Minister's Creative Council

About the Minister's Creative Council

The Minister’s Creative Council (MCC) is a positive, solutions focused, Ministerial advisory body for the arts in Canberra. The MCC is a two-way conduit of information and provides strategic advice to the ACT Government on the arts and sector issues. The MCC assists the Government to develop arts policies in order to promote and advance the arts across government and community, reflecting the importance of the arts to all.

The Minister for the Arts, Creative Industries and Community Events will use the MCC in its capacity as an advisory body to explore and test ideas. The MCC will provide advice on matters referred to the Council directly by the Minister.

The MCC will be a group of creative people who can use their unique perspective and expertise to contribute to positive discussion and practical advice on the arts in Canberra.

The MCC will be diverse and focused on new ways to work together to generate interesting ideas.

Terms will be staggered to ensure continuity of the work plan during the rotation of its membership on a biennial basis.

The ACT Government understands that a diversity of views leads to innovation in the arts. Therefore, we actively encourage representation from a wide range of community members, including but not limited to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, those from multicultural backgrounds, representatives from LGBTQI communities, and people who identify as a person with a disability or have lived experience of mental illness.

If you want to know more about the Council or want to make contact, email CreativeCouncil@act.gov.au

Terms of Reference

You can download the full versions of the Terms of Reference here:

Current Members

Genevieve Jacobs (Chair)

Genevieve Jacobs has been a journalist for 30 years, working in print and radio. She is the former Mornings presenter for ABC Canberra, and is now the Group Editor for Region Media and a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. Genevieve sits on the boards of the National Folk Festival and Canberra International Music Festival, and is a director of the Conflict Resolution Service and the M16 Artspace, and a patron of ACT Landkeeper’s Trust. She has lectured widely on Australian artists and their gardens and also leads cultural tours focusing on contemporary art and gardens.

Genevieve has an enduring interest in building and strengthening community engagement.

Jack Lloyd (Deputy Chair)

Jack Lloyd is the Executive Director and Co-CEO of Belconnen Arts Centre, where he has worked since 2009, managing a fantastic team of operational, financial and marketing staff to help grow a vital and inclusive range of visual and performing arts activities for the Canberra community.

Jack is a member of Boho Interactive, an experimental theatre company based in Canberra using interactive narratives to explore ideas from Complex Systems Science. For more than a decade, Boho has used a research-based arts practice to challenge audiences with some of the world’s most demanding problems: climate change, antibiotic resistance, social unrest and building sustainable communities.

Jack is also a member of the Childers Group arts advocacy body and since 2015 has worked to research and raise awareness of issues relating to the arts in the ACT and to provide an opportunity for artists and arts workers to learn, network and share. He is passionate about the arts and its extraordinary ability to bring together, give voice and make change.

Richie Allan (Member) 

Richie Allan is a Ngunnawal Leader who is passionate about his Culture. His life has always evolved around the arts from a cultural perspective. Richie uses multiple art forms including story-telling and visual arts to express Culture and his artworks are held on private collections worldwide. Richie established and is the Cultural Director of a cultural business, Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation Kinnections (TOACK). TOACK is a way to bring Culture to many art forms and also provides programs and other services to Government and other clients in cultural awareness and safety, cultural education,  cultural immersion and cultural tours. Richie has worked supporting the Wiggles and has been involved in DVDs to help support cultural Education.

He holds tertiary qualifications in the fields of Education and Indigenous Studies.

Samantha Faulkner (Member)

Samantha is a Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal woman from the Badu and Moa Islands, Torres Strait and Wuthuthi/Yadhaigana peoples, Cape York Peninsula. 

Samantha is a published author of biography, poetry and short stories, locally, nationally and internationally. She has represented women and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander interests on local, state and national boards. She is Treasurer of First Nations Australia Writers Network and Us Mob Writing Group and Chairperson, ACT Torres Strait Islanders Corporation.  She is also a member of the ACT Reconciliation Council, ACT Place Names Committee, ACT Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts Network and the Board of the Canberra Writers Festival.  

