Chair, Rebecca Young
Rebecca (Bec) Young (she/her) is an experienced and values-driven leader in South Australia's for-purpose sector, with a strong focus on access, inclusion, and community engagement. As Chief Executive of Access2Arts, she leads the state’s peak body for arts and disability and chairs the new national Arts and Disability Network Australia, working to remove barriers and create opportunities for disabled people to participate in and lead within the arts.
With over 12 years’ experience in the disability and social services sector, and a prior career spanning marketing, advertising, media, and communications, Rebecca brings a diverse skillset and a strategic mindset to her work. She holds an MBA, is a graduate of the Governor’s Leadership Foundation program, and is deeply committed to sustainable organisational development and sector-wide impact.
Rebecca is an advocate for inclusive leadership, accessible communication, and the development of emerging leaders. In addition to her executive role, she volunteers as a mentor across multiple leadership development programs and served for a number of years as Chair of Lolly Jar Circus, an inclusive social circus school supporting young people of all abilities.
Rebecca brings energy, insight, and a collaborative approach to everything she does, and is
passionate about contributing to a thriving, inclusive, and forward-thinking arts sector in South
Australia.
Deputy Chair, Joanne Hartstone
Joanne Hartstone (BCA[Drama] (Hons), GradDipEd[Secondary]) (she/her) is a multi-award winning theatre maker, performer, playwright, director, producer and presenter, specialising in international theatrical collaborations, live theatre and cabaret, and immersive/site-specific events. Joanne has built and curated pop-up venues in the Adelaide Botanic Gardens (Black Box Theatres) and the Queen's Theatre in Adelaide, and presented multiple seasons as a performer and producer in Edinburgh, Hollywood, London, New York and Sydney.
Joanne has been presenting work in the Adelaide Fringe since 2006 and is now a prolific practitioner in the Australian live entertainment industry. Joanne has published two plays - The Girl Who Jumped Off The Hollywood Sign and That Daring Australian Girl. She won the inaugural Made In Adelaide Award in 2017, the Frank Ford Award in 2020, multiple best theatre and Adelaide Critics Circle Awards, and two innovation awards in 2021 for her digital theatre work Black Box LiveTM during COVID.
Joanne is also a registered secondary school teacher and a mentor to emerging artists, including being a mentor for the Adelaide Cabaret Festival's 'Class of Cabaret' for three years (2021-2023).
Treasurer, Nick Hays
Nick Hays (he/him) has worked in Australia’s cultural sector for more than 20 years, commencing with Australian Dance Theatre as Executive Director in January 2020. Most recently he was at The Australian Ballet in Melbourne as a senior member of its Philanthropy team, as well as at Arts Centre Melbourne and Heide Museum of Modern Art.
Nick is currently on the Boards of Feast Festival, Writers SA and Project Animo, the latter an initiative of The Australian Ballet’s Resident Choreographer Alice Topp and acclaimed designer Jon Buswell, founded to bring together a collective of independent artistic voices and talent from across Australia’s dance landscape. Previous Board appointments include Chair of Melbourne-based independent theatre company, Rawcus, a board member of the Public Galleries Association of Victoria and Deputy Chair of Dancehouse Melbourne, one of the pre-eminent centres for contemporary dance practice and research in Australia.
In 2023 Nick completed the Governor’s Leadership Foundation Program, through the SA Leadership Institute, and in 2022 was selected to take part in ACMI’s CEO Digital Mentorship program.
Bridget Alfred
Bridget Alfred (she/her) is the CEO of SALA Festival and is dedicated to the arts and the important role it plays in
community. Prior to her current position, she has had various roles including Creative Arts Development Manager for Adelaide College of the Arts (TAFE SA), General Manager at Chamber Music Adelaide, and development positions within the media and community radio sectors. She works closely with colleagues, community and partners to deliver targeted programs that support artists and the South Australian arts ecology through flexible, inclusive, and transparent leadership.
