Alice Hu

Alice Hu is an emerging artist with an Honours of Contemporary Art and Design living and working on Kaurna Land, Adelaide. They work across mediums including ceramics, glass, painting, tattooing, and installation, drawing from lived experiences to explore concepts of multiculturalism, equality, and freedom of choice.

Alice’s current practice is deeply influenced by their experience migrating to Australia at the age of eleven and their overseas Jingdezhen Pottery Residency through Helpmann Academy (2019) where they were able to form a deeper connection to their Chinese heritage and explore ceramics as a cultural artform. Their use of ceramics stems from an interest in philosophy, childhood stories, myths, and the Chinese goddess Nuwa’s creation of humans. Alice aims to create art forms with multicultural aesthetics to promote the beauty and necessity of a diverse society while investigating how different cultures interact.

Alice is currently focusing on tattoos as a medium and expression of cultural and personal identity.

“Tattoos are a permanent artform created on one’s body, a further extension of themselves, their identity, a permanent expression, and a living artwork that will keep collecting memory and feelings. ” - Alice Hu

Alice has participated in multiple exhibitions including Bridge (The Main Gallery, 2021), Kaleidoscope (Praxis Art Space, 2021), Pendulum (Nexus Arts, 2022), and currently has a studio residency at George Street Studio and is a studio artist at The Mill.

Jake Yang

Jake Yang is a recent graduate of Adelaide Central School of Art, Kaurna Land, Adelaide. Yang’s artistic practice explores various disciplines, notably painting, sculpture, drawing and photography.

His practice is driven by the continual exploration of youth culture in contemporary society, integrated with strong influence from his conservative traditional Chinese culture. Yang challenges the normative assumptions around identity, fore-fronting personal inner conflicts in his life through an exploration of his own tri-cultural heritage to highlight intimacy, privacy, freedom, and rebellion. By exploring contemporary ways of painting, through formal elements influenced by traditional cultural artefacts and techniques, Yang connects with his neglected cultural identity growing up.

Investigating the evolving cross-section within himself he creates brightly painted works that are dishonourable and absurd, juxtaposing traditional Chinese viewpoints. This is a vehicle to depict images that will hope and desire to be accepted in traditional culture. Through a process of subverting and ‘corrupting’ these familiar artefacts in Yang’s life became symbols or pawns for protection and warning before entering the installation of works.

Yang’s works are a testament to his journey of growth and self-acceptance, a true reflection of his inner self and duality moving beyond the façade of the hard wooden frames and icons into long flowing fabrics, lush environments, and romantic figures. The large figurative oil painting scrolls focus on the inner world and sense of freedom in a safe space, reflective of Yang’s private life and the heart of this body of work. An application of understanding Chinese culture to inform his ways of self-reflection in his paintings expresses the challenge conflicting cultures have had on his life. Yang’s body of work is a continuing exploration of how he can make public his private and inner world.

Jazmine Deng

Jazmine Deng holds a Bachelor of Art from Adelaide Central School of Art, Kaurna Country, Adelaide, working across video, installation, performance, text, painting, drawing and dance.  Through found materials, sounds and stories, she plays with the leftover traces of ourselves, hoping to discover answers about what we are and how our relationship to the everyday exposes these mysteries. She is fascinated by embracing the unknown and the dissolution of being human.

Deng’s practice seeks to investigate our endurance for empathy and compassion, as a means to dissolve the illusion of separateness between ourselves and the external world.

Traditional Eastern teachings and metaphysical narratives form the framework of her artistic discourse. She confronts the taboo, grotesque and absurd within daily life to expose the hidden nuances of who we believe we are. To confront the mundane is to embrace spirituality and challenge the ideology of the ‘real world’, which presents itself through capitalism and a Eurocentric-dominated worldview.

Instead of making anything ‘new’, her practice is focused on the bodily actions and observations she can express through what already exists in front of us.

Deng has been involved in multiple workshops, volunteering, and exhibitions. Her works have recently been showcased in Iridescent I, (Mezzanine 55 Gallery, 2022) The Mill Showcase, (The Mill, 2022),  and Paint Thing... You Make My Heart Sing, (The Little Machine, 2022) along with solo exhibitions cut me a slice of you i am dying for more of who you are, (MUD: HUMUS Performance Residency, 2022) and there is so much (.. play, eat, rest, sleep, i can finally see you now), (FELTspace ARI, 2022).

Christian best

Christian Best is an American photographer, poet, writer, actor, and film-maker who became prominent in Adelaide through his involvement with Soul Lounge, a once-a-month open mic night established to cater to and showcase the artistic achievements of people from diverse backgrounds. As a photographer, Chris facilitates interactions that enable people to be unapologetically themselves and then captures moments from those encounters. Chris has been practicing photography for 15 years but didn't exhibit his work for the first time until the 2022 SALA festival. "LOCALS", Chris's debut solo exhibition, was a celebration of the people in Adelaide who brought colour to his life in Australia. Some photos from that exhibition are on display here.

As a poet, Chris writes from a very emotional place. Without a penchant for drawing or painting, Chris found his outlet in painting pictures with words and using those words to make sense of his experience of the world around him. His work frequently features themes of longing, gratitude, and something adjacent to love.