Samantha has worked in the Australian Public Service for over twenty years and also with the research, community controlled and non-government sectors. She is the Director of Ethics and Research Leadership and the Indigenous Research Exchange, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies and a Visiting Fellow with the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research at the Australian National University

Ben Fox (Member)

Ben Fox is a public advocate of creativity with a background in design, performance, and festivals. Ben has worked as an Artistic Director for organisations and projects in Australia and Asia, including regional and remote Australia. He develops opportunities for dynamic interaction, culturally safe spaces, emergent leadership, constructive intercultural work and hopeful futures. Ben also loves riding bicycles, driving bobcats and ‘simply messing about in boats’.

Andrew Galan (Member)

Andrew Galan is an internationally published poet and co-produces renowned poetry event BAD!SLAM!NO!BISCUIT!. Showcased at events including the Woodford, National Folk, Red Dirt and Queensland Poetry festivals, and Chicago’s Uptown Poetry Slam, his verse appears in the Best Australian Poems, Otoliths, Nuovi Argomenti, Cordite, the Canberra Times and more. That Place of Infested Roads (Life During Wartime), Knives Forks & Spoons Press, is his first book. His latest collection, For All The Veronicas (The Dog Who Staid), Bareknuckle Books, won a 2017 ACT Writing and Publishing Award. Andrew has produced and curated for You Are Here where he continues as a Committee member, he co-founded and co-produced Noted festival, and is a member of the Queensland Poetry Festival Advisory Committee. In 2018 he co-edited the ground-breaking Spoken Word edition of Australian Poetry Journal. In 2017 he won a Canberra Critics Circle Award for his contributions to ACT poetry.

Megan Hinton (Member)

Megan Hinton is the Senior Gallery Coordinator at the School of Art & Design, Australian National University. She has worked across arts management, exhibition and program development for ten years, previously holding the positions Acting Artistic Director of Megalo Print Studio + Gallery and Director of PhotoAccess.

Megan Hinton is an artist and designer with her practice spanning printmaking, textile design and collaborative design projects. Her work has been exhibited across Australia, and been part of several international exhibitions in China and Washington DC USA. She has worked on design commissions across textiles, product development and mural designs for private and government clients.

Liz Lea (Member)

Liz Lea is a performer, choreographer and producer. Her specialty is working with contemporary and classical Indian dance, community and inclusive dance practice. Her work has been commissioned in India, UK, Australia, South Africa, Singapore and USA. Liz was the 2017 ACT Artist of the Year and won a 2017 Australian Dance Award for her direction of Great Sport! at the National Museum of Australia. She directed Canberra Dance Theatre between 2010-16, founding the GOLD company of elders. Liz runs two Festivals - DANscienCE where dance and science meet and BOLD, celebrating the legacy of dance in all cultures. BOLD II runs 13-17th March 2019. She is currently touring her one woman show, RED, for which she was awarded a 2018 Canberra Critic Circle Award. Liz directs the Australian Talented Youth Project and works as Program Curator for Ausdance ACT.

Tamzin Nugent (Member)

Tamzin has worked professionally as a Director, Creative producer, facilitator, teacher and storyteller. Tamzin obtained a Graduate Diploma from the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Directing in 2000 and has worked on a wide range of creative projects in Australia and beyond.
Working in the screen industry as well as the performing arts she has developed a reputation for creativity, innovative approaches and financial acumen. Tamzin became a partner at SilverSun Pictures in 2017 and brings uncompromising visions that challenge conventional paradigms. She possesses a unique combination of knowledge of the film production process, strong advocacy and influencing skills combined with commercial awareness.

Tamzin in her work strives to push for the right environment for the future of the creative industries by helping raise ambition, create jobs, grow turnover and build the confidence and networks they need to be truly innovative.

Michael Sollis (Member)

Michael is a sought after freelance composer, artistic director and mandolinist who has had a unique impact on the Australian music scene. He creates captivating artistic journeys using music to inspire audiences to discover and question the world around them. Michael regularly collaborates with experts from other fields to create new artistic works – working with visual artists, dancers, astronomers, geneticists, and even Rugby League clubs. His works have been performed by groups such as the Australian String Quartet, the Australian Voices, and internationally by exhAust, the peärls before swïne experience, and Red Note Ensemble.

