John Armstrong
John is presently the principal of Harbinger Consultants, which focuses on research, strategy and engagement for creative sustainability. John’s artistic practice has spanned several decades. As an award winning contemporary artist, practicing in the 1970s and 80s, Armstrong travelled widely and his artwork is held in many public collections. With a practice founded on conceptual art, sculpture and installation, he represented Australia in international cultural events such as the Sao Paolo Biennale and the Paris Biennale as well as the Sydney Biennale. His work was included in the 2009 NGA exhibition, Soft Sculpture. More recently his work is focused on curation, environment and art in the public realm – e.g. installations at the Princess Alexandra Hospital and several projects with Campfire Group – and social networked photomedia, images and texts exploring the everyday, wordplay and social media platforms.

He was the inaugural Director of artSynC, a regionally based arts business incubator working towards developing arts enterprise and cultural economy activity in and around the Sunshine Coast. In this role, he initiated a range of programs to support emerging creative enterprises and cultural development in the region including town revitalisation projects. He was Project Manager of Campfire Group Projects and Manager of Fire-Works Gallery, an Indigenous art gallery located in Brisbane with an international and national client and project base. As Project Manager for Campfire Group his major projects included: NEWFlames program, ‘Dreamtime: The Dark & The Light’ exhibition and publication for Sammlung Essl in Vienna, Austria in 2001; The Queensland Indigenous Art & Craft Pavilion for ATSIC at the 2001 Goodwill Games, Brisbane; and the Australian Indigenous Art Exhibition for Department of Prime Minister & Cabinet at CHOGM 2, Coolum in 2002.

Formerly an educator and researcher in higher education for nearly two decades, he has lectured at university level in Visual Arts across Australia and was the Head of the Visual Arts Department of QUT for several years and Assistant Dean on secondment at QUT. He has developed and taught visual art practice and theory postgraduate and undergraduate programs and professional development courses for several universities around Australia. He also lectured at the Australia Catholic University in the Indigenous Business Program and continues to supervise postgraduate students.

John has provided leadership to several arts organisations as a member and office bearer of the boards of Fine Art Forum, Arterial, Metro Arts and Eyeline Magazine and served as the President of Access Arts Inc for several years. John is a former Secretary of the South East Queensland Indigenous Chamber of Commerce and is currently a member of Local Enterprise Advisory Partnership (LEAP) with Mission Australia. He was a member of the Queensland Indigenous Arts Marketing & Export Agency Board for five years. As a consultant, he has worked with a range of organisations including the Princess Alexandra Hospital, Craft Queensland, Brisbane Ethnic Music & Arts Centre, Access Arts and the Brisbane City Council as well as a number of regional community groups and organisations.

Q&A with JM John Armstrong

Linda Carroli
Linda is an internationally published cultural writer and an award-winning writer of two decades standing. She also has extensive experience in community, communications and cultural contexts, with recent experience in the urban development industry, addressing a range of sustainability and social innovation priorities. She is an Associate Consultant with Harbinger Consultants working on creative sustainability projects including cultural planning, cultural tourism and public art curation. She is also working as Tutor in Placemaking in Architecture at Queensland University of Technology Architecture School. She has served as peer assessor for the Australia Film Commission, Australia Council and Arts Queensland; is a former editor of fineArt forum, an international art, science and technology electronic magazine; is former Chair of the Australian Network for Art and Technology having served on the Board for four years; and received a Centenary Medal for ‘long and distinguished service to the arts’ awarded by the Federal Government.

Her major projects include:

• Wording: an exploration of art writing and writing art. A series of critical writings and narralogues exploring the intersection of word and image in contemporary artistic practice, exploring artists books, hypermedia, art writing and publishing, artists writing and publishing, text based art and other practices. http://wording.yolasite.com
• Placing: The project is focused on writing place/place writing and will develop through a number of focus groups established in several Australian cities. It has resulted in participation in diverse events and projects including The Right to the City Symposium, Writing Architecture Masterclass & Symposium, Design Futures Hothouses, d/Lux Coding Cultures and Proboscis’ Tranformation Series. http://placing.wordpress.com
• Changescaping: An online publication that aims to draw out emerging and changing ideas about urban environments with a particular emphasis on the role artists, designers, planners, architects and other urbanists can play as changemakers. The project seeks to profile and foreground work happening in the Australian context, as it can seem that Australians aren’t prominently featured in the international discussions about DIY urbanism, urban interventions and the like. Changescaping also aims to think beyond categories like ‘DIY urbanism’ and ‘urban intervention’ as a way of potentiating and tracing new trajectories for planning, design and art in the urban environment, as well as cutting across typologies and disciplines. http://placing.wordpress.com/changescaping

Her published critical writings and creative works include:

