Lella Cariddi OAM is a Writer, Curator of Contemporary Arts, Community Development practitioner & Producer of short-form social history documentaries. An MA in gallery practices enabled her to focus on the inclusion of CALD people, in every sphere of Australian cultural life.
Her works include: Coordinator Footscray Migrant Women Program; Coordinator Collingwood Migrant Women’s Learning Centre; Coordinator Multicultural Services Unit, Mercy Hospital for Women; co-founder/co-creative director of World Poetry & the IN OTHER WORDS international poetry festival.
Activator, curator & producer of five iterations of the WHAT HAPPENED at the PIER program. In 2019 she managed RECIPROCAL/reciproco: an international collaboration between Australian artists of Italian origin with Italian artist whose artistic practice was homegrown in Italy. In 2020, curated “Stories from the Pier” 4 x 25 minutes podcasts for the Victoria Senior Festival: Radio Reimagined. Currently, she’s working on "Memories That Make Us": A CO.AS.IT. & Deakin University project about storying World War 2 migration from Italy to Victoria.
Lella has supervised several tertiary students who chose to do their internship around her socially inclusive creative practice. Lella’s work has featured at fed square in Melbourne; Mildura Palimpsest; CO.AS.IT. Italian Museum; La Trobe VAC, Allan’s Walk ARI, Old Fire Station & the Conservatory in Bendigo; Post Office Gallery, Backspace Gallery & Mining Exchange in Ballarat; Princes Pier in Port Melbourne; Emerald Hill Library & Heritage Centre, City of Melbourne libraries; YPRL & on ISSUU and Vimeo.
Under the umbrella of “the WHAT HAPPENED at the PIER program” Lella Cariddi worked collaboratively through and with the Arts, to effect social/cultural change in favour of inclusion. She connected with collaborators from 14 diverse cultural heritage and/or linguistic background from across Victoria, to produce 4 books of stories, ten large & small exhibitions, five short-form documentaries. Numerous public readings of stories gleaned under the banner of: WHAT HAPPENED at the PIER, have so far, been held in public libraries, and at major events and festivals, including the Victorian Multicultural Commission (VMC) festival.
AWARDS:
- The Victorian Multicultural Commission Ambassador Award , 2016
- The Victorian Community History Awards, for: “Reading The Wind” and “Afterwards,” that
recognised the most outstanding project or publication that highlighted the cultural diversity of Victoria, 2017. - Lella Cariddi was awarded the Order Of Australia Medal (OAM) 2019.