FESTIVAL DIRECTOR - RACHAEL PARSONS

Rachael is a curator and academic within the Creative industries Faculty at Queensland University of Technology. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts and Honours (Visual Arts) in 2006 as well as her Masters of Research in 2011 from QUT. Rachael’s masters research explored new curatorial methodologies for the exhibition of digital art and culminated with Virion – a distributed screen and on-line based exhibition. She has exhibited her own work both in Brisbane and internationally and has worked as an independent freelance curator focusing on digital media exhibitions. Rachael also facilitates creative workshops with both QUT’s Creative Industries Precinct and the Flying Arts. In 2011 Rachael joined the curatorial team at QUT’s Creative Industries Precinct as the Exhibitions Officer and curator, facilitating their new media exhibition program. In 2012 Rachael joined Brisbane-based artist-run initiative Vegas Spray as a Co-Director to facilitate a range of programs and platforms that support and promote cultural ecology of Brisbane including BNE Art and the Brisbane Emerging Arts Festival.

PERFORMANCE CURATOR - KIERAN SWAN

Kieran is an artist working in combinations of video, objects, and actions. His work ruminates on physical and systemic constructs of the contemporary urban experience; the state of aloneness, cities in decay, and repetitive activity. Heavily invested in process, his work often manifests as sparse and meditative gestures. With a background in different modes of performance and visual art, Kieran is keenly interested in the bleed between forms and artists, and has cultivated this interest in study at both QUT and VCA. He was part of Transparency Collective, a discursive constellation of artists investigating solo and collaborative practice, and from 2004-2009 co-led the Restaged Histories project, a contemporary performance outfit developing new work and experimenting with syzygetic collaboration. His work deals with post-minimalist and queer reference points.

SOUND CURATOR - TOBY GIFFORD

Toby Gifford is a music technologist, sound designer and acoustic musician. He has recently completed his PhD in interactive music systems. His Jambot software has received national acclaim, appearing on the ABC New Inventors program. Interactive installations have been exhibited in the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, the Museum of Melbourne, Splendour in the Grass music festival, and the European Capital of Culture Festival in Patras, Greece. He has been artist-in-residence at the Gallery of Modern Art developing live soundtracks for silent films. He is an active acoustic musician, live electronic music performer, and works at the arts/science nexus. One of his arts-science collaborations has been awarded the prestigous ANAT Synapse residency program for 2014. He currently lectures in music technology, interactive installation and sound design at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music.

VISUAL ART CURATOR - RACHAEL HAYNES

Rachael Haynes is a contemporary artist, curator and writer. Her art practice explores the limits of language and subjectivity, and re-examines art history and philosophy in relation to gender politics. Rachael’s professional experience includes lecturing in visual arts at Deakin University, VIC and at the Queensland University of Technology, working in publishing, including for Eyeline: Contemporary Visual Arts, and service on committees for Metro Arts, Artworkers Alliance and as a board member for the IMA. Rachael was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy in Visual Arts (2009) with an Australian Postgraduate Award and her research interests include gender politics, alternative exhibition spaces and feminist pedagogy in the visual arts. She has been involved with artist run initiatives in Brisbane since 2003 and is the Gallery Director of Boxcopy Contemporary Art Space and a founding co-director of the feminist collective and artist run initiative, LEVEL.

VISUAL ART CURATOR - JENNA BALDOCK

Jenna Baldock is a Brisbane based Curator currently studying her Masters of Fine Arts (Research) at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT). She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts (2011) and a Postgraduate Certificate of Business (Public Relations) (2012) from QUT. Central to Baldock’s research is the investigation into the contingent dynamics of exhibition spaces and their affect on the production and perception of art. She examines the impact of critical dialogue on arts production, and how this may be utilised when planning exhibitions and arts programming. This knowledge is employed in her roles as Co-Director of Inhouse ARI and Curator of Spiro Grace Art Rooms (SGAR).

Baldock’s major curatorial projects include PRESENCE/ABSENCE (SGAR, 2014), Out of House (Metro Arts, 2013), Fission (Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Art, 2012) and Pinkification (The Tidy, 2011) as well as co-curating a series of exhibitions at The Alley, Brisbane (2011 – 2012). In 2012 she was the Public Relations Manager for the Brisbane Artist Run Initiative (BARI) Festival.