• Text and writing based practice has included critical writing, public art, artist books, hypermedia/social media and printed ephemera. She publishes in a range of media and contexts both nationally and internationally including a regular feature for Arts Hub focused on urban culture, innovation and creativity and blogs for [co]design studio.
• Several residencies with writing published in online and print journals, magazines, anthologies and catalogues, including Architecture Australia, Leonardo, Eyeline, Periphery, Real Time, Meanjin, Broadsheet, Globe E, Xtexts, Art Asia Pacific, M/C Journal, Electronic Book Review, fineArt forum, Metro Magazine, Local Art, Photofile, Filter, Artlink, Arts Hub and others. Publications also include professional publications, zines, anthologies and artist monographs. Publications includes Writing Architecture (ed. Naomi Stead); Uncertain Practices Unsitely Aesthetics (ed. Maria Miranda); Material Poem (ed. James Stuart)
• Commissioned catalogue and critical essays published nationally and internationally by galleries and events including as part of Proboscis (UK) Transformation Series. Writings presented/published as part of the Right to the City Symposium (Syd, AU), New York Digital Salon (NY, USA), ISEA (Canada), Sarai Reader #03: Shaping Technologies (India), Sarai Reader #06: Turbulence (India) which was included in Documenta 12 (Germany), Straight Out of Brisbane (Bris, AU) and Mediatopia (LA, USA). Virtual participation in numerous online forums and seminars including those hosted by Electronic Literature Organisation (USA), ISEA (Canada), Australian Network for Art & Technology (ANAT), and trAce Online Writing Centre (UK). Also, a catalogue essay for Lumia, an exhibition by Kuuki at SLQ
• Several hypermedia works, including the award winning *Water always writes in *Plural, speak: a hypertext essay, and the State Library of Queensland commissioned work Transmission Lines 1955 – 1974. Her works are required or recommended in university programs globally.

Q&A with Linda Carroli

Jason Haigh
Jason is a principal of emerging practice Cloud Dwellers. The firm was established with Cherissa McCaughey in 2010 to undertake architecture projects both on a commercial basis and via self initiated propositions that challenge mainstream thinking, as well as to undertake explorations in number of other design disciplines. Our design approach focuses on a sensory experience of space, the craft and structural logic of building, innovate functionalism, a concern for social interaction, an engagement with the cultural context, and efficiency in the use of resources and energy.

Jason became a registered architect in 2001 while at Gall & Medek Architects, where he worked between 1999 and 2007. Projects undertaken include public housing, small scale community facilities for various regional councils, resort work on ecologically sensitive sites, large scale urban design projects, and a complex facility for the Queensland Museum. The projects of Gall & Medek focus on energy efficiency and community engagement, earning the practice numerous awards from the RAIA. Following this, Jason worked with recently established practice Eastoffice from 2008 to 2010. The work of the practice is focused on an uncompromising refinement of details, materiality and space. They were one of two Brisbane firms invited by the University of Queensland to speak at their 2010 Asia Pacific Lecture Series. While at Eastoffice, Jason undertook a number of residential projects and innovative commercial work for Wotif.com.

Currently Jason is a co-ordinator of Brisbane group SNAP : Small New Architecture Practices, and acts as a design tutor at the University of Queensland. In 2011 he was a member for the awards jury for the Small Projects category for the Brisbane regional architecture awards. Cloud Dwellers currently are involved in projects in the areas of small scale urbanism, community buildings, residential commissions and public art. A selection of our work can be found at http://www.cloud-dwellers.com.au

Q&A with Jason Haigh

Chiara Camponeschi
Chiara Camponeschi works at the intersection of interdisciplinary research, social innovation and urban sustainability. She is passionate about the ‘creative citizen’ movement, and is committed to strengthening and supporting networks of grassroots social innovation worldwide. Originally from Rome, Italy Chiara has been involved with creative communities in Europe and Canada for over six years.

Chiara’s commitment to social change is reflected in the broad range of activities she enjoys participating in. As an advocate for youth empowerment and intercultural dialogue, she has worked with international organizations ranging from the UN-level to the grassroots. Her experience includes animating the web’s largest multilingual community for youth and coordinating the efforts of over 180 online volunteers coming from all corners of the world. She has spoken about the power of ‘social networks for social change’ at several high-level events such as the International Forum on Innovation & Entrepreneurship at the European Commission in Belgium, and the III and IV International Meeting on Youth Policies in Urbino, Italy.

Chiara has also donated her time across a wide variety of initiatives, collaborating with organizations such as Green Cross Italy and serving as member of the CIVICUS Youth Assembly Planning Committee and UNESCO’s Sectoral Commission on Culture, Communication and Information. More recently, Chiara was selected as Italy’s only Oxfam Action Partner for 2010-2013, and was recognized as a Young Agent of Change by Toronto’s Centre for Social Innovation. She is also a member of the Italian Order of Journalists and has written for indie music portals in both Italy and France.

Chiara holds a BA (Hons) in Political Science & Communications Studies and a Master in Environmental Studies from York University, and is currently a PhD candidate at Ryerson University.

Q&A with Chiara Camponeschi