Tarah Ferguson

Board Secretary

Tarah is currently working in the nonprofit sector and completing her Master of Business in Nonprofit and Philanthropy. Tarah's no stranger, having worked in the arts sector for seven years, connecting people to what matters.

She has been responsible for building relationships, developing, facilitating, and coordinating engaging community events for diverse audiences. Her background includes volunteer management, fundraising, visitor experience, public programs, and events.

Giving back to the arts community and nurturing future creatives is her life’s passion.

Elizabeth Cowie

Elizabeth Cowie

aka OC – Original Conspirator

Elizabeth has been President of House Conspiracy since its inception in 2016. She is a natural home-maker and arts supporter, and has been a patron-saint of Kurilpa artists for many years.

Her kindness is contagious and she has the incredible capacity to see beauty in the everyday such as the worms in her compost. She loves putting her hands in the dirt of her organics garden. 

When she is not at the House, Elizabeth can be found marching in the streets for a good cause and weaving connections within the community. 

Her motto is “home is where the heart is.”

Federica Caso

Dr Federica Caso

aka Fed

Fed joined the Board of House Conspiracy in July 2019, and serves the House as High Priestess. She is a strong believer in local art and works to facilitate its production and flourishing. Her vision is to smash the colonialist patriarchal state and reclaim the aesthetic life.

Fed is Sardinian by birth, nomad by choice, and doctor in War Studies by training. She was awarded her Ph.D. in 2019 from the University of Queensland and teaches Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Queensland.

As a proper Westender, she can be found handstanding on people and by the river, dancing with the moon, and in contemplation of visions of hope at art shows.  

Fed writes on local art for The Westender, ArtsHub, and Nothing Ever Happens in Brisbane.

Steve Mardon

Steve joined the board of House Conspiracy as Treasurer in July 2020.

Steve graduated in 2019 from Griffith University, Queensland College of Art with a Bachelor of Photography majoring in photographic art practice.

He has extensive corporate business experience including as a non-executive director on the board of an international e-commerce company, as the founder and CEO of a tech startup, and President of Griffith University Photography Club (2018-2019), and has small business financial management experience.

Steve’s art practice includes digital, analog & traditional photo processes, portraiture & travel photography, and he has photographed in Nepal, New Zealand, Italy, Germany & South Africa.

Steve is committed to improving the sustainability, accessibility and spirit of House Conspiracy and strengthening its unique place in Meanjin’s arts sector.

Indy Medeiros

Indy is a person who doesn’t like definitions much or talking about themselves so this is challenging and uncomfortable. They have been a volunteer at House Conspiracy since July 2019. They are interested in spirals, water and memory and explore these themes through different mediums at different times. When they are not at or doing things for the House, they’re probably at The Social Space in Moorooka, another community space you should look up. Or they are learning how to actively dismantle the state and its many sinister forms of oppression. Or they are floating in water somewhere. Or on the way to do another thing.

Indy

Indy joined the board House Conspiracy in July 2019. They don’t like definitions much nor talking about themselves.

They are interested in spirals, water and memory and explore these themes through different mediums at different times.

When they are not at or doing things for the House, they’re probably at The Social Space in Moorooka, another community space you should look up. Or they are learning how to actively dismantle the state and its many sinister forms of oppression. Or they are floating in water somewhere. Or on the way to do another thing.

Jake Sun

Jake Sun

Jake Sun is the current name of a carbon-based bipedal process who often plays the roles of man, artist, music journalist, poet, and House Conpiracy board member, among others, habitually confusing them all into one conflated identity.

Sun first came to House Conspiracy for an artist residency in February 2018, returned to develop an International exchange project as Creative Director in Residence from March - April 2019, and then joined the board a few months later. This just goes to show that the creative spirit once fed will keep coming back.

Crisia Constantine

Crisia Constantine is a Brisbane-based artist, curator, writer and researcher.

In her work, she advances the artist as facilitator and articulates her artistic practice as facilitation of creative participation. She believes in devising new contexts for exploration and investigation of creative practices and a playful, safe environment where artists can meet, share, engage, and interact with one another. Her work is informed by psychoanalytical theory, feminism and queer theory.

Bodi Zhu

Bodi Zhu was the treasurer of House Conspiracy during the 2018-2020 Financial years.

