Dario Vacirca, Phd Email & Phone Number

Melbourne, Vic, Au

Australia

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Founding Director of members based Tenant's Association, representing over 100 creative studios and businesses in Melbourne's iconic Nicholas Building. Role includes advocacy and campaigning to all levels of Government, philanthropy, business and media - for the building to remain a creative space in perpetuity. Campaigns have included management of strategic business case; advocating directly to Minister's and CEO and Councillors at local Council; public relations and awareness through media and publicity resulting in a petition of over 13,000 signatures. Alongside driving two successful campaigns in this role since 2021, I have continued to represent the ongoing needs of the tenant body, acting on their behalf to the property manager. I have also worked directly with tenants and external stakeholders on successful building wide events since 2017 - including the popular 'A Night at the Nicholas' events which attracted over 15,000 people from 2017-2019. The most recent project I have managed for the Nicholas Building was the successful Love& Rage symposium (December 2023), which brought together over 30 presenters, across three venues, attracting more then 160 people for the in person program and over 200 for online/streaming. My work with the NBA continues into the new year on a voluntary basis, assisting the NBA evolve into a charitable entity.

Everywhere

My practice moves across performance art, socially engaged practice, sculpture and media arts. Works are large-scale or intimate depending on the need of the context, or idea. They can be form and image led or purely relational and formless. My practice is either solo or wholly reliant on an audience or large amount of participants. Art is a three letter word.During my career I have been lucky enough to participate in many international arts residencies and laboratories including: Space Programme (Performance Corporation, Ireland); IETM Summer Campus, Spain; Le Bains: Connective, Belgium; Ricean School, Greece; Splendid Arts Lab, NSW and fMBA, Gippsland. I have presented works across Australia, Korea, Macau, China, Mexico, Belgium, Italy and Greece, and been awarded numerous grants and commissions.

Richmond, Victoria, Australia

Together with Lucie Loy, I established the role of Community Manager at one of Melbourne's longest running and most beloved Artist Run Initiatives, Seventh Gallery. During this time I seeded and developed relationships with many community organisations, local business, and local artists and community members, inviting them to collaborate with Seventh's critically engaged contemporary community program. We were successful in establishing a new studio program, seeing dozens of artists enjoy free studio space as well as support through public programming. My work was integral in establishing a new strategic direction for Seventh, resulting in it securing Create Australia funding for the first time in its 16 year history. Curatorial highlights include Bunjilenee, AKA Robbie Thorpe's first ever art show, "Divine Intervention", and the development of the Artist* Cinema program that will launch in summer 2024. I left this position to focus on producing KiN Festival for the NBA, knowing full well the role was in the safe hands of my co-conspirator, Lucie Loy.

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

When engaged symbiotically, the dual processes of creative work and community building have the capacity to produce transformational change. This hypothesis was explored throughout my candidature, culminating in a multimodal research-event 'The Capital'. Experienced across several floors in the iconic Nicholas Building, 'The Capital' addressed the value of artistic labour and the conditions required for the efficacy of critical creative practice. The project positioned aesthetics and subjectivity at the intersection of finance capital and state power, and the specific ways ‘acts of commoning and resistance’ have attempted to reconfigure these through practice.This practice-led research doctorate was based in the Art and Performance Group in the School of Communication and Creative Arts, Deakin University. My research crossed multiple fields including political theory, philosophy and anthropology, and was grounded in theories of experimental arts and social change.Field research consisted of two x three month trips to Greece where I worked with refugees and activists struggling for self-determination. In 2019 I worked on a collaborative project for the Venice Biennale. My research (especially the international components) were interrupted by the pandemic, during which time I took a break from PhD studies and launched the 'Save the Nicholas' campaign. When I returned my focus became hyper-local, yet still kept a translocal, cosmopolitan lens, and resulted in a the final exhibition and delivery of the thesis in Melbourne in June 2022.During the time of candidature I regularly lectured undergraduates, evolving a curriculum on Contemporary Art and World Politics, initiated by my secondary supervisor, Cameron Bishop.

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Starting out as a crew member of the Production team, I was elevated to Production Manager role and held this position for two seasons of Melbourne's iconic Moonlight Cinema. During this time I co-wrote the production manual, that is still being used today, and was tasked with the daily management of all physical and technical logistics associated with running this large-scale cinema. Duties included: rostering, vehicle management, installation of all fencing, screen, banners and other activations, management of 7-9 production crew, crowd management, maintenance, bump in and out, and ad hoc duties as required. Moonlight runs for 4 months every night except Mondays throughout summer during which all physical elements of the cinema are brought in and out every night.

Adelaide, South Australia

OSCA is an independent arts platform based in South Australia supporting artists and generating projects across a diverse field of practice in urban and regional settings. OSCA is supported by ArtsSA. OSCA acknowledges they work on Kaurna land - always was, always will be.In 2012 I took the reins of 17 year old large-scale puppetry and outdoor events company, Kneehigh Puppeteers. In my four year tenure, I evolved the company to embrace a hybrid contemporary art and community model that is artist led and community driven. The evolved entity, rebranded Open Space Contemporary Arts, is a multi-year funded South Australian arts organisation dedicated to the development of new models of participation and arts engagement across city, urban and regional locations. The handover to Artistic Director, Paul Gazzola in 2016, completed my successful period of change management and re-direction.

Transnational

Exploring the nexus between public art, critical discourse and hybrid art practice, WELL projects were borderless, trans-gressive and open in both content and intent.WELL evolved from Well Theatre in 2010. As a Theatre company we produced many performance works, happenings and events across Melbourne and Australia from 1999. In 2005 our focus shifted to the creation of multi-layered, participatory public art works, often involving multiple collaborators, geographies and artistic disciplines. During this time our major project, Great Wall of Books, was the locus, with international projects where we collaborated with thousands of artists and non-artists, continuing until 2012. The final Well project was for the last Falls Festival in 2018, The Book of Dream.

I worked with this leading cross artform organisation over two periods (the first in 2006-2007, the second in 2009). I assisted in the production, management and resourcing of projects ranging from:Care Instructions, Yakumo Honjin house show, A Quarreling Pair, Aphids Sans Frontieres, Aphids-Myer residency program, Schallmachine, and New Music Machine.

Melbourne, Australia

During my work with SoFA (at the time one of the leading Social Venture orgs in Victoria), I managed the special events programme, consisting of conferences, launches and networking gatherings.

Doctor Of Philosophy (Phd), Interdisciplinary Art

Bca (Honours), Visual And Performing Arts, First Class