Exhibits,
Announcing Bus Projects’ New Board Members
The Bus Projects’ Board is growing! We are excited to welcome Jacina Leong and Jenna Lee as the new Co-Chairs of Bus Projects, as well as Sahra Martin and Talia Smith as new general members.
Jacina, Jenna, Sahra and Talia follow outgoing Chair, Nella Themelios, and Vice Chair, Christina Apostolidis. Formerly the Co-Director of Bus Projects between 2021-22, Jacina is an artist-curator, educator and researcher with sixteen years experience working in the arts sector and is currently the Acting CEO/Director of Next Wave. Jenna is a Gulumerridjin (Larrakia), Wardaman and KarraJarri Saltwater artist and graphic designer whose art and design practices seek to correct historic misrepresentations of First Nations people, particularly within arts and publishing.
Jenna and Jacina said, ‘It’s a privilege to join Bus Projects as the inaugural Co-Chairs. We are excited to build on the reputation Nella and Christina have established to shape Bus Projects into an accessible, supportive and professional artist-led organisation.’
Nella joined the Bus Projects Board in 2010 and led the organisation through many significant milestones and challenges. She oversaw four successive iterations of Bus Projects, from Donkey Wheel House, Rokeby Street, Collingwood Yards to the organisation’s current location on Little Miller Street in Brunswick East. Most recently, she steered Bus Projects’ recovery from the impacts of pandemic closures as Interim Director, and under her leadership as Chair, secured the acquisition of multi-year investment from Creative Australia for the first time in Bus Projects’ history.
Christina joined the Bus Projects Board in 2017. Working closely with Nella, Christina has been instrumental during her tenure on the Board, shaping and advocating for a vision of the organisation as a leading artist-led organisation that amplifies diverse artistic voices. Christina’s leadership, creative problem-solving and contributions to the team has helped shape Bus Projects into the organisation it is today.
Bus Projects’ Artistic Director, Sophia Cai said, ‘Nella and Christina will be dearly missed by the current Board and Staff. We thank them for their continued support and advocacy, and the work they have done to ensure Bus Projects’ sustainability and longevity into the future.’
Bus Projects is also thrilled to welcome Sahra Martin and Talia Smith to the Bus Projects’ Board as new general members. Jenna and Jacina said, ‘Sahra and Talia bring a wealth of diverse experiences, national networks and new energy to the team, and we are excited to work with them, and existing Board members, Christine Tipton, Trent Walter and Hugh Griffiths, as Bus Projects continues to champion artists and the important role that art plays in society.’
Jenna Lee is a mixed-race Larrakia, Wardaman and Karajarri contemporary artist and graphic designer with mixed Japanese, Chinese, Filipino and Anglo-Australian ancestry. As an interdisciplinary artist, Lee’s practice is focused on materiality and ancestral material culture, working with notions of traditional language archives, histories of colonial collecting, and settler-colonial books and texts. Represented by MARS Gallery in Naarm, Lee is the recipient of multiple awards including the Wandjuk Marika 3D Memorial Award at the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award (NATSIAA) and Creative Australias Dreaming Award. Formally trained as a graphic designer, Lee has a Bachelor of Visual Communication Design and a Postgraduate Certificate in Museum Studies and is currently working as an independent designer specialising in book cover, publication and exhibition identity design. Lee has designed for publishers and institutions like UQP, NGA, MUMA, IMA, Powerhouse Museum, TarraWarra and Rising Festival.
Jacina Leong 梁玉明 is an artist-curator, educator and researcher of Chinese Italian heritage, living and practising on the unceded Country of the Wurundjeri people in Narrm/Melbourne, and engaged in critical processes of community engagement, arts management and post-representational curatorial practice. Jacina is committed to the role that arts organisations can play in bringing people together to explore and respond to complex and converging crises. She is a former Co-Director of Bus Projects, Public Programs Curator at The Cube and Ipswich Art Gallery, Producer for the Creative Industries Precinct, Sessional Academic at RMIT University School of Art and La Trobe University, and mentor for the ACMI CEO digital mentoring program. She recently completed her PhD, with a focus on curatorial care, and is currently a member of the Darebin Council Art and Heritage Advisory Panel.
Sahra Martin is a designer and archivist based in Naarm working across publishing, visual communication, research and collection management. Her interdisciplinary practice EverywhereNowhere is focussed on supporting the communication and preservation of marginalised arts and cultural practices and narratives. She is particularly interested in community-led projects that amplify the voices of women and gender diverse creatives. Sahra has previously worked throughout the GLAMR sector as an archivist, arts administrator, communications advisor and designer, including four years on the board of the Women’s Art Register. After graduating from Swinburne University’s Bachelor of Communication Design (Honours), she was awarded Australasian Graduate of the Year by the Design Institute of Australia.
Talia Smith is an artist and curator of Samoan, Cook Island and Pakeha heritage from Aotearoa who is now based in Sydney, Australia. She has curated exhibitions for organisations such as the Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney, Singapore International Photography Festival, IMA, UTS Gallery, Ballarat Foto Biennale and Cement Fondu among others. Her writing has appeared in various publications such as Memo Review, Art New Zealand and artist catalogue essays and books, she was nominated for Best Art Writing by a New Zealand Maori or Pasifika in the 2022 AAANZ awards. She was the chair of Runway Journal from 2017-19 and is on the Editorial Committee for Un Projects. Most recently she has completed research residencies in Singapore and Germany, Talia currently works as the curator at Blacktown Arts.
