NEW CO-DIRECTORSHIP ANNOUNCED FOR 2019

Aphids is thrilled to announce a new direction for the company, with the appointment of three leading Melbourne-based artists – Eugenia Lim, Mish Grigor and Lara Thoms – who will form a new co-directorship for Aphids. Driven by a feminist methodology in which collaboration, deep listening and radical leadership is key, the trio of artists will lead the company into its third iteration from 2019.

This announcement sees the artists’ individual practices evolve with the support, history and vision of a 25-year-old company. As a co-directorship, Aphids will privilege diversity as a guiding principle of its remit, bringing over 10 years of collective experience across experimental theatre, live art, performance and visual art. In 2019 and beyond, Aphids will make and present art that is provocative, loud, ambitious, urgent and formally promiscuous.

"We want to be active in shaping an artistic and cultural landscape that gives space to multiple voices – a sense of welcome, dialogue, criticality, experimentation and support for diverse artists and audiences,” said Lim, Grigor and Thoms.

Artistic director Willoh S. Weiland has stepped down after seven significant years at Aphids. Weiland is moving on to a creative associate position at Mona Foma in Hobart, Tasmania and will continue her work as an honorary fellow at the Microsoft Research Centre for Social User Interface at the University of Melbourne. She and Artistic Associate Lz Dunn, who is currently touring her incredible work Flyway to Toulouse after presentations in Melbourne, Lithuania, Bulgaria, The Netherlands and Germany, will remain on the Aphids committee. 

Aphids is an artist-led organisation formed in 1994 by artistic director and composer David Young, writer and musician Cynthia Troup, visual artist Sarah Pirrie and fashion designer Kath Banger. In 2010, Weiland joined the company as artistic director, putting her own unique mark on the company ethos with an experimental and innovative program fusing music, performance and new technologies. 

Stay tuned for an Aphids celebration in November 2018, to welcome our new directors and raise a toast to the significant contributions of Lz Dunn and Willoh S.Weiland. 

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON UPCOMING WORKS PLEASE
VISIT THE *NEWLY DESIGNED* APHIDS WEBSITE