Fluid Memories: The Waiting

Chung Nguyen is a Vietnamese dance artist, somatic movement facilitator and registered Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapist based in Naarm/Melbourne. His work is situated at the intersection of choreography, live art, and healing through interdisciplinary, embodied, and participatory approaches. His current interests are in the examination of his personal political stories and Queer identity in relation to Vietnamese culture and history – exploring the dialogue between embodied cultural knowledge and new lived experiences within the context of his Australian migrant experience. His performances and cross-cultural and interdisciplinary collaborations have been presented at international venues and platforms across Southeast Asia, Australia, the United States and South Korea, including Temperance Hall and Dancehouse (Melbourne), Cont-act Contemporary Dance Festival (Singapore), No Cai Bum Art Week and Performance Plus (Vietnam), American Dance Festival; The International Choreographers Residency (USA), to name just a few. 

James Nguyen is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice moves between live and online performance, video, drawing and installation. He often makes work in collaboration with family and friends, inviting them to respond to specific sites using readily available materials. Processes of research and conversation play key roles in his practice, which examines strategies of decolonisation, while also interrogating the politics of family history, displacement and diaspora. James has received several prizes and awards, including the Clitheroe Foundation Scholarship, the Nillumbik Prize for Contemporary Art, and the Anne & Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship. Recent solo exhibitions include Re:Tuning (with Victoria Pham and collaborators), 2022, Sydney Opera House; Re:Sounding (with Victoria Pham and collaborators), 2021, Samstag Museum, Adelaide, 2021; and BLEED Festival 2020; Homesickness (with Nguyen Thi Kim Nhung), a commission by the Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 2018; and BuffaloDeer(with Nguyen Ngoc Cu), Westspace, Melbourne, 2016. 

Carolyn Schofield is a Vietnamese-Australian synthesist and composer (aka Fia Fiell), who crafts meditative, dreamlike and powerfully immersive sonic worlds. Her fluid approach to time and distinctive electronic palette express both the deeply human and metaphysical. As Fia Fiell, she performs on multiple keyboard synths, bathing audiences in nebulous melodic cycles and spectral drones. A sought-after performer across the electronic and experimental landscape, she has graced the stages of institutions such as the National Gallery of Victoria, Sydney Opera House and Melbourne Recital Centre, and has been commissioned by MESS Ltd, the Australian Art Orchestra and more. Her work spans film/installation scores, theatre, spatial works, ensemble works and rock/dance music collabs. 

Gav Barbey is an interdisciplinary artist with over 35 years of practice spanning visual art, performance, filmmaking, design, and community activation. His work is grounded in collaboration and participation, inviting audiences, communities, and environments into the creative process where the boundaries between artist and viewer dissolve. Originally trained in commercial arts, Gav completed a degree in Theatre and Film at the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA), majoring in production, set and costume design. He has worked as an exhibiting artist and filmmaker for nearly three decades, and has undertaken postgraduate study in Transformative Studies, focusing on ecology, sociology, and creative play. Gav currently serves as a board member and Participatory Curator of Radical Fields, an immersive arts and community festival in regional Victoria. 

How Ngean Lim is an independent dance dramaturg, producer and performance-maker. He has provided dramaturgy for critically acclaimed choreographers from Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia and Japan. He has also curated dance and contemporary performance programmes in Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Japan. In 2016, he founded Asian Dramaturges’ Network (ADN), a platform for critical exchange on dramaturgy among dramaturges and performance-makers in the Asia region. So far, it has had five successful symposiums in Singapore, Japan, Australia and Indonesia. Presently, he actively contributes to nurturing young playwrights and performance-makers in Australia as a facilitator and dramaturg in Sydney and Melbourne. He continues to work closely with established and emerging Southeast Asian dancemakers. 

Anna McDermott is a producer, artist, and writer working across visual and performing arts contexts. Her research contemplates how we move, and how we might move differently. Anna’s producing, curatorial, and leadership practices seek to develop responsive, artist-led modes of working together. She is experienced in the development and presentation of experimental, choreographic and interdisciplinary practices, and dedicated to embodying artist-led strategies in the shaping of programming and curatorial initiatives. Anna is Executive Producer at Temperance Hall, where she has held multiple roles since 2021, including Board Director. Across 2024-2025 she was Executive Producer at The Substation, leading the delivery of an ambitious multi-artform program. Anna holds a Masters in Contemporary Art (VCA, 2020) and a Bachelor of Fine Art Honours (RMIT, 2016). She is a recipient of the Nillumbik Prize (2017), and the Fiona Myer Art + Australia Award (2020).