Spotlight On: Fairlie Sandilands

Fairlie is an artist, writer, documentary maker, film producer and arts event manager . Having lived in Australia, Papua New Guinea and the Eastern Torres Strait Islands she developed a strong interest in cultural expression, in other ways of seeing and in communal life. Following this interest she completed a post graduate degree in material anthropology and museum curatorship.

Her focus is on inclusion and communication, assisting people and organisations to develop their creativity and social engagement through creative projects – this has included making documentaries for not-for-profit organisations, including the award winning The Spine of Creativity; developing a locally based arts project for the Federal Government as part of the Closing the Gap initiative, that engaged an urban indigenous community in Townsville in service uptake – filming, writing and producing a comic book and holding arts events in local parks were all the elements she used to develop and implement the project; and being one of four project co-ordinators for a State and local government initiative in Townsville – Animating Spaces, in 2015. Most recently a play she wrote and produced, about post deployment issues such as PTSD and suicide, that many modern era veterans face, was sponsored for a second run in Townsville and the backers are looking to tour it to Brisbane and Darwin in 2018.

Fairlie is a member of the Golden Bee Dew collective contributing work that is on exhibition at Dandifest as part of the Golden Bee Dew exhibition world tour.


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