Soul of the City: Australian Museum X Vivid Ideas

Sara Mansour is the co-founder and artistic director of Bankstown Poetry Slam (BPS), Australia's largest poetry slam. Founded in 2013, BPS has partnered with a number of  organisations and festivals over the years such as Youtube, Sydney Festival, Biennale of Sydney, Sydney Writers Festival and Art Gallery of NSW.  Sara is also a practising lawyer and board member of Monkey Baa Theatre Company, Crescent Institute and Sweatshop. She uses her practise and her art to shed light on issues of political and social importance and to drive change. Sara is heavily involved in community work and the arts, performing and facilitating workshops, and curating "Real Talk" - an award winning inter-school poetry program which uses performance poetry as a medium to discuss contemporary social issues and empower young people in Western Sydney to find and use their voices. She is currently working on a new project which will deliver Australia's first national youth poetry slam to be held later this year.

Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran is a Sri-Lankan born contemporary artist who explores global histories and languages of figurative representation. He has specific interests in South Asian forms and imagery as well as politics relating to idolatry, the monument, gender, race and religion. While he is best known for his irreverent approach to ceramic media, his material vernacular is broad. He has worked imaginatively with sculptural materials including bronze, concrete, neon, LED and fibreglass, as well as conventional painting and printmaking materials and techniques. His work has been featured in some of Australia’s most prestigious galleries as well as internationally and his first major permanent public artwork was recently installed at the entrance of the new HOTA gallery.

Stephen Page is a descendant of the Nunukul people and the Munaldjali clan of the Yugambeh Nation from South East Queensland. In 1991, he was appointed Artistic Director of Bangarra and has developed a signature body of works that have become milestones in Australian performing arts. His first full-length film SPEAR premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival before screening at various arts festivals around Australia in early 2016.
He has also co-directed and choreographed the documentary FREEMAN (2020) and choreographed the feature films Bran Nue Dae (2009) and The Sapphires (2011). Stephen has received both the NAIDOC Lifetime Achievement Award and JC Williamson Award, been honoured with the Australia Council Dance Award for significant contributions to the cultural and artistic fabric of the nation, and appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO).
 

T Australia: The New York Times Style Magazine is crafted and brought to life by Editor-in-Chief and Publisher Katarina Kroslakova, who has earned her place as one of Australia’s most experienced editors, journalists and authorities on curating luxury experiences. 

The former editor of the Australian Financial Review’s Life & Leisure and Luxury magazines brings almost 20 years’ experience writing, consulting and editing for respected national publications with a vast global reach.

Her extensive magazine portfolio includes a career working across Fairfax Media, News Ltd, Pacific Magazines, Bauer Media, the ABC and Macquarie Radio Network, and she regularly features in the media, reporting on the business of lifestyle and luxury in the retail, food, fashion, arts, travel and motoring industries.

Her custom book and magazine division KK Press Pty Ltd is an agile, ambitious, business savvy and commercially conscious publishing house which places T Magazine at its core.

Jonny is an actor, writer, DJ and self-proclaimed Sydney Loyalist. Their creative works focus on finding joy and creating community. 
They have won awards for their writing and acting on stage and screen, twice Greenroom nominated for their work on Maureen, their film Joy Boy picked up Best Film Melbourne Queer Film Festival, Best Screenplay at Vivid's Fresh Flix and went on to screen at international film festivals including Cannes.

Their most recent theatre work, Maureen: Harbinger of Death was part of Sydney Festival’s 2021, Melbourne’s 2022 Rising and Adelaide Festival 2023. 

Bankstown Poetry Slam (BPS) is Australia's largest regular poetry slam, and has been dubbed the largest poetry slam in the Southern Hemisphere. BPS' award winning events and projects drive change by empowering young people and people from diverse backgrounds to express themselves through the medium of spoken word poetry.