Deborah Hart is a climate and environment focussed creative producer and writer based in Narrm (Melbourne), and a co-founder and the current Chair of CLIMARTE.

After 16 years working in development roles with leading Australian arts and culture organisations—as increasingly neoliberal government policies were forcing important public organisations to form ever-closer alliances with harmful industries—Deborah left her profession in order to devote more time to climate activism. Deborah founded LIVE (Locals Into Victoria’s Environment, 2006) and later co-founded CLIMARTE (2010) and ClimActs (2013) to harness the power of creative arts and ‘performative’ action to highlight the causes and urgency of the Climate Emergency as well as the readily available and socially and ecologically sustainable solutions. Deborah is the author of Guarding Eden: Champions of Climate Action (Allen & Unwin, 2015) which tells inspiring personal stories showing how and why highly destructive, polluting industries that built immense wealth and influence last century are now using that power recklessly to maintain ‘business as usual’ (protect their profits), and the inspiring actions ordinary citizens are taking to safeguard nature and humanity’s future. For her role in sustaining a vibrant creative community, in 2023 Deborah was honoured with the City of Yarra’s ‘Contributions to the Arts’ award.

Artwork in the background by Kent Morris, Barkindji Blue Sky – Ancestral Connections #9, 2020.

Cinda Manins is a visual artist and independent creative producer who grew up in Bayside Melbourne. She is a perpetual student, pursuing both formal and informal education to develop technical and academic skills.  She has a background in small business, and has founded and operated  two ARI Galleries. She has a broad range of professional skills from arts administration and project management to her own practice of making and exhibiting. Cinda is a mum with 2 adult children and is rarely without her Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Ruby.

Cinda has been a resident artist at Gasworks Arts Park since 2019, practicing hand built ceramics, sometimes incorporating textiles, paper, metal and digital projection. Her narratives are philosophical, exploring concepts of temporality, permanence and impermanence, resilience, and the relationship of humanity to the earth. The construction of each artwork  is guided by the qualities of the material, the philosophies of Humanism and Wabi-sabi.

Active on committees and a founding member of Clay Matters, Cinda has works in the Art Gallery of Ballarat and private collections.

Photo by Nick Manuell

Lucille Martin is a Contemporary Australian artist, educator and environmentalist working in Nyoongar (Perth) and Naarm (Melbourne) who uses her art to ignite awareness, foster dialogue, and drive meaningful action. Her 30 year career includes a multi-disciplinary practice of documentary photography, textile and hand-making mediums transversing a passion for the natural and physical landscape and deep ecology. Lucille’s work is informed by an ancestral connection to nature and a knowledge she gained through Landcare programs to rehabilitate and reforest depleted pastural land to repair habitat and return local species. Her work is widely exhibited in solo, group & curatorial programs, commissions and residencies in Australia and overseas and is held in private and public collections including Australian Parliament House and Art Gallery of Western Australia. She is recipient of four Australian Council grants including the International Tokyo studio, SOFA Art Fair-New York, Canon Artlab-Tokyo, four Visual Arts project grants, a Fellowship from West Australia Dept for the Arts and recently Photographic selection in 2023 Art Laguna Prize exhibition at The Arsenal, Venice, Italy. Lucille holds Diploma’s in Graphic Design, Production Design-AFTRS, Sydney, Counselling-CTA Gold Coast, Master of Art, UNSW, Sydney.

http://lucillemartin.com/

Sarah McConnell is an artist, cartoonist and climate activist living and working on Wurundjeri country. She has been the Program Manager at the Sustainable Living Foundation, programming the 2020 National Climate Emergency Summit and the Festival’s 2019 Big Weekend. Sarah is a founding member of 5 Press (2015), a collective of five artists exploring the artist book through printmaking and traditional bookbinding techniques. Her books are collected by the National Library of Australia and State Library of Victoria. Sarah’s cartoons have been published in Meanjin and Going Down Swinging. She has worked with CLIMARTE for several years as a both a volunteer and exhibiting artist in ART+CLIMATE=CHANGE 2019.

https://sarah-mcconnell.com.au/

Sarah Rainbird is a senior management professional with over 22 years of experience, including philanthropy, business development and stakeholder relationship management, teaching, research, project management and corporate law. Sarah is the Deputy Chair and Treasurer of CLIMARTE.

