Janina Harding, Senior Project Manager – Victorian First Peoples Art and Design Fair, Creative Victoria
Janina is a proud Meriam (Erub/Mer) woman, the first generation of her family to be born on mainland Australia, in Naarm (Melbourne, Victoria).
Janina has worked on First Peoples cultural projects, employment programs, public broadcasting, events management, and arts management. Janina served on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts Board of the Australia Council (now Creative Australia), the Torres Strait Islander Advisory Board for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) and was Secretary for the Victorian Wongai Torres Strait Islander Corporation for twenty years.
From 2002-2015, Janina worked at the City of Melbourne, managing the Indigenous Arts Program, where she established, curated and produced the Indigenous Film Festival Blak Nite Cinema and the Melbourne Indigenous Arts Festival.
Janina was the Artistic Director of the Cairns Indigenous Art Fair (2015-2022) where she transformed the art fair into a vibrant multi-arts festival that embraced and empowered artists and communities. She enabled artists to feel comfortable in sharing their work on their terms, through a platform that was culturally nourishing whilst crushing the western construct of the term “art”.
In August 2023, Creative Victoria appointed Janina as Senior Project Manager to lead the development and delivery of the Victorian First Peoples Art and Design Fair.
Jessica Clark, Curatorial Manager – Victorian First Peoples Art and Design Fair, Creative Victoria
Jessica Clark is a proud palawa woman and respected independent curator with a background in art history and education.
She currently holds the position of Yalingwa Curator at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA), having recently curated independent and collaborative exhibitions: Between Waves (2023), From the other side (2023-24), and the current exhibition Tennant Creek Brio: Juparnta Ngattu Minjinypa Iconocrisis which is on show at ACCA until 17 November 2024.
Jessica has experience working in across varied curatorial contexts dedicated to First Peoples contemporary art, with a particular focus on the Southeast within a national context and has also curated exhibitions for the likes of Experimenta, Benalla Art Gallery and Ballarat International Foto Biennale, among many others.
As Curatorial Manager Jessica Clark will work with the team to undertake a regional tour to inform the curation of the Victorian First Peoples Art and Design Fair exhibition and the establishment of creative hubs throughout the state to nurture and support the growth of creative and cultural practice in Victoria.