He is the founder, composer, and artistic director for the nationally acclaimed Griffyn Ensemble, and Artistic Director, Education for Musica Viva Australia – working with Australia’s finest musicians to develop programs to give over 280,000 Australian school students the best opportunity to discover music.

Michael is recognised as one of Australia’s leading teaching artists, and has delivered programs in schools, retirement homes, offices and even prisons in Australia and abroad.  He is  a noted researcher within the interdisciplinary fields of anthropology-composition-linguistics.  His work on sung stories in the Papua New Guinea highlands has been published by ANU E-Press and the Australian Journal of Linguistics, and received the University Medal from the Australian National University for this work.

Recent projects include One Sky, Many Stories External Link, with iconic Indigenous songwriter Warren H. Williams, and The Milk Carton ConfessionsExternal Link - exploring our motives for recycling - with percussionist Thea Rossen.

Sia Ahmad (Member)

Sia Ahmad is many things to the Australian artistic landscape - songwriter, artist, improviser, curator and facilitator. For over a decade, she has brought an outsider's eye and DIY punk aesthetic to the way she brings communities together, be it through creative collaboration, producing eclectic performance programs or her work running the highly respected hellosQuare label.

Under her birth name Shoeb, she has been commissioned by Canberra Contemporary Art Space, Sydney’s Parramasala festival and the You Are Here festival in Canberra to create mixed-media works for their curated programs whilst as a musician, she has performed throughout Australia, Japan, New Zealand, the UK and the South East Asian region at venues such as City Recital Hall (Sydney), The Judith Wright Centre (Brisbane), The Street Theatre (Canberra), Cafe OTO (London), Rough Trade East (London) and Pit Inn (Tokyo) with Australian festival appearances for WOMADelaide, Open Frame, Liquid Architecture and TheNOWnow.

Sia’s artistic practice has co-existed alongside her various administrative roles at key ACT arts organisations including the Street Theatre, Tuggeranong Arts Centre and Ainslie + Gorman Arts Centre while collaborating with Goethe-Institut Sydney on touring projects. In addition to her role as a member of the inaugural Ministers’ Creative Council, she also recently became a member on the board for the Australian Art Orchestra.

Updates from the Council

The Council held their first meeting in December 2018. Since forming the Council discussed issues that could form their ongoing work plan and devised decision making processes to ensure efficiency. The Council also devised ways to engage with the arts sector to ensure their work focuses on issues important to the sector.

A meeting summary will be published here after each meeting to inform the community of what the Council has discussed.

Thursday 3 October 2019

The theme of the meeting was communication, with the Minister, the community, artists, each other and with artsACT. We discussed understanding the Arts in our Territory and strategies to engage people in shaping a creative, inclusive, and caring society. What does this mean? There will be more opportunities for you to engage with members of the Council and you will hear from us on topics impacting the Arts in the short term, as well as on upcoming areas that have longer term implications for creativity where we live. In getting communication right we will influence change to benefit the community and its creativity.

Thursday 7 December 2019

Members who attended the MCC and Cultural Facilities Corporation lunch with Professor David Throsby spoke on the value of the conversation particularly in relation to wellbeing and the value of the arts across the community. It was noted that opportunities for networking with the arts community should be encouraged with feedback and sharing of information highlighted. The Council is working on implementing a Communications Strategy. The Council discussed key achievements including provision of advice on the Arts Biennial and about cultural mapping. The Council is mindful of considering what gaps it can fill, maintaining trust, building profile of the Council in the community is important and working groups.

Members who attended the MCC and Cultural Facilities Corporation lunch with Professor David Throsby spoke on the value of the conversation particularly in relation to wellbeing and the value of the arts across the community. The Council discussed a sector listening framework - creating mechanisms for the Council to listen to the community and form a conduit to the Minister. The Council also discussed the value of a new creative awards to recognise engagement with the arts as a positive incentive for growing arts community engagement in the community.

