Sound Connections: Makassar Workshop

Chris Griffiths is a Miriwoong, Ngaliwurru, and Karangpurru man with over 20 years' experience in arts, tourism, media, and land management across north-west Australia. A respected cultural leader, mentor, and public speaker, he has worked with major institutions, served on boards, and supported landmark native title cases.

As a lead songman and dancer, he plays a key role in ceremony and community life, and he is currently the Strong Men’s Program Coordinator at Waringarri Aboriginal Corporation.

Chris is currently the Tura Cultural Fellow (Australia) for Tura’s Sound Connections (2025-29) and was Cultural Advisor and Lead Songman for Tura’s The Journey Down (2023).

Garin Nugroho is a Southeast Asian filmmaker and artist working across a variety of disciplines, from film to the stage, installation works, painting and writing. A pioneer of major national film festivals and a key figure in bringing Indonesian cinema to the international stage, Nugroho's films have featured at renowned festivals such as Cannes, Berlin, Venice, and Busan. His creative work extends beyond film into performing and visual arts, with stage productions and installations showcased across Australia and Europe.

Beyond the arts, Garin is actively engaged in civic and educational initiatives. He has worked with NGOs on civic education and post-tsunami empowerment programs in Aceh, and has written nine books on film, culture, and democracy. He is the founder and board member of several major film festivals, and served as Head of the Jury for the Indonesian Film Festival (FFI) from 2021 to 2023. He has also served as a jury member at prestigious festivals such as Venice, Tokyo, and Busan.

Ilona McGuire is an artist of Noongar and Kungarakan descent. She works in close collaboration with her family, cultural expression and historical contexts to bring creative storytelling through visual, written and performing work. Her recent large-scale works Karla Bidi (2025 & 2026), Moombaki (2021), Kooranup: Wadjemup (2023) and Kwejuk Nyitting (2025) have combined ancestral stories with new technologies such as animation, drone light experiences, and sound sculptures. Ilona was awarded the Schenberg Art Fellowship for Hatched: National Graduate Show (PICA). As an artist, Ilona is explorative and open-minded. She is drawn to bold symbols of historical reference and uses isolation to amplify her message, often also equipping irony or humour as a means of connection. Ilona’s creative thinking is shaped by her spiritual and cultural worldview that is grounded in love, family, and care for others. Enjoying the process of sharing, Ilona continues to explore expressions through mixed-medium installations and ephemeral work as well as performance, social practice and collaboration.

Abdi Karya is a multi-disciplinary artist and cultural programmer from Makassar-South Sulawesi, Indonesia. Through his tradition and heritage from Sulawesi as starting point to encounters with voice, objects, and text, he devised performance-based works and installations to explore and investigate collective memories in various social, political, cultural situation within local-global contexts. He has been presented his works at interdisciplinary forums in Asia, Australia, Europe, United States, and Africa.

Septina Layan is a composer, singer and researcher of Moluccan descent, born and raised in Merauke Papua, Indonesia. In her work, she brings together nature sound and dialects from Papua and Maluku to create choral compositions that also involve voice, field recordings, and percussion instruments such as tifa, fuu, and pikon. Septina has performed at notable global festivals including Taman Ismail Marzuki Jakarta, Asia Topa at Art Center Melbourne, Holland Festival in Amsterdam and Festival Theater Der Welt in Dusseldorf. Currently, she works as a music lecturer at Institut Seni Budaya Indonesia Tanah Papua in Jayapura and as a cultural researcher in South Papua. Septina is also one of the founders of Action Papua, a Jayapura Papua-based community dedicated to the documentation and creation of literacy work and art music.

Jala Adolphus is an independent producer and editor in the field of contemporary dance. She produces for a selection of leading Indonesian choreographers and directors that work across the mediums of stage and film including Garin Nugroho (2014-present) and Rianto (2014-present). She is engaged with the discourse, practitioners and events that connect artists, academics, audiences and programs both within Southeast Asia and the Pacific and between Europe. She has worked on Indonesian programming with Australian and European international festivals and government organisations and is a core member of the Asian Network for Dance (AND+) and the Asian Producers Platform (APP).