Photo by Sam Roberts
Dr Tully Barnett
Dr Tully Barnett (she/her) is Associate Professor in Creative Industries and Cultural Policy at Adelaide University and Deputy Director of the Creative People, Products and Places Research Centre. Her teaching and research focus on the arts and culture sector and its value as well as cultural work in digital environments. Her research considers the theoretical and practical problems in how value is understood, assessed, and reported in the arts and culture sector. An outcome of that project is the co-authored book What Matters? Talking Value in Australian Culture (2018).
In 2022 she co-authored with Alex Cothren and Joanne Arciuli the report Telling the Story of Arts and Health in South Australia which was based on 47 interviews with the sector and in 2024 the team released What Does and Arts and Health Organisation Do?, an exploration of factors that drive success in the arts and health space.
Tully is a member of the Arts Health Network South Australia and Chair of the Australian Cultural Policy Researchers Association. In 2024-2025 she served as an expert for the UNESCO reflection group on the diversity of cultural expressions in the digital environment.
Dave Court
Dave Court (he/him) is a visual artist living on Kaurna Country in Adelaide, Australia, working across painting, sculpture and installation his practice ranges from large-scale public art to cross-media projects.
Characterised by bold, painterly gestures and abstraction, Dave’s artwork complicates traditional boundaries between the corporeal and virtual through interactive and immersive environments, events and installations. Process-oriented, collaborative and experimental, Dave’s activities encompass art direction and curation for exhibitions and festivals, clothing design, retail, art spaces and print media. Central to his practice is an exploration of how social structures and systems are shaped by evolving technologies, and a commitment to the radical possibilities of shared experience.
He has a degree in Visual Arts (Hons) from The University of South Australia.
Recent commissions include Digital, Physical, Textural, a moving image installation for Itaewon Art Week, Seoul (2024), Mischievous Messengers, a moving image piece for Future Spies at Spyspace Museum, New York City (2023), Hypercolour Miscellaneous Bistro Buffet with The Bait Fridge and SlowMango (2023) and COALESCE, a collaborative EP with Motez (2023), ATM001 AI Vending Machine, an interactive sculpture with James Brown and the Australian Institute for Machine Learning (2023) and Behind the Façade for Illuminate Festival, Adelaide (2022).
He is founder and director of Washdog Studios, a shared artist studio warehouse in Kent Town, providing studio space and professional opportunities for twelve independent artists and their extended networks.
Photo by Jack Fenby
Georgina Giessauf
Georgina Giessauf (she/her) is the Membership and Projects Officer at Festival City ADL, working across South Australia’s festival sector to support collaboration and engagement. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Adelaide, majoring in Sociology with a minor in Film Studies, and brings a strong interest in community, culture, and the role of festivals in shaping the state’s creative landscape.
Ray Harris
Ray Harris (she/her) is a mid-career Kaurna Yerta/Adelaide based artist working in primarily video, performance and installation. Her work explores complexities, isolation and otherness of the self, negotiated through the dualities of inner thought/feeling (installation) and outer action/ behaviour (video/performance).
She is also a curator, advocate and initiator of projects and studios. Ray is committed to furthering the SA arts through participation, support, spaces and opportunities. She has a Master’s degree from UNI SA, has won several grants and awards including Tatiara Art Prize 2023 and has exhibited locally, nationally and internationally including: The Samstag Museum, AEAF, Adelaide Festival, Hugo Michell Gallery, Sydney Contemporary Art Fair, Casula Powerhouse, Brenda May Gallery, Pirimid Sanat and Istanbul Contemporary Art Fair (Turkey) and SEEAF Art Festival (South Korea). Her work is held in 2 major collections Project 4L- Elgiz Museum Collection and The Borusan Collection (Turkey), and private collections (Australia) and has featured in publications such as Artlink, Art Collector, Broadsheet, Real time, Fine Print and ETC magazine (Canada).
Ray founded and directed Holy Rollers Studios, and now The Third Level Studios in the Adelaide CBD. Ray instigated, led, curated and managed group exhibitions/ performance events at Holy Rollers, Soft Spot; Hard Feelings, Psychache (co-curator Adele Sliuzas) and The Scene is the seen (co-curator Rayleen Forester). Ray developed and produced independent artist-led Neoteric 2022 and Neoterica 2024, biennial survey exhibitions of 20 mid-career SA artists, 20 SA writers, catalogue, performances, and public programming in a non-gallery space, in the Adelaide Festival.