As a strategic, analytical, people focussed leader, Sarah has a proven ability to drive strong income growth, build authentic relationships with a wide range of stakeholders, and lead and inspire individual performance. She is highly adaptable to changing environments and motivated by creativity, continuous improvement, excellence and supporting others to maximise their potential.

Thought leader, writer and social innovator, researcher and author of ‘Mobilising Whole Communities to Restore a Safe Climate’, Giselle has recently been awarded a Professional Doctorate in Therapeutic Arts Practice.

Giselle helped instigate the much needed National Centre for Climate Restoration with the first of its truth-telling Breakthrough Forums in 2014 and is currently Breakthrough’s Outreach Director. Co-founding The Sustainable Living Foundation in 1999 and still serving as SLF’s President, Giselle was a key part of the decision to run Australia’s first Global Climate Emergency Convergence in 2007. She again helped to break constructed silences, by supporting the Climate Emergency Summit as a cutting edge, landmark event in the 2020 National Sustainable Living Festival.

Guy Abrahams is a Co-founder, former Chair, CEO, and Committee Member of CLIMARTE, Co-Creative Producer of ART+CLIMATE=CHANGE Festivals (2015 and 2017), and Director of the ART + ENVIRONMENT consultancy. Guy is an Associate of the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute and a valuer for the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program. He was recently Chair of the City of Melbourne’s Art & Heritage Collection Advisory Panel and a member of the Public Art Advisory Panel.

Guy was a lawyer before becoming Director of Christine Abrahams Gallery, one of Australia’s leading commercial art galleries. He was President of the Australian Commercial Galleries Association, and Board member of the Melbourne Art Fair and the National Gallery of Victoria Art Foundation.

In 2009 he completed a Master of Environment (climate change politics & policy) at the University of Melbourne and received climate communications training from US Vice President Al Gore. Guy is an active advocate for urgent action on climate change.

Fiona Armstrong is a Co-Founder and former Committee Member of CLIMARTE. She works in climate and health communications, policy, research and advocacy. Fiona has a background as a health professional, journalist, in public policy analysis and advocacy. She is a Fellow of the Centre for Policy Development, and Founder and Executive Director of the Climate and Health Alliance. Fiona is the author of a number of seminal publications on climate, energy and health including Our Uncashed Dividend: The Health Benefits of Climate Action, published by the Climate and Health Alliance and The Climate Institute, and Coal and Health in the Hunter: Lessons from One Valley for the World. Fiona was named one of Australia’s 100 Women of Influence (2016), won the Tony McMichael Award for leadership on health and the environment (2017), the Frank Fisher Award (2018), and the ProBono Impact 25 Award (2022).

For over 50 years, Peter Doherty has dedicated his life to science with a vision to improve global health, well-being and prosperity. He is one of Australia’s most highly respected scientists and the namesake and Patron of the recently opened Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, at the University of Melbourne.

In 1996, Professor Doherty and his Swiss colleague Rolf Zinkernagel were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering how the immune system recognises virus-infected cells. Professor Doherty is a passionate advocate on the need to tackle climate change and the role the arts can play in bringing about a shift in our broader cultural attitude to this issue.

Professor Doherty is the author of several books, including: The Knowledge Wars (2015), Sentinel Chickens: What Birds Tell Us About Our Health And Our World (2012), A Light History of Hot Air (2007) and The Beginners Guide to Winning the Nobel Prize (2005).

Dr Joëlle Gergis is an award-winning climate scientist and writer. An internationally recognised expert in Australian and Southern Hemisphere climate variability and change, Joëlle has authored over 130 scientific publications.

Joëlle was a lead author on the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on the Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report — a global, state-of-the art review of climate change science.

Alongside her research activities, Joëlle has also
published three highly-acclaimed general audience books:
Sunburnt Country: The future and history of climate change in Australia, Humanity’s Moment: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope which was shortlisted for a 2023 Australian Book Industry Award (ABIA) and the 2023 Queensland Literary Non-Fiction Award, and won the 2023 Scholarly Book of the Year and Highway to Hell: Climate Change and Australia’s Future.

David Karoly is an honorary Professor in the School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and an honorary Senior Research Fellow in Melbourne Climate Futures, having retired from CSIRO at the end of January 2022. He is an internationally recognised expert on climate change and climate variability.

