Culture Makers
The Culture Makers program offered a unique opportunity for Victoria’s creatives to work with Museums Victoria to deliver new audience experiences, and enabled Museums Victoria to expand our engagement with artists and their narratives.
The program worked with Victoria’s artists and creatives from culturally diverse communities to activate museum spaces and galleries through a co-creation process.
Over the course of the four seasons, Culture Makers grew to become a digital story co-making process within Museums Victoria’s awarded Digital Content Studio. This digital story co-making format has generated gallery and immersive experiences.
Season One
WALA: A Journey to Ghana
Immigration Museum
WALA Drum and Dance Ensemble is Odai, Ago, Abli, Aflah, Dan and Kofi. WALA is a drum and dance ensemble from Ghana, West Africa, who hosted a cultural workshop of call and response songs, drumming, and dance, introducing participants to some of their diverse and interesting instruments, stories and cultural history.
Michelle Chen: Mini Melbourne
Immigration Museum and Melbourne Museum
RMIT game designer Michelle Chen delivered workshops for international students to create an online universe and their own Melbourne ‘skin’ through learning the craft of digital gaming.
Michelle invited participants of all backgrounds and abilities to co-create a video game, celebrating the cultural diversity of Melbourne and the common threads that connect us all. Each participant’s creation became a playable character in a virtual recreation of Melbourne and then a collaborative artwork for all museum visitors to play following the workshops.
Maleik Njoroge: Chess Without Borders
Immigration Museum and Melbourne Museum
Kenyan-born, Melbourne-based artist and model Maleik Njoroge established the All Tribes Are Beautiful Lab, an experimental space which creates chess products and curates unique chess experiences. Njoroge produced Chess Without Borders: a celebration of chess, migration, and diversity in our community at the Immigration Museum, encouraging active reflection on chess, art and community.
‘The beauty of the game lies not only in its design and function, but what it offers the community,’ says Njoroge. ‘The game brings a universal language, governed by a logic that can only be appreciated and understood in practice.’
Chess Without Borders was first delivered at the Immigration Museum and later in the Learning Lab at Melbourne Museum.
Olana Janfa: What’s your Gov’ment Name
Immigration Museum
Melbourne-based rising star, Ethiopian-Norwegian artist Olana Janfa presented his exhibition What’s your Gov’ment Name, reflecting on his migrant experience across a series of works that showcased his trademark colour, humour and engaging social commentary.
‘Art has connected me strongly with my culture and given me a way to communicate my ideas and experiences without worrying about having perfect English,’ says Janfa. ‘I love the resourceful imperfection of broken English, and I celebrate it.’
He continues: ‘I am interested in how the “migrant” label dictates people’s experiences, opportunities and social status; how it defines their place within the world. I enjoy using art and humour to open up these kinds of conversations.’
Season Two
Arjumand Khan: Welcome to Scienceworks
Scienceworks
Arjumand Khan, director of STEM Catalyst, delivered two Welcome to Scienceworks events for families, focusing on STEM-based activities. The events included bus travel from Broadmeadows Library to Scienceworks to address the transport barrier that families can experience when participating in site-based activities.
Museums Victoria partnered with Hume City Council Libraries to deliver the Welcome to Scienceworks activities together, including event bookings and promotion through familiar local library locations.
STEM Catalyst promotes and advocates for STEM literacy in culturally and linguistically diverse communities by offering free STEM-based activities to community members from a range of backgrounds. They are role models for new communities, supporting education and gender equity.
Kate Robinson & Maria Birch-Morunga: Threads digital work and education workshops
Melbourne Museum
Threads is a stop-motion animation exploring race, identity and belonging by Melbourne-based artists and co-hosts of the Being Biracial podcast, Maria Birch-Morunga and Kate Robinson. It captures the small, nourishing ways in which culture can be practised, rooting identity in place and rituals – for Maria and Kate a journey of connection with their Māori and Iranian heritages.
An immersive version of the film is located in the Learning Lab and has a permanent home within the Identity Gallery at Immigration Museum. Curriculum based workshops linked to the work were delivered to secondary students.
Irihipeti Waretini: Māreikura
Immigration Museum
Created by Indigenous storyteller Irihipeti Waretini, Māreikura: Ka rere te rongoā | the medicine flows explored traditional Māori sacredness. Portraying a contemporary, dramatic showing of cultural practices and knowledge systems, the exhibition was anchored by a carved pou (pillar) and features stunning photographic portraits of Māori women living in Naarm (Melbourne) with moko kauae (traditional chin tattoos), with additional installations of multimedia art, text film and soundscape.
Māreikura communicated the impacts colonial structures have had on the sacred feminine and spirituality and a gentle reminder of the medicine Indigenous Matriarchs hold for the wellbeing of community, culture and land.
