Kim McConville: Executive Director

Kim McConville is the co-founder and Executive Director of Beyond Empathy and has been working in Aboriginal communities for 23 years. Kim has used arts, culture and community development practices to influence change, increase health, wellbeing, education and learning outcomes for young people and their families experiencing recurring hardship. Kim has extensive expertise in facilitating collaborative practices across Government, Corporate, Philanthropic and Community sectors. In 2006 Kim was awarded Social Entrepreneur of the year for her work with Beyond Empathy. 

 

Anna Cater: Film & Media Producer

Bio coming soon.

 

Phillip Crawford: Creative Producer - Film & Digital Media

After several years of working in the community welfare sector, Phillip Crawford moved from Sydney to Melbourne to complete a Bachelor of Film and Television at the Victorian College of the Arts. His graduating film DENIAL won best short film at five national and international film festivals. In 1998 Phillip started working with BIG hART and over the following seven years he collaborated with communities all around Australia on various performance, installation and multi-media projects included in the programs of major arts Festivals: Adelaide, Melbourne and Ten Days on the Island in Tasmania. In 1999 Phillip won an AFI Award for his work on the BIG hART film project HURT, which screened on SBS television and was transformed into an installation work for the Australian Centre for the Moving Image. Phillip also won an award from the Film Critics Circle of Australia for HURT’s innovative combination of fiction and documentary, the Inaugural Justice Fellowship of the Arts from the NSW Law Foundation and Best Short Doco at Flickerfest.

Phillip produced and was the overall creative director of "knot at home project": an eight part TV series screened on SBS in 2006 and which was nominated for AFI and ATOM awards in Australia. In 2006, Phillip received an Australia Council Fellowship in Community Cultural Development, which enabled him to expand his work with a specific focus on the environment and conservation. Through this Fellowship he has coordinated the Lake Illawarra MAP (Memory And Place) Project which utilised digital story telling techniques. For Beyond Empathy, Phillip is currently working on a feature film project with young people in the Illawarra.

 

Jo Davidson: Project Coordinator and Lead Artist – Ngarrwa

Jo Davidson trained at the South Australian School of Art and has been a practicing and exhibiting visual artist for over 30 years, represented in state and private collections and carrying out residencies around Australia and overseas. Her work includes painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, installation, soundscape, public art and community cultural development. Among her artistic achievements, she has painted a number of murals in the Hastings region; created giant sculptural lanterns with Slippry Sirkus for Bellingen Global Carnival and shadow puppets and silkscreen workshops at indigenous youth circus camps; made soundscapes and giant puppets for Bad Dags Theatre outdoor festival performances; and worked with Port Macquarie Aquasculpture Festival since 2000, both as a lead workshop artist, participating sculptor, project management and steering. 

Jo has also taught art part time at TAFE for 14 years.

Her work with Beyond Empathy began in 2003 on Mubali, a young mothers’ program in Moree, and now in Bowraville, Nambucca, and Derby, WA, She also works on BE Leadership camps and sculptural installations, and is currently lead artist on the Ngarrwa project in Bowraville.

Andrew Davis: Project Manager - Bowraville

Andrew Davis is a community development professional, with a passion for the arts and community empowerment and over 18 years experience in delivering it. Andrew has a Bachelor of Social Science (Psychology) and extensive experience in working one on one, with groups and whole communities to develop and deliver community-driven collaborative projects around critical issues. Recent roles include Community Development Manager with The Torch Project bringing Indigenous and non-Indigenous community members together through the arts across Victoria and Youth & Graffiti Project Officer / Creative Producer at The City of Port Phillip, directing large scale arts-based projects, festivals & events bringing diverse individuals and groups together into whole of community conversations. Andrew is an accomplished musical writer & performer, facilitator, project manager, event coordinator, festival producer, qualified graphic designer and alongside partner Naomi Steinborner, Co-Director of Two Thumbs Up - a newly established CCD company producing powerful art for positive change. He is very excited to now be working with Beyond Empathy and the people of Bowraville.

 

Narelle Jarry: Project Manager

Narelle began working with Beyond Empathy at the end of 2010. She has a degree in fine art conservation from the University of Canberra (1994) and prior to moving to Armidale in 2004 worked as a paper conservator for a number of large art institutions both in Australia and in the United States. These include the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, as well as the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney. She is particularly interested in contemporary art, working with performance artists and site specific installations.