Professor Karoly was Leader of the Earth Systems and Climate Change Hub in the Australian Government’s National Environmental Science Program, based in CSIRO, during 2018 to June 2021. During 2012-2017, he was a member of the Climate Change Authority, which provides advice to the Australian government on responding to climate change, including targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. He was involved in the Assessment Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2001, 2007, 2014 and 2021 in several different roles. He was awarded the 2015 Royal Society of Victoria Medal for Scientific Excellence in Earth Sciences and elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 2019.

From 2007 to February 2018, David Karoly was Professor of Atmospheric Science at the University of Melbourne and in the A.R.C. Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science. From 2003 to 2007, he held the Williams Chair in the School of Meteorology at the University of Oklahoma.

Annie is a passionate Doctor of Creative Arts. Her practice focuses on discarded textiles, locality, plant materials and on small bookmaking. Annie takes every opportunity to bring climate matters into conversation in community settings.  She’s had a rich and diverse career based on skills in community engagement and facilitation. Her book Death, a love project is based on long experience helping people to plan and prepare for end of life. She has also worked in sustainability-focused roles, teaching, researching and managing programs at the University of Melbourne and in the Victorian Government. Prior to undertaking her doctorate, based on fieldwork during an Australia Council for the Arts fellowship, Annie worked with communities as a writer and visual artist for over 20 years.

Daniella has a background in environmental science and a passion for art and environmental and science communication.

While working in education, Daniella is completing studies in conservation biology, ecology and earth sciences to better understand our earth and living things. She hopes to use her science background to consciously approach environmental matters and projects and bridge the gap between science and society.

She has been volunteering in STEM, environmental and community groups over the past several years and loves connecting with people.

CLIMARTE’s focus aligns deeply with Daniella’s passions and values and she is excited to actively contribute toward CLIMARTE’s initiatives and vision.

Esther is currently a first year uni student studying a Bachelor of Arts at Monash. She has been a passionate climate activist since the age of thirteen, starting with ClimActs. She was an early participant of the powerful School Strike 4 Climate Change social movement and is an organiser with the Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC) Naarm team.

Esther hopes to one day make a positive difference for her community by becoming a member of parliament, and using her voice to demand greater climate action/justice for all those effected by the crisis now and into the future. Convinced of the power of art and creativity, Esther really appreciates CLIMARTE’s unique approaches to the Climate Emergency.

Ava Jackson has completed her Bachelor of Arts with Honours from the University of Melbourne. Ava’s Honours thesis examined local level climate finance in Australia with a focus on community-based philanthropy. Throughout this degree Ava paired her passions for the arts and climate action which she is now able to bring to her volunteer role at the CLIMARTE Gallery. Ava is commencing a Juris Doctor at the University of Melbourne in 2022 to be able to further her work in this space.

Nancy has been playing with artistic pursuits and a love of the natural world since childhood. She has been a dancer, performer, teacher, painter, participated in group and solo exhibitions, run local artistic environmental community engagement projects, has an Honours Degree in Visual Art from Monash University, and been an allied health worker. Nancy belongs to a Yalukit-willam (River dwellers, Altona) Friends group engaged in citizen science and plantings.

A career Educator, Roslyn has been presenting guided tours and workshop activities for Pre-school, F-12 and tertiary students at Heide Museum of Modern Art  since 2014.

Roslyn is deeply interested in the intersection between traditional cultures of the Wurundjeri People and Australian modernist art and architecture. She feels that listening to Elders talk about their connections to Country has been a humbling experience and continues to broaden her understanding of the land.

CLIMARTE’s focus on the current environmental crisis aligns with Roslyn’s values. She is “excited to be part of a holistic community through on-going collaboration with the CLIMARTE team and the promotion of contemporary artists.”

Gomathi Suresh is an Indian-Australian visual artist, working mostly with ceramics. Currently in her final year of the MFA program at the RMIT in Melbourne, her studio practice has been increasingly reflective of socio-ecological subject matter and marginalised language-culture. The objects she makes explore the materiality of clay as both the alchemical form and surface. Her work references the entropic volatility in kiln atmospheres that hand-built ceramic forms are exposed to, during their firing process, providing metaphorical allusions to the unpredictability of current climate crises and the erasure of marginalised ecologies in the context of neo-colonial hierarchies.

https://gomathisuresh.com.au/