Credits

BYDS Director Tim Carroll has been the Director since 1991, making him the longest serving arts worker in Western Sydney. Tim runs a multitude of contemporary arts based projects and has instigated and run over 120 arts and cultural projects with the communities of Bankstown over the past 20 years. In 2013, he was awarded Bankstown Citizen of the Year.

Creative Producer Kavita Bedford is an award-winning Australian writer with a background working in online journalism, anthropology and publishing. She is the recipient of the Westwords Under 30 Western Sydney Writers’ Fellowship developing a series of literary non-fiction essays on place. In 2014, she was selected for Mexico’s Under the Volcano Writing Residency with Granta Editor and cultural journalist, Jonathan Levi. She has worked for the World Bank's Justice for the Poor team, as a publicist for Currency Press Performing Arts Publishers and a guest lecturer in Anthropology at Macquarie University.

Photographer George Voulgaropoulos worked as a staff photographer for a community newspaper group in the western suburbs of Sydney for six years before going freelance in mid 2013. As well as teaching photographic workshops for refugees and emerging photographers, George has a passion for contemporary documentary photography and photo-books. George’s personal work consists of ongoing long term projects which have been published extensively, both domestically and in international publications. George joined Oculi in 2013. You can follow his work in western Sydney at: www.behindtheveilbook.com

Filmmaker Fadle Fred El-Harris is an award-winning filmmaker and producer, and has established a film studio, Filmotion Productions. Recent productions include: The Wildlife Man featuring David Ireland, which has been nominated for several awards including the Australian TV-week Logies; Linking Generations; a one-hour SBS targeted documentary about Muslim history in Australia, Are you with me out there!; and a music clip featuring high profile footballers and celebrities such as Anthony Mundine to help tackle discrimination and inequality.

Professor James Arvanitakis is a Professor in the Humanities at the University of Western Sydney and the Head of The Academy at UWS. He is also a member of the University’s Institute for Cultural and Society. In 2012, he was awarded the Prime Minister’s University Teacher of the Year. His latest book is The Citizen of the 21st Century (2013) and he is the resident sociologist on Sydney's FBI Radio

Website Design/Development studio Low Clouds Creative was a local creative studio founded by Nadine Beyrouti and Suna Celik - now run by Nadine Beyrouti who has a BA in Visual Communications and has worked as a web and graphic designer in multiple studios around Sydney and has been freelancing for more than 3 years. Suna is currently completing a Bachelor in Digital Media at UNSW COFA and is also working on multiple film-based projects.

Sub-editor/Social researcher Emma Mitchell is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology at Macquarie University. She is conducting a participatory research project based in Bankstown, where she volunteers at BYDS and BCRG (Bankstown Community Research Group). Her study explores culturally diverse perspectives of welfare and responsibility.

Writers: A collection of emerging and established writers from the Western Sydney region. The genres vary from essayists, poets, fiction and stand-up comedy including: Ahmad Al-Rady, James Arvanitakis, Hasan Bajis, Kavita Bedford, Lachlan Brown, Andrew Luc, Sara Mansour George Toseski, Aamon Sayed, Eva Stefanidis, Nitin Vengurlekar, Asma Yusra

Illustration by Paul Rhodes
Project consultant Alex Parker
Dramaturgy Sopa Enari

The project is currently a pilot website supported by BYDS (Bankstown Youth Development Services) and funded by Australia Council for the Arts.