Prior to joining the Beyond Empathy team Narelle worked for four years as the Registrar and Collections Manager of the New England Regional Art Museum in Armidale.

 

Pia McBean: Assistant to Executive Director

Pia joined BE towards the end of 2008, looking after the travel arrangements for all of BE as well as general administrative duties. This role has now evolved to include a PA role for Kim McConville, Executive Director. Originally from Vienna, Austria, where she worked in admin, Pia then travelled extensively starting in London, where she worked as a personal assistant.

 

Kellie Martusciello: Participant Support Coordinator

Kellie Martusciello has worked in community development and the arts for over 15 years. Kellie has supported the delivery of workshops and performances across communities in NSW, QLD and N.T., including at the National Children's Festival, Canberra; the National Circus Festival, Tasmania; Bellingen Global Carnival, NSW; National Youth Week, Royal Easter Show, Sydney; and 'PostCodes from the Edge' a BE multi-media performance outcome. Kellie is currently working on projects in communities in the Illawarra, NW & NE NSW and Tennant Creek, N.T.

 

Gemma Parsons: Project Coordinator – Illawarra

Gemma has been involved in youth and community work in the Illawarra for 8 years. She began as a youth advocate for Child and Adolescent Mental Health and since has worked for Wollongong and Shellharbour Council’s Youth Services and Cultural Development as a youth worker and community artist. Gemma also has training and experience in child and family care, working for Barnardos for three years in some of the most disadvantaged communities in the Illawarra.

Gemma first joined BE in 2006, working alongside Phillip Crawford in BE’s Warrawong and Berkeley projects. In 2007 Gemma was promoted to project coordinator and has gained great knowledge and experience from her work with BE since.

Gemma’s arts experience includes theatre (acting, stage management, costume, make-up and sound), dance (ballet, tap, jazz, breakdancing) and Visual Arts (aerosol/mural art, graphic design). Gemma has also worked in media as an announcer and assistant promotions manager for commercial radio station Wave FM in Wollongong.

 

Trish Shortis: Finance Manager

Trish joined the Beyond Empathy team at the end of September 2010 as Finance Manager. Her background has been accounts payable / receivable / payroll duties and general office administration with a local Armidale travel agency mixed with running a sheep / cattle farm with her husband and being a mother of 5 children.

 

Nicola Speden: Executive and Project Support

Nicola worked in an administrative capacity for three years in the School of Arts at the University of New England, 2005-2007. She has been involved with theatre and the performing arts for over 25 years. She has a BA and Grad. Cert. in Theatre Studies and has also studied Eurythmy, a creative art of movement. Her involvement in theatre productions has included acting, directing, and stage managing. She is currently studying for a MA (Writing).

Since January 2008, Nicola has worked in a variety of administrative roles with BE.

 

Naomi Steinborner: Project Manager - Bowraville

Naomi is a theatre & festivals director, producer and community facilitator and Co Director of Two Thumbs Up with Andrew Davis. She has a post-graduate diploma in Animateuring (Theatre-making) from the VCA Drama School and a BA (Drama Studies) from the University of Adelaide. Over the past 13 years Naomi has worked as an independent theatre director and for various organisations in partnership with culturally diverse metropolitan and regional communities in Victoria, NSW, Qld and S.A to create original theatre, coordinate and present community festivals, mentor emerging artists & arts workers and develop creative projects with multi art forms responding to critical community issues. Companies include Multicultural Development Association, Brisbane City Council, Brisbane Festival, Queensland Theatre Company, Western Edge Youth Arts, Big West Festival, The Torch Project, Westside Circus, Courthouse Youth Arts, Equinox Youth Theatre, Mainstreet Theatre, Outback Theatre, Victorian Arts Centre and National Theatre, alongside independent companies and venues including Brisbane Powerhouse, Full Tilt,  Insite Arts, fortyfive downstairs, Uncle Semolina & Friends, The Phasmid Branch, La Mama, The Storeroom, Dantes, The Horse Bazaar and Dancehouse. Naomi and Andrew are working in Bowraville with Beyond Empathy.