associate artists

VIMH is thrilled to announce the four artists we have invited to work with us across a year to develop their individual practice, with a focus on fostering and strengthening connections within our community.

Cheryl Ho.

Cheryl Ho is an Actor, Maker and Director of Special Projects at Artwave Studio. She is interested in how spaces can be created or facilitated for people to feel empowered, challenged and supported. After graduating from the Victorian College of the Arts (BFA Acting), she has worked with companies like Melbourne Theatre Company (CYBEC ELECTRIC 2020), Malthouse (HELLO WORLD 2020) and Melbourne Shakespeare Company (As You Like It 2020). As a Maker, her works are often interactive or participatory, stemming from her desire for audiences to experience the same imaginative work she experiences as an actor and for audiences to engage in the work on a deeper level. Her latest work 落叶归根 (Luò yè guī gēn) Getting Home, supported by the City of Melbourne SIGNAL Young Creatives Lab won 4 awards at Melbourne Fringe 2020 (Best in Theatre, Best Emerging Writer, Best Emerging Producer and New Zealand Tour Ready Award). As part of Artwave Studio, Cheryl co-wrote and voiced a 1-on-1 audio work, A Call Away, which premiered in Singapore’s Writers Festival 2020. More at cherylhohuiee.com.

Luna Mrozik Gawler. Photo by Devika Bilimoria.

Based in Narrm/Melbourne Luna Mrozik-Gawler is a transdisciplinary artist, researcher and writer interested in the role of live art in multispecies worlding, future making and the production of posthuman knowledge. Their work explores the intersections, ethics and entanglements of bodies- human and non-human, material, cultural, ecological and socio-political using speculative methodologies to challenge anthropocentric habit and center more-than-human care. 

This research-based draws on more than a decade of immersive design experience to engage installation, performance, media, and text. It is most commonly participatory, radically site-responsive, durational and/or immersive and invites audiences to consider and practice new modes of being the non-human world. 

This work has featured at festivals throughout Australia including Mapping Melbourne for Multicultural Arts Victoria, Queensland Poetry Festival, NIDA Nights, Critical Animals, Crack Theatre Festival, Hillscene Festival of Live Art, Fremantle Festival and the Ian Potter Museum of Art.  Luna’s text work spans critical theory, speculative ficto-criticism and poetry and can be viewed in TEXT, Journal of Writing and Writing Courses, The international Journal of Practice Based Humanities, The Dark Mountain Journal, Going Down Swinging and Bombay Gin, amongst other places.

Becki Bouchier.

Becki Bouchier is a Singaporean/Australian filmmaker and theatre-maker based in Melbourne. Her 2018 short film Big and Tall and Hairy won Best Director and Best Film at the Melbourne 48 Hour Film Project, and she has been accepted into the Australian Writers’ Guild’s prestigious Pathways program for two TV pilot screenplays. Her debut play Chasing Yesterday premiered to a sold-out season at the 2019 Melbourne Fringe. Becki is set to complete a Master of Film and Television at the Victorian College of the Arts in 2021, and is incredibly passionate about bringing her stories to the world via stage and screen.

Kate Ellis.

Kate Ellis is a Drama Coach for film & television actors, a progressive Drama & English education innovator, a writer & a community-program developer. She drives each of these roles with the belief that sensory rapture can be cultivated in the everyday & that deeper levels of intimacy can be achieved through listening. Kate has worked with artists such as Lucy Fry, Candy Bowers & Sarah Aiken & has facilitated community programs at Abbotsford Convent & for the Victorian Arts Education Festival. She has curated dialogues for Monash University & MPavillion; & though shyer to submit her writing, small pieces can be found in online journals and books.

We can’t wait to keep you updated with all of the brilliant thinking and exchange that these four artists do together this year. You can read a bit more about the intentions of the program here.