Bodi is a performance analyst and management consultant with experience working on multiple stages of large, international infrastructure projects. He has been working in the business world for a long time, and he believes that creative industry, business, and not-for-profit are deeply connected. Bodi received his graduate degree in Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies at Queensland University Technology.

Following a meeting with the board members of House Conspiracy and learning about the mission and vision of the House, he decided to join “this fascinating and down-to-earth organization” (in Bodi’s own word). He was our treasured treasurer and has contributed immensely with his accounting background and knowledge.

Bodi left the House on the 1st of July 2020 due to personal reasons. He decided to return his hometown and continue exploring the opportunities in the non-profit sector and social enterprise.

Ellie-Lea Jansson

Ellie-Lea Jansson joined the House Conspiracy family as an Artist in Residence in cycle 10 of 2017 and from there she joined our Board. The following year, she began operating in the capacity of Creative Director.

As a Creative Director Ellie-Lea continued the legacy of House Conspiracy being a space to support exploration and artist-centered residencies at the intersection of interdisciplinary arts practice. Ellie-Lea oversaw the residency and public programming with an intention to connect artists from different disciplines through the curation of multi-artist themed showcases. Through the collective efforts of the House Conspiracy Board between  2017 and 2019, Ellie-Lea oversaw 54 Multi-Arts practitioners, 4 Curators, and 12 emerging arts writers.

Ellie-Lea is an experienced artist, arts worker, and educator. She works at an institutional level within the arts, across gallery and education portfolios. Previously, she studied Visual Arts, Education, and Film & New Media and she is currently completing a Master of Museum Studies at the University of Queensland.

Ellie-Lea contributed to the creative and cultural landscape of Brisbane overseeing the Artist in Residency, exhibition and public programming during her time as the Creative Director of Not-for-Profit arts space House Conspiracy Inc. She is passionate about fostering the emerging creative talent within Brisbane and beyond.

Between 2016 and 2018 she worked with the Department of Education and Training as a regional coordinator for Creative Generation Excellence Awards in Visual Arts for the Brisbane Metropolitan Region. She has 7 years’ experience as an educator and continues to teach Visual Art and Design Technology as a Senior High School teacher. Ellie-Lea’s experience in a gallery setting ranges from Curation, Learning Programs and Tour Guiding across independent, state and regional institutions.

Joaquin Gonzales

Joaquin Gonzales is Meanjin based artist whose practice focuses predominantly on self identity in relation to his personal experience as a lapsed Catholic. Responding to his upbringing in a traditional Filipino home, his practice is heavily informed by Roman Catholic ideology. Aiming to incite dialogue in regards to the somewhat unquestioned absurdity of organised religion and the existence of an omnipotent deity, his work addresses his ever-changing relationship with Catholicism through sculpture and installation.

Often recontextualising everyday objects through the integration of Catholic iconography and symbolism, Joaquin emphasises an almost comedic link between religious tradition and modern living.

In 2019, Joaquin completed his Bachelor of Fine Arts (Visual Arts) with a Fashion Communications minor at Queensland University of Technology. Since graduating, Joaquin has co-founded Meanjin based Artist Run Initiative Nextdoor.

Follow Joaquin at joaquingonzales.com

Ella Callander

Ella Callander is a Meanjin based artist who creates diagrammatic representations of intangible thoughts, memories, and feelings in relation to Australian suburbia and the everyday. She seeks to represent overlooked or underappreciated, yet widely experienced aspects of the ordinary and the mundane. Encouraging the analysis and categorisation of passing thought, her artworks offer the viewer an opportunity for cognitive translation and moments of contemplation.

Ella completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts (Visual Art) with Distinction at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in 2019. During her degree Ella interned at House Conspiracy, eventually becoming a board member before leaving to co-found her own not-for-profit initiative, Nextdoor ARI.

Follow her work at ellacallander.com

Isabella Catenaro

pronouns: fae/faer/faers [or they/them/theirs].

Image by greer @bad__society

Isabella Catenaro is an emerging artist based in Meanjin. Fae joined the House as our third intern in August 2020. Faer main task is to assist with event and curatorial production. Through representations of faer abject-queer-uncanny body as a receptacle of impurity and a site of scandal, fae creates edible, interactive, or performance-based pieces to contaminate the physical and digital space to resist and disrupt the pseudo-dilemma of binarisms.