Beth Neate
Beth Neate (she/her) is a respected arts and creative industries leader with 20 years experience in sector advocacy, program delivery, community arts and cultural development, audience engagement and film and television production.
She is the Chief Executive of Guildhouse, South Australia's peak body for visual art, craft and design and the Chair of Tutti Arts, a South Australian multi-arts organisation for learning disabled and neurodivergent artists.
Photo by Lana Adams
Sarah Tooth
Sarah Tooth (she/her) is an experienced arts and cultural leader, strategic thinker, and curator, with experience in both CEO and Artistic Director roles in Australian and internationally. I have worked supporting artists in organisations as diverse as Brown’s Mart Community Arts, Darwin Fringe Festival, ABC International TV, The Mercury, the Ubud Writers’ & Readers’ Festival, and Writers SA.
Recent, Sarah spent two years at Create SA working on the new state cultural policy, the Artists at Work Taskforce and the new Arts Bill. She is also the founder and owner of feminist bookshop and meeting place Goodwood Books, and run a successful arts and cultural strategic consultancy.
She has been a recipient of a Creative Australia Artistic Leadership Grant, participated in their Arts Leaders Program, and received project funding from Create SA for an experimental memoir / visual arts project exhibited as part of SALA in 2023.
Emily Tulloch
Emily Tulloch (she/her) is a South Australian musician and arts professional currently working as both an independent artist and dedicated arts leader. Her passion is for the instigation, nurture, development and support of creative contemporary music in Adelaide/Kaurna Yarta, Australia and beyond.
Emily is the Business Development Manager of COMA (Creative Original Music Adelaide), where she is leading the development of the organisation’s next strategic plan in its 20th year, having been a volunteer COMA committee member since 2007. Until January 2025, she was CEO and Artistic Director at Nexus Arts, where she led that vital and dynamic organisation in its work to promoting an intercultural understanding of Australian contemporary arts. Other past roles include those in education and programming across multiple organisations, and freelance performance with leading Australian and international artists and companies.
Emily was a member of Zephyr Quartet from 2005 to the Quartet’s final year of 2019, and with the ensemble created critically acclaimed and award-winning shows, performed internationally and across Australia, received two Ruby Awards for Innovation and three APRA/AMCOS Australian Art Music Awards.
As an independent artist, she has recently co-composed and recorded the scores for Restless Dance Theatre’s works ‘Exposed’ and ‘Seeing Through Darkness’, with her Zephyr Quartet colleague Hilary Kleinig, and performs as a freelance violinist. In 2023, she worked with shamisen performer, Noriko Tadano, to arrange two of her original compositions for performance with the Australian String Quartet. Other recent artistic projects include the co-creation of the show ‘Needle in the Hay: the music of Elliott Smith’ which premiered at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival in 2023, and the work-in-development ‘Bloody Ink Play’ with visual and performance artist, Jingwei Bu. In 2025-2026 she will co-compose the score to the original theatrical production ‘Hersay’ by Michèle Saint-Yves with Belinda Gehlert.
She is a Director of the Board of Adelaide City of Music and Soundstream New Music.
Photo by Morgan Sette.
Ex-Officio non-voting member, General Manager Kim Roberts
Kim Roberts (she/her) is an experienced and passionate arts leader and advocate. With 25 years in the music industry in charity management, community radio, festival administration and as a working independent musician (which she still enjoys), Kim has a deep understanding of the needs of artists and arts organisations in our current climate.
With added experience and qualifications in social research, bookkeeping, vocational training, digital media and languages, Kim brings a breadth of skills and a strong focus on knowledge sharing, advocacy, diversity and inclusion, artist pathways and sustainable organisational development.
Kim is also the Co-CEO for Nexus Arts, a non-government not-for-profit developing, supporting and presenting artists from First Nations and Culturally and Linguistically Diverse backgrounds and fostering intercultural dialogue. She was the former General Manager of peak body Music SA and former Board Member of Three D Radio.
Photo by Kathryn Harvy