The Arts in the Time of Covid

Adrian Collette is Chief Executive Officer of the Australia Council for the Arts, the Federal Government’s principal arts investment, development and advisory body.

In his previous role as Vice-Principal (Engagement) at the University of Melbourne, Mr Collette was responsible for the development of the University’s Engagement strategy. His portfolio also included the oversight of the University’s museums and galleries and its many cultural sector partnerships.

Previously, Mr Collette held the position of Chief Executive of Opera Australia, Australia’s largest performing arts company for 16 years. He also worked in book publishing for a decade, including as Managing Director, Reed Books Australia, a Division of Reed Elsevier. 

He has served on the Australia Council Board and was a member of the Sydney Grammar School’s Council. He is also a Life Member of Live Performance Australia.

He was made a member of the Order of Australia in 2008 for service to the performing arts particularly through executive roles with Opera Australia, as a mentor to young artists, to publishing and to the community. 

Melbourne-based writer Esther Anatolitis is one of Australia's most influential advocates for the arts. She is Deputy Chair of Contemporary Arts Precincts, who have recently opened Collingwood Yards, and Honorary Associate Professor at RMIT School of Art. Esther has led arts and media organisations across all artforms, and her consultancy Test Pattern focuses on creative policy, practice and precincts, as well as advocacy and public value. A hallmark of Esther's arts leadership career has been her tenacious civic engagement, ensuring that artists' voices and arts issues feature prominently on political agendas. This work has ranged from strategic development and private advice to public events, regional marginal seat forums, candidates' debates, specialist workshops and Australia's first advocacy training program for the arts. A prolific writer, Esther's work regularly appears in literary journals, newspapers, and across the arts and design media. Her book Place, Practice, Politics is published in 2022 by Spurbuchverlag.

Peter Sipeli has more than two decades of expertise in using and managing advocacy through artistic expression. He is an Arts Manager, and supporter of the Spokenword arts movement in Fiji. Peter founded 'The Poetry Shop, Fiji' six years ago and facilitates regular poetry events in Suva and poetry circle discussions with new and emerging Fijian writers.

He works as a gay activist using storytelling as advocacy. Peter founded the online arts magazine ARTtalk, Fiji that in 2017 ran 10 issues showing arts in Fiji and across the region. From 2018 to 2020, ARTtalk, Fiji is incubated at the Oceania Centre for ARTS, Culture and Pacific Studies, alongside a podcast series, an audio component to ARTtalk.

Peter is passionate about developing the literary arts in Fiji and addressing prolonged silences in the art form. A SLAM poet with a large following, he is a champion of the revival of the literary movement in Fiji, working to provide spaces for new and emerging poets and artists to enable the framing of authentic local voices. In 2016, Peter was among seven presenters who participated in the inaugural Tedx Suva in which he spoke on 'Storytelling for Advocacy'.

Jo Thomas is CEO and Artistic Director of Metro Arts, Queensland's preeminent multidisciplinary arts hub. Over the past 3 years Jo has guided Metro Arts through a period of once-in-a-generation change redesigning the organisation's business model and creating the Metro Arts Future Fund (MAFF) to sustain art and artists into the future. For this work Jo was awarded the 2020 Queensland Telstra Business Woman of the Year; as well as being the state winner of the For Purpose and Social Enterprise category. Under her leadership Metro Arts has also won significant awards including a Sidney Myer Performing Arts Award (2020) and the Palliative Care Queensland Award for Innovation in Community. Jo has also worked as a performer in film, television and theatre and toured locally and nationally with her works. She is a Churchill Fellow and holds a Masters Fine Arts (Cultural Leadership) from NIDA.