Artists in Community International inspire and educate communities, individuals and leaders to be creative in and through art-making.  We provide engaging programs and projects that are inclusive, challenging, dynamic and joyous.   Our work is contemporary art-based with international flavours – inspired by our roamings and backgrounds.

I am  a founder of this organisation with Alex Pinder (also known as Jyoti Mukherjee), actor, theatre director and teacher.   We  bring art out of traditional art spaces and into the community and  are especially interested in giving creative opportunities to those who would otherwise be unlikely to experience the joy, fun, challenges and expression that the arts can bring into people’s lives.   We have run art and drama projects in schools, communities, training centres, villages with vulnerable people, students, young adults who are deaf, sex workers,  street children, salt pan families to name a few.   We run training in the arts for teachers, community leaders and health workers.

We have just returned from a two-month arts expedition to Nepal and India.  We spent over six weeks in Bhaktapur Nepal working with street children, a girls’ home, training social work teachers and working in local schools and two weeks in India where we returned to the salt pan communities, Alex performed at Darpana Academy of Arts and we taught at the Mahatma Gandhi International School – all in Gujarat; followed by a few days in Kolkata including a workshop with a friend who runs an Earth Garden and Arts project.   We had meetings with the Australian Ambassador, UNHCR, UNICEF and the Esther Benjamins Trust to develop our relationships in Nepal and the concept of art as a wonderful tool for education.

You can read about our work on our website www.artistsincommunity.me. or see our Facebook page ARTISTS IN COMMUNITY INTERNATIONAL  and see our videos at http://www.youtube.com/user/artincommunity. Download information about our programs.

We were nominated Finalists in the Australia Asia Arts Awards for our work in Nepal during December 2012.   It was a great honour to be acknowledged for our community art and drama projects with street children with whom we will be working again later in the year.