with an AGSA Curator as they talk about our states reliance and long term relationship with water.
Craig provides national leadership for an alliance of peak conservation groups covering every basin in the state. The Alliance recently released a five-point plan that sets out a vision of how to restore the Murray-Darling to health.
Craig has enjoyed roles in government, politics and the environment non-government sector; he is a current member of the Premier's Climate Change Council. His life goal is to make personal and career choices that help create a healthier, more sustainable society - one that respects community ties and recognises the importance of living well within nature's constraints. He is passionate about a thriving arts community that broadens our collective imagination.
Angharad Wynne-Jones (she/her)
Based in Naarm on on the unceded lands of Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung
Angharad Wynne-Jones is Cymry (Welsh) Australian and lives on the unceded lands of Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung in Naarm (Melbourne). She is Facilitator of Creative Climate, the culture and arts climate action peak body, delivering sector support, engagement, participation and systemic transformation, funded by Creative Australia 2025-2029. She is an independent curator and creative consultant following her leadership roles as Head of Audience Engagement at State Library Victoria (2021- 2024) and Head of Creative Engagement at Arts Centre Melbourne(2018- 2021). From 2011- 2017 she was Artistic Director at Arts House Melbourne where she initiated Refuge – a six year publicly engaged investigation into the role of cultural institutions in climate catastrophes. She was co founder of Chunky Move, Associate Director of Adelaide Festival, Artistic Director and CEO of London International Festival of Theatre and Founder Director of TippingPoint Australia - energising the cultural response to climate change. She designed and delivered the Cultural Leadership MFA course at NIDA and leadership programs with Creative Australia. She is Chair of Aphids and an enthusiastic grower and planter of indigenous trees and grasses.
Michèle Saint-Yves (she/her)
ANAT
Based in Adelaide on Kaurna Country
Over the past four decades since its incorporation in 1988, the Australian Network for Art & Technology (ANAT) has cultivated opportunities for artists to create experimental work in and with science and technology.
Through residencies, symposia, workshops and other professional activities supported by robust national and international networks, ANAT plays a unique and critical role in Australia’s artistic and cultural ecosystem.
