Create [SPACE] artist-in-residence participants

Astri Studio is a multi-media creative studio founded by two sisters, Elizabeth, and Catherine Ta. Astri Studio are committed to crafting imaginative and innovative experiences that leave a lasting impact. 

As a multi-media creative studio, they specialise in the design and production of high-quality creative merchandise, including artbooks, stationery, keychains, art prints, and stickers - bringing art and design to life through tangible, inspiring products. Their passion for storytelling drives their work in media production. They create captivating animations and indie video games that engage audiences with compelling narratives and unique artistic vision. 

Astri Studio are also a creative business that offer specialised marketing services. 

• https://linktr.ee/astristudio
• www.instagram.com/AstriStudio_
• www.x.com/AstriStudio_
• www.tiktok.com/@astristudio_

Pic: Catherine Ta (left) Elizbeth Ta (right)

Camila Paz is a Chilean multidisciplinary artist based in Australia, exploring themes of identity, migration, and cultural connection. Since moving to Naarm, Camila has expanded her artistic horizons allowing her to find her voice as both an artist and a migrant woman.

Since 2019, Camila’s work has been exhibited in diverse venues, including a solo exhibition Empowering Women at Brunswick Street Gallery. Camila was a finalist for the SBS Portrait Prize (2021) and received grants like the Sustaining Creative Workers Initiative and was commissioned by Wyndham City Council for a mural at Penrose Promenade Community Centre. 

Camila was a featured artist for the Yarra Tram Art Project in 2022, transforming public space into a moving gallery. Camila’s practice blends resilience, empowerment, and community engagement with projects like Toyota’s One Women in 2023 and an artist residency in Thailand in 2024.

• https://camilapazart.com.au/

Tarsha Davis is a Kuku Yalanji and Palawa multidisciplinary artist working across painting, digital art, weaving, jewellery, and textiles. Her practice is grounded in story and explores relationships between identity, place, and making. Using both traditional and contemporary techniques, she creates bold, layered narratives. 

Alongside her creative work, Tarsha has contributed to the arts, community, and justice sectors, delivering, and managing programs that support wellbeing and access to services. This extends into her design practice, with commissioned works licensed for Our Watch’s Reconciliation Action Plan, Ovarian Cancer Australia branding, the Write Yes campaign and First Nations Justice Team branding at GetUp! 

Her work has been exhibited at Linden New Art, Koorie Heritage Trust, and Aboriginal Exhibitions Rutherglen, with pieces held in private and public collections. She was awarded the RMIT Emerging Artist Award (11th Koorie Art Show) and selected for the 2024 Blak Design Program, continuing to refine her practice at the intersection of art, design, sustainability, and advocacy. 

Tarsha is interested in how materials hold meaning and memory—how they are transformed, reused, or discarded. As her practice evolves, she is exploring how sustainability and storytelling can shift perspectives on consumption and value. 

• Website: www.tarshadavis.com.au 
• Portfolio: https://tarsharosina87.myportfolio.com/work
• Instagram: @tarsha_davis_

Becc Edwards is a multidisciplinary artist based in Naarm, on Wurundjeri land. Being an animal lover, native flora and fauna has always been the main inspiration for Becc’s work. While studying at LCI Melbourne, Becc discovered the joy of eco printing and has made the art a large part of her practice. She uses gum leaves found by the Werribee River to create textile works. Becc is also currently working on a collection of illustrations of native animals, to raise awareness of the importance of green spaces for both people and animals.

https://www.instagram.com/beccedwards_design/

Toneya will use the space to create a new collection of artworks featuring some of the animals at Werribee Zoo. She will draw inspiration from her surroundings and focus on endangered animals particularly native animals.

Toneya is a proud Barkindji woman and contemporary Indigenous artist, originally from Wilcannia in NSW. Toneya has resided in Naarm for many years and in the Wyndham area for three years. She has been painting for 15 years mostly in acrylic on canvas but has also worked on murals, custom shoes, emu eggs as well as emu feather jewellery. Toneya is a huge animal lover and most of her work includes animals.

Instagram: @tkennedyarts

Karlia will be developing a new work titled two thread in collaboration with her sister Danni Cook. The concept of this work is centered around the spectrum of similarities and differences of two bodies that have been carved out of the same mould. Alongside developing two thread Karlia will use this space with collaborators benefiting and cultivating a stronger relationship between artists living and working outside of the city.

Karlia is currently based in Geelong working between Naarm and Geelong as a freelance dancer and choreographer and in 2023 completed a Masters in Dance from the Victorian College of the Arts. Karlia has worked with companies and artists such as Chunky Move, Joel Bray Dance, New Zealand Dance Company, Guts Dance, Julie Minaai and Bella Waru.

Instagram: @karliamay_

Tamay will focus on her artistic practice and community engagement. She will develop new work, enhance her skills, and contribute to the local community through workshops and resource sharing.