Season Three
Nor Shanino & Ahmed Dini: Ubuntu, I am ‘cause we are
Ubuntu, I am ‘cause we are is Nor and Dini’s digital work which reflects on how the unique features of place and their family migration histories have informed their childhood experiences, memories and dedication to life-long work for their community.
‘As children, we never called our friends or made plans to go out and play, we simply went downstairs to the basketball court. There were always kids around, playing whatever was on TV: soccer, basketball, footy, tennis even cricket. We didn’t have a best friend or a small group of friends, everybody was there and everybody was welcome.’
Ahmed Dini and Nor Shanino’s families migrated to Melbourne when they were young children. Nor and Ahmed grew up in the public housing towers in Flemington and North Melbourne, an experience that has fuelled their work in establishing Ubuntu Project, an organisation which works for the benefit and strength building of their communities.
Logan Tapuala: Siva Afi
Logan’s digital work is dedicated to Siva Afi and the transformational power it has on life.
‘I have two homes: Sāmoa and Australia. It was not always easy finding the balance between living in one and staying connected to the other. I grew up with my cousins, speaking Samoan, going to the beach on the weekends and eating Samoan food. I moved back to Melbourne and my life changed. I began losing my Samoan language, eating junk food and gaming. I felt something was missing and I didn’t know what.’
Then I signed up to learn Siva Afi.’
Logan Tapuala was born in Melbourne but grew up in Sāmoa where his love of Siva Afi, traditional Samoan fire dance, began. After moving back to Australia, Siva Afi helped him to form his identity as a Samoan Australian. He hopes that through performing and teaching Siva Afi he can help others to build their confidence and discipline and feel a connection with Samoan culture.
Feifei Liao and Arti Shah: Return, Where?
This digital work by Arti and Feifei explores concepts of home and belonging. ‘As former international students, we’ve lived in different times and places. Our friendship blossomed through the Beyond Identity series initiated by Feifei. We resonated with each other’s feelings of loss and sense of belonging. One day, we too will return to the land and nature. But our memories, feelings and stories will live on across time and continents, carried by new generations and celebrated in shared meals, festivals and moments of connection.’
Arti Shah is Kenyan by birth, Gujarati Indian by ethnicity and Australian by naturalisation. Her artistry lies in unravelling and understanding narratives through poetry, line art and storytelling. She draws upon her own experiences, reflections and connections with others.
Feifei Liao was born and raised in Sichuan, China, and originally migrated to Melbourne to study. Feifei is the founder of a social enterprise dedicated to bringing diverse communities together through shared experiences, while championing LGBTQIA+ and equity.
Season Four
Thang Van Pham & Pauline Pham
Melbourne Museum
Thang Van Pham and Pauline Pham are a father daughter duo from the Western suburbs of Melbourne. As creators, their voice brings together what came before them, their unity in the present day and their shared dreams for the future as they explore the preservation of cultural identity and family history.
Thang came to Australia as a 21-year-old refugee of the Vietnam War in 1984 with his three younger brothers. Over the last four decades, he has become a husband, father and blue collar worker contributing to shaping modern Australian society. Thang is a storyteller and harbours a love for poetry and written word.
Pauline is a first generation Vietnamese-Australian artist and community worker, inspired by themes of cultural identity, societal expansion and meditation of the present moment. Her practice involves film and visual arts, which are outlets to process the intricacies of nature, community and movement.
Individually, Pauline and Thang have navigated very different Vietnamese-Australian identities, however, they share the experience of creating culture from a fractured sense of self whilst existing in places that never quite felt like home.
Work arriving at the Melbourne Gallery in late 2025.
Youbi Lee & Taka Takiguchi
Youbi Lee is a Korean-heritage, multidisciplinary artist based in Naarm/Melbourne. Her practice encompasses installation, performance, animation, puppetry, and facilitation. Drawing on her diverse skill set and experience, she has created large-scale collaborative arts projects with various communities, councils, and festivals. She works with established organisations like Lemony S Puppet Theatre, Threshold, and Polyglot as a puppeteer, concept designer, and art facilitator.
Taka Takiguchi (滝口貴) is a Naarm/Melbourne-based independent artist and producer of Japanese (Hiroshima) heritage. His practice explores the intersections of personal narrative, cultural identity, rites of passage, and relational phenomena through poetry and movement-based techniques—including the Suzuki Method, Butoh, and shamanic/trance dance.
Work arriving at the Melbourne Gallery in 2025.
Yo Soy Collective
Yo Soy Collective provides a platform for creatives from Latin America to break creative boundaries. Since 2018, Yo Soy has been centring Latin American creative voices and curating projects for artists to create, connect and celebrate culture. Committed to values of courage, nourishment and experimentation, Yo Soy creates a space where ancestral magic intersects with contemporary cultural practice.
Work arriving at the Melbourne Gallery in late 2025.
