Josie Cavallaro is an artist and arts worker based on the lands of the Bidjigal People located in western Sydney. She has exhibited extensively across artist-run initiatives, commercial galleries, and cultural institutions both in Australia and internationally. She was the co-founder and co-director of Belmore Institute for Try-hard Ceramicists and Handicrafters (Belmore ITCH); a residency program that supported both artists and people from non-arts fields to develop new cultural and/or material applications to ceramics. Josie believes that diversity and universal access to the arts underpins innovation and broadens perceptions and possibilities for artistic forms. This sensibility has led her to practice as an arts worker within advocacy, arts, cultural and government organisations to build the creative capacities of communities.
I oscillate between making objects and facilitating projects that enable art to be made and experienced through diverse perspectives. As a facilitator, I’m motivated by the artistic possibilities of unlikely forces coming together to create. I aim to generate projects that question and extend frameworks of engagement in contemporary art practice. I believe that diversity and universal access to the arts underpins innovation and broadens perceptions and possibilities for artistic forms. My sculptural practice is largely informed by the built environment as shared multispecies sites. My work observes mediated relationships between humans and other species and how conditioned environments and behaviour influence narratives of pest or partner.
This project was created in partnership with Kandos Museum. This project is supported by Create NSW’s Country Arts Support Program, a devolved funding program administered by Arts OutWest