Tamay has been a resident of Melbourne's Western Suburbs for over five years with her family. She has established herself as an Aboriginal Artist and Cultural Awareness Art workshop facilitator. Tamay has engaged the Wyndham community and beyond through various art and Cultural programs and sports activities that has deepened her connections within the community. Tamay has participated and facilitated community led and First Nations events calling the Wyndham region her home.

www.tamaybeam.com

Jess Fairfax is an experienced audio and events producer, using creative expression to inform environmental awareness, action and community connection. 

Jess has over nine years broadcasting interviewing over 800 guests, including musicians, visual artists, poets, academics, historians, activists, community leaders and curators. Continuing her love for the art of radio and broadcast, she continues to work as a freelance audio producer, creating podcasts, soundscapes and radio documentaries for the ABC, Monash University, Arts Centre Melbourne and Wyndham City. 

In 2022 Jess created a piece about Werribee South's Market Gardens, broadcast on ABC Radio. In 2024, she completed an episodic audio project with All The Queen’s Men and Arts Centre Melbourne that celebrates the invaluable contributions of Australian LGBTIQA+ artists and performers. In 2020 Jess completed a Masters of Environment with Distinction. Up until January 2020, Jess co-presented and produced All Our Stories on PBS 106.7FM. Jess is now working as Programs Manager at the Werribee River Association, delivering immersive nature experiences, community connections, and citizen science initiatives. In 2024, Jess produced the fourth iteration of Café Philosophique at the Werribee Bowls Club that brings together poetry and music to spark conversation about the things in our lives we often take for granted or fail to understand.

https://www.jessfairfax.com/

Hasina Chowdhury, mostly known as Mita Chowdhury, is a multidisciplinary visual artist born in

Bangladesh and now lives in Tarneit. As a practice-led researcher,  her creative practice deeply explores a personal journey that investigates her cross-culture, heritage, and history. Her experimental material approach, incorporating native tradition, history, knowledge, and experience as a first-generation female immigrant, is the visual storytelling of her research. However, her research consistently examines the concept of 'identity' and the in-between space she inhabits within her hybrid cultural identity through disparate material practice. Her works thus often depict the peculiarity and ambiguities of living in an in-between place. Mita's approach holds this ambivalence to bridge her past Bangladeshi history and to present positionality.

Mita is pursuing a PhD at RMIT University in Melbourne and received the RMIT Cultural Vision Scholarship for 2022. In 2023, she was honoured with The Young and Emerging Artist Award by The ADFAS (Australian Decorative & Fine Arts Society), Yarra Branch. She was also shortlisted for the RMIT University School of Art Dean's Award 2023. Her work has been showcased in multiple group exhibitions, including the 2022 Asian Art Biennial in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Mita has exhibited numerous solo exhibitions, including The Proximity of Connection: Past, Present and I, at the Incinerator Gallery in 2022.

https://www.mitachowdhury.com/bio

Nicole’s been a writer since childhood. Immersing herself in poetry; she is inspired by Australian landscapes as well as odd people. She has a degree in journalism, is published in many anthologies, won awards for her work, published a recipe book and is the founder of two writing groups. She is co-chairperson of Williamstown Writers, a member of Moorabool Writers’ Craft and has two children's books to be published. Nicole lives in Point Cook with her best friends and is the mother of two gorgeous children. 

Nicole has published short stories, poetry and travel tales in Williamstown Writers, Wedge-tailed Writers and Moorabool Writers’ Craft anthologies. She has given poetry readings from Melbourne to Darwin. She has coordinated and installed Writers Work, a thick, cement pole in Ballan plastered with Wedge-tailed Writers writing, planned and edited Poetry in Motion at The Williamstown Writers Festival and created The Writing Wall at Bacchus Marsh Library for Moorabool Writers’ Craft. 

Cathy is a painter; passionate about capturing the essence of nature and the profound

human connection to the environment and place. Her work often reflects a deep reverence for the natural world and the intertwined relationship between people and their surroundings. Cathy’s aim is to create a dialogue between the past and present, exploring how our histories and environments influence our contemporary lives. This exploration of memory and place is central to her artistic journey, driving the creative process and enriching the contributions to the art world.

Cathy’s formal arts training began in 1991 at Deakin University Fine Arts majoring in

painting. Since then, Cathy has completed an Associate Diploma in Engineering, Jewelleryand Silversmithing, and a Certificate IV in Training and Assessment. For the past 15 years, Cathy has worked within the education sector, both secondary and vocational,nurturing a passion for teaching arts, critical thinking, and exploration. Cathy has been involved in a variety of community programs with young people and adults, undertaking collaborative works and public art projects mostly in the Wyndham community. Additionally, Cathy’s dedication to her craft has also led her to being shortlisted for various art prizes and competitions and successfully undertaken several