Live at MAV’s Block Partee with Matisse Laida, Banda and Nickila De Silva

Matisse Laida is an artist whose practice is based around community and food. They are the founder of We Eatin’ Good, a platform for queer people of colour to come together.

Anthony 'Banda' Bandalan is a producer who cares deeply about community cultivation and uplifting his creative counterparts. 

Nickila De Silva is an artist who creates across video, music and writing. Her work explores collaboration and how it can exist alongside hierarchy and power. 

We interviewed Matisse, Banda and Nickila, as part of Multicultural Arts Victoria’s Block Partee.

We chat about:

• Hierarchy and power in the arts
• Networking being a white concept
• Performative leadership
• When gatekeeping is good
• Queer people becoming removed from our cultures
• Connecting people through food
• Art is archival and friendship
• Code switching your practice 
• Reflections on creating art together and apart 
• How sharehouses shape us
• The challenges of working within institutions 
• Food that makes us feel the most

Hosted by: Maria Birch-Morunga and Kate Robinson

Guests: Matisse Laida, Anthony Bandalan and Nickila De Silva

Music by: The Green Twins

Edited by: Kate Robinson

Special thanks: Multicultural Arts Victoria, City of Darebin, Creative Victoria, Creative Australia, Melbourne Polytechnic, Victoria Government and VicHealth’s Future Reset Program.

This podcast was recorded on the lands of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung peoples of the eastern Kulin Nations.

You can find us on Instagram @beingbiracialpodcast or send us an email at beingbiracialpodcast@gmail.com

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