Chris is currently working as part of the team that is putting together 'Monet in Paris’ in Brisbane, preproduction for a currently untitled mini-series, raising funds for the publication of an anthology of poetry by Adelaide-based poets, and, most importantly, securing a visa that will prolong his life in Australia.

shani engelbrecht

Shani Engelbrecht is a multidisciplinary visual artist who was born to a German-Australian father and raised by a mother with Fijian-Indian heritage. Holding an Honours in Visual Arts and a Bachelor of Creative Arts from Flinders University her work explores her experiences growing up in Australia and the feelings of being caught between two cultures.

At the core of her practice is a focus on identity as she aims to interrogate the language that surrounds racism experienced daily by people of colour. Through performance, theatre, and videography, Engelbrecht embraces being vulnerable by making movements from her hands and body, using it as a canvas to document, have conversations, connect, and validate her experiences. Engelbrecht utilises those lived experiences to engage with viewers on the issues of racism in Australia. Her mixed media approach produces sensitive and powerful commentary on her fractured sense of self.

Shani Engelbrecht is participating in Hatched: National Graduate Show Graduate Exhibition (Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts 2023) and has performed and shown works in multiple exhibitions including the Art House (2022), Painting Still, Painting Alumni Exhibition (Adelaide College of the Arts 2022) and Premiere, RAW: Adelaide (Burnside Ballroom 2020).

Ali rahimi

Ali Rahimi is an emerging artist born in Afghanistan and currently based in Tehran, Iran. He has exhibited at a number of art spaces nationally and internationally including at Sayeh Gallery, Art Far Armenia, Toronto Art School, and Niyavaran Cultural Centre.

hossein vahed

Hossein Vahed is a multidisciplinary artist working in the form of painting, illustration, print and caricature, based in Mashhad, Iran. He graduated from a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Nishapur Art University. He has been an art educator for the last two decades and has supported many young and emerging artists. He has organised several illustration and caricature exhibitions mostly in the city of Mash.

Razieh Jafari Alavi

Razieh Jafari Alavi is an emerging artist working in photography and video. She was born in Afghanistan and resides in Iran. Her work focuses on the life of migrants and refugees in Iran. She is interested in street photography as a way of documenting the everyday life of minorities.

SHER Ali 

Born in Kabul Afghanistan, Sher Ali received his first art practice in Kabul Afghanistan in a local art centre. He attended the Art High School of Kabul from 1997-2003.

He graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Beaconhouse National University, Lahore, Pakistan on a South Asia Foundation scholarship. Sher Ali’s works have been exhibited in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Sweden, Vietnam, UAE, USA, Australia and Hong Kong. After the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban in mid-2021, Sher Ali had to flee the country and moved to Australia in late 2021. He is currently based in Naarm (Melbourne).

His works are rooted in poetry, culture, and history. These traditional approaches pull in Afghanistan’s past but with a contemporary perspective and an expressive stance. The works are a poignant reflection of hundreds of years of genocide, terror, oppression, and a refusal to forget. Having worked with traditional media, he now engages new media to produce work. It has been a journey from traditional to universal. He works with installations, performances, videos, painting, tapestries, and sculpture.

Tabarak (Tabz)

Tabarak (Tabz) is a talented self-taught artist and skilled graphic designer who has been honing her craft since the age of 12. Her artistic journey has been influenced by a diverse range of traditions, including Japanese Manga and European fantasy illustration, which have shaped her unique style and artistic expression. 

Making art has always been a way to deal with emotions, a way to pour thoughts and ideas into paper.

She enjoys incorporating elements of surrealism, accents of colour or interesting compositions. She feels a sense of accomplishment from transforming ideas and imaginations into visual forms and seeing her work come to life.

ali asadollahi

Ali Asadollahi is an Iranian poet and artist based in Tehran. He published six poetry books and has won several prestigious poetry awards, including the Best Young Poet of Iran Award and the Iranian Journalists Society Award (2010). Ali Asadollahi is the secretary of the Iranian Writers' Association and is currently studying for a master's degree in Persian language and literature at Tehran University. Some of his works have appeared in Hayden's Ferry Review, Denver Quarterly, Roanoke Review, The Writing Disorder, and Parsagon: The Persian Literary Journal.  

In addition to writing poetry, he has been involved in photography for years. Photography has had a great influence on his poetry and has made me an imagist poet. I have a poem, "The Labor's Look," published in "Alchemy Journal." That piece is perhaps the equivalent of these photographs in the form of a poem: portraits of eyes.

'MEC' (Mother Education Center)

'MEC' (Mother Education Center) is a non-profit educational institution for Afghan girls, which was established in October 2021. The purpose of this centre is to provide artistic and technical-professional education and create employment for women and girls who are no longer allowed to go to school or work since the return of the Taliban. MEC creates a platform for girls to pursue their dream, especially in visual arts.  They work in artforms such as photography, painting, design, textile and rug making.  Considering the amount of frustration and stress and exhausting mental pressure that girls have to endure under the Taliban regime, MEC is a space to breathe, exercise resistance and share their stories through their art.

Tamana alizada

Tamana is a young Hazara artist currently residing in Melbourne, Australia. She started her Bachelor of Fine Arts at Beaconhouse National University in Lahore Pakistan with a South Asia Foundation scholarship. Due to upheaval in her home country, she had to return to Afghanistan in 2021.

Despite her challenges, Tamana remains committed to her love for creating art and always wants to share her unique perspective with the world. She is interested in working on Afghan traditional handcraft, textiles, fashion with beads and traditional mediums. Her work focuses on the daily life of women and their conditions to shed light on their culture and way of life.

Instagram: @tamana.alizada