Thursday 5 March 2020

The MCC heard an update about the Wellbeing Indicator Project. The Council reinforced the importance of the need for indicators relating to arts and culture, and thanked the ACT Government for their work in incorporating these measures. The Council also reviewed the outcomes of the planning meeting held in December 2019, including the Generative Conversation Model which the Council agreed to use in future meetings. artsACT updated the Council on the work it is currently doing around updates to organisational funding. 2 proposals identified at the precvious meeting for advice to the Minister were further discussed; on a creative sector awards program and listening mechanisms the Council can use to consult with the sector. Finally the Council noted the need for a creative recovery process after recent bushfires and the intention to ensure greater communication with the sector about its work.

Thursday 16 April 2020

At our April meeting, we farewelled valued Council member Jilda Andrews, thanking her for her contribution to the Council in 2019. artsACT provided an update to the Council on the current ACT Government responses to the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the local arts and cultural sector. The Council thanked the Minister for the swift response, notably the nation-leading HOMEFRONT grant program. To ensure the Council is able to be an active conduit between the Minister and the community at this time, we resolved to develop a survey to identify impact and current gaps in support for the arts and cultural community. Finally we engaged in a generative conversation around the question “How do we build on what is happening” – discussing how we as a Council can support and build on work already being done by our creative, resilient arts sector to adapt in this crisis.

Thursday 14 May 2020

The Minister’s Creative Council is looking forward, to the changes in our broad community and in the Arts catalysed by Covid-19. We are looking at ways to safeguard against Arts funding reductions while pursuing proactive advocacy promoting the far-reaching aspects of Arts in the community both during the pandemic and in defining the Australian Capital Territory’s post-Covid-19 future. The recently concluded community consultation, opened up to a diverse array of voices through our survey, was a direct effort at this. We have been discussing the Arts as community care and the need to care for Arts practitioners and continue to consider new ways to engage the Arts sector in developing a safe transition. The lack of rules pertaining to safety in the Arts makes it harder to open back up, both from a practical perspective with venues, but also in the more esoteric sense of how artists are going to engage in their practices going forward. The Council also continues the initiative of developing questions to pose for free-ranging discussion at our meetings. Our most recent was: What if we had more ways of talking about the potential of art in people’s lives? We encourage all members of our community to offer responses to this question via CreativeCouncil@act.gov.au.

Thursday 11 June 2020

In its June meeting, the Council discussed how the ACT Government could best support the creative community to understand how it could preserve careers and practice, and recover quickly. The Council discussed what forms of arts-specific guidance could be provided by the Government in order to offer the sector clear guidelines under which it could operate, as social distancing restrictions are rolled back. The Council resolved to consider further potential case studies or scenarios that could be useful to address in a public FAQ document.

The Council discussed the recent survey of the ACT arts sector. Members gave their impressions of general themes and recurring comments, and new ideas that had been raised by the submissions. The Council resolved to continue to review the findings and progress towards recommendations to the Minister regarding further action that could be taken to support the arts sector.

The meeting concluded with a discussion of what steps could be taken to show and not tell that the ACT is a place of great creativity, and how the Members could be culturally aware within the Council and in their connection with community.

Thursday 9 July 2020

In our July meeting we welcomed two new members onto the Council:  Richie Allan of the Ngunnawal and Gamillaraay Nations and Torres Strait Islander and Samantha Faulkner from the Wuthuthi/Yadhaigana peoples, Cape York Peninsula and Badu and Moa Islands, Torres Strait. Richie and Sam have brought valuable new perspectives and insights.  Ongoing work is planned to ensure that the Minister is informed from a First Nation and culturally diverse perspective, ensuring that it includes “not just the arts that exists within four walls, but the arts and culture that’s out there, outside”.  The Council also formulated recommendations to the Minister based on a survey where we heard about the impact of COVID 19 from 300 Canberra creatives.  These recommendations ensure that short-term needs can be responded to before the caretaker period of government commences later this year, whilst identifying long-term opportunities that can be acted upon in the future.  We also congratulated the work of the Where You Are Festival in celebrating everyday creativity and supporting ACT-region Artists

COVID-19 Survey

On 20 May 2020, the Minister's Creative Council circulated a short survey it developed seeking input from ACT arts communities about their experiences during COVID-19 and about the evolution of their arts practices emerging into recovery.

The Minister's Creative Council received 330 responses to its survey which closed on 3 June 2020.

A Listening Report has been developed by the Council to provide feedback to the community about the survey responses.

You can access this report through the links below: