Building Communities Symposium

PHIVE Alive 2–2:20pm
Multidisciplinary artist Cynthia Florek creates a performative installation within PHIVE as a direct response to the building, exploring connections, accessibility and belonging. Born to migrant parents from Peru and Poland, and raised in Western Sydney, Florek’s practice encompasses dance, image making and holding space for community.

Building Community, Community Building 2.30–3.30pm
With PHIVE as inspiration, speakers explore how built environments can provide a sense of cohesion and belonging for different communities. Panellists include Christopher Snelling, Cynthia Florek and Louise Crabtree-Hayes.

Equitable Environments: Policy, Practice, Play 3.45–4.45pm
The panel will discuss how creative thinking can be applied to the conception and generation of equitable and sustainable environments. Speakers include NSW Government Architect Abbie Galvin, spatial designer Dr Danièle Hromek (Budawang/Yuin) and multi-disciplinary artist Nadia Odlum. Moderated by Kate Goodwin.

PHIVE Building Communities Symposium is curated by Kate Goodwin with Qianyi Lim from Architecture Amplified. This program interrogates the inter-relationship of architecture, community and equitable environments through a vibrant program of walks, talks and site-specific performances.

Christopher Snelling leads the City of Parramatta Council’s Community Hubs portfolio and is responsible for the operations of PHIVE as well as the Wentworth Point Community Centre and Library (located on the Sydney Olympic Park peninsula). He was previously group manager of city experience responsible for Council’s events and festivals; cultural heritage, tourism and visitor services; Parramatta Artists’ Studios; public art and heritage interpretation. Snelling brings more than 30 years’ experience across roles in project design and delivery, community service and customer experience.

Cynthia Florek is a multidisciplinary artist based on unceded Dharug land. She aims to achieve a dance practice that is dreamy, evocative and rich with texture and colour, exploring ways to weave feminist theory into dance methodologies. She has previously worked with and learnt from Leizel Igadna, Dwell Chen Serra, Rajni Shah, Paul Cordeiro and Agatha Gothe-Snape (Lion’s Honey, Kaldor Public Art Projects), and recently took part in Riana Head-Toussaint’s choreographic lab. She is a member of Utp Rising, Feminist Killjoys Reading Group and We Are Here (Emma Saunders, Form Dance Projects). Florek is currently studying history at the University of New South Wales.

Louise Crabtree-Hayes is an associate professor at the Institute for Culture and Society at Western Sydney University. Her research focuses on the social, ecological and economic sustainability of community-driven housing developments in Australia, the uptake of housing innovation in practice and policy, complex adaptive systems theory in urban contexts, and the interfaces between sustainability, property rights, institutional design and democracy.Crabtree-Hayes’ work is underpinning the emergence of forms of permanently affordable and community-led housing in Australia, such as housing cooperatives and community land trusts, on which she is the country’s leading expert.

Abbie Galvin is the 24th NSW Government Architect. Galvin has 30 years’ experience in architectural practice and her projects across a range of sectors have been highly awarded, published and recognised internationally. Her focus on policy and advice enables her to promote and leverage the long-term benefits of great design within the built environment. In recognition of her extensive experience and contribution to the design industry Galvin is a Life Fellow of the Australian Institute of Architects.

Nadia Odlum is a multidisciplinary artist driven by a fascination with urban environments. They create playful and immersive works exploring personal and collective experiences of urban life and generating spaces for social engagement and interaction. Odlum has exhibited across Australia and internationally and held numerous residencies with Parramatta Artists’ Studios Rydalmere. Odlum is a PhD candidate at the University of Sydney and part of the Australian Research Council funded project ART/PLAY/RISK: An interdisciplinary approach to building child friendly cities.

Dr Danièle Hromek is a Saltwater woman of the Budawang tribe of the Yuin Nation, with French and Czech heritage. The director of Djinjama, she works as a spatial and Country-centred designer. Her research considers Indigeneity in the built environment to contribute an understanding of the Indigenous experience and comprehension of space, and investigate how Aboriginal people occupy, use, narrate, sense, dream and contest their spaces. She contributed to the Connecting with Country framework and Designing with Country discussion paper by the Government Architect NSW. Djinjama’s clients include state and local government, museums and galleries, as well as architects, planners, designers, heritage and engineering firms. Hromek holds a Doctor of Philosophy (Design) and Bachelor of Design (Interior Spatial Design, Performance major). She is the first Indigenous person in Australia to achieve a PhD in built environment and spatial disciplines.

Melissa Liando is an architect and one half of Csutoras & Liando. She founded her practice in 2012 together with Laszlo Csutoras, whom she met during her postgraduate studies in the Netherlands. Born in Jakarta, Melissa spent part of her childhood in Indonesia before moving to Sydney, where she studied Interior and Furniture Design at the University of Technology Sydney and later completed a Masters in Architecture at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. Csutoras & Liando were initially based in London, then Indonesia and now Sydney, working on public, commercial and residential commissions, and on self-initiated, socially motivated projects. Melissa and Laszlo have lectured in the UK, Hungary, Indonesia and currently teach at the University of Sydney. Their work has been exhibited at the Frankfurt Architecture Museum, New York's Center for Architecture and the Chicago Architecture Biennial.

PHIVE is the City of Parramatta's new community, cultural and civic hub, located in the heart of Parramatta's CBD at 5 Parramatta Square. The six-level building is home to the Parramatta Library, exhibition, events and community spaces to gather, learn, work, play and collaborate.