book tickets

Showing and Q&A

When: Friday, November 28, 6-7pm

Where: The Breakout at The Mill, 154 Angas St, Kaurna Yarta

Cost: $10 (+ booking fee)

Note: Please arrive 15 minutes early to grab a drink. This event will be 1 hour (including a Q&A).

This showing and Q&A will be held in The Breakout. Please come to The Mill at 154 Angas Street, the bar will be open to grab a drink before we take you through to The Breakout.
Please arrive 15 minutes early to get a drink.
This event will be 1 hour (including the Q&A).
Accessibility
The Mill’s entrance has a small step into the building. We have a ramp available, please ring the doorbell and our friendly team will assist you.
The entrance into The Breakout is wheelchair accessible, with no internal steps.
The Mill has concrete flooring throughout with no internal steps and a disability toilet on site.
Read more in-depth information on our accessibility web page.
The Mill has concrete flooring throughout with no internal steps and a disability toilet on site.
Read more in-depth information on our accessibility web page.
If you have questions or would like to talk to one of The Mill team contact info@themilladelaide.com

They drove from Cornwall to the Scottish Highlands - one grandparent, one grandchild, one unspoken truth.

Multi-award winning storyteller, Yoz Mensch, weaves a darkly funny and haunting solo show about dingy hotel rooms, dog-eared maps, and the strained intimacy of travel.

Drawn from hundreds of real Instagram Stories posted during the trip, Yoz revisits what they shared with their grandpa - and the secrets they didn’t.

Blending clowning, found footage, and intimate confession, My Grandpa Doesn’t Follow Me On Instagram unravels what it means to hide yourself from the people you love.

My Grandpa Doesn’t Follow Me On Instagram is being developed as part of our Centre Stage Residency, in collaboration with Adelaide Fringe, and will be presented as part of our 2026 Adelaide Fringe program.

The showing will be followed by a short Q&A with Yoz Mensch, hosted by The Mill General Manager Tim Watts. Audiences will have the opportunity to ask questions about the development and provide feedback about the performance.

About the artists:

Yoz Mensch (they/she) is a multi-award-winning clown, comedian, writer, and performer living and working on Kaurna Yerta. Their primary arts focus is storytelling that engages through humour and offers thoughtful catharsis, her secondary focus is pretending to walk into things to make you giggle.
In 2025 Yoz ate the scenery in Street Legal’s ‘No Gods! No Masters! No Doorlists! No Bouncers!’ music video, and ate tourists as The Koala King in John DeCaux’s feature film Dropbear. She trained at L’Ecole Philippe Gaulier in 2024, and toured her solo work, No Babies In The Sauna to Perth, Adelaide, Prague, and Edinburgh Fringes, winning the Brian’s Life Best Comedy Award at Prague Fringe, the House of Oz Purse Prize at Adelaide Fringe and a nomination for Neurodiverse Review’s Actually Autistic Award at Edinburgh Fringe. They retired NBITS at Adelaide Fringe 2025, after sell out performances around the globe and multiple 5 star reviews.
Yoz plays a time-traveller in Tim Carlier’s 2023 feature film, PACO. She co-starred in Mary Angley’s YOU’RE ALL INVITED TO MY SON SAMUEL'S FOURTH BIRTHDAY PARTY, receiving the Melbourne Fringe Tour Ready Award at Adelaide Fringe 2022, and picking up the Spirit of The Fringe Award at Melbourne Fringe 2022. In 2021, they co-wrote, directed and performed in the ambitious sketch-ensemble-sci-fi The End is High-Concept - which garnered positive reviews, sell out performances, and pioneered live motion-capture for animated on-stage characters. In 2020 Yoz’s first solo work, ABOMINATION, received a 5 Star Review from Mindshare for its portrayal of grief and the effects on mental health.
Mary Angley (she/they) is a muti-award-winning theatre-maker and graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts' Master of Directing program. Her practice spans writing, directing, dramaturgy, and performance, with sporadic forays into design.
As part of her Masters Showcase, Mary developed Hedda GablerGablerGabler, a work that explores how live game-play can disrupt gender biases in the theatrical canon. Working on Kaurna Yerta, she directed, dramaturged, and designed The Triumph of Man (RUMPUS) and Autoeulogy (The Mill). She has performed her critically acclaimed solo show Grief Lightning: A Satire in 78 Slides at the Adelaide, Melbourne, Perth, and Edinburgh Fringes, as well as with Festival of Voices, Midsumma, Riverland Youth Theatre, and RUMPUS. Her science-fiction climate change duet YOU’RE ALL INVITED TO MY SON SAMUEL’S FOURTH BIRTHDAY PARTY premiered in Adelaide before packing up and hitting the road. Both productions have toured extensively thanks to support from a chain of 6 separate festival awards.
Recently, she has collaborated with Poppy Mee on PSYCHOPOMP and Yoz Mensch on their multi-award-winning show, No Babies in the Sauna. She has furthered her training in physical theatre/devising by attending post-graduate masterclasses in Berlin through the support of a Carclew Fellowship.
Mary is committed to process-driven work that deepens artistic skills and fosters social connection. Her practice has been informed by internships with Melbourne Theatre Company and with live art collective, Field Theory. Her work has been supported by The Helpmann Academy, Carclew, Arts SA, Adelaide City Council, Science Gallery, Gasworks, La Mama, Vitalstatistix, RUMPUS, The Mill, and Fringes Adelaide, Melbourne, and Edinburgh.
Dan Thorpe is a concert pianist//noise-maker//performance-maker based on unceded Kaurna Country. His style of playing has been described as both “fragile and delicate” [The Conversation] and “overwhelmingly intense” [Realtime]; as “decimating the boundaries of genre” [CutCommon], and having “no respect for the culture of pianism” [Unnamed Australian Concert Pianist]. He has performed in some pretty cool places, with highlights including Spectrum (NY), Praça Das Artes (Brazil), The Center for New Music (SF), the Red Rattler (NSW), Oakland Freedom Jazz (Ca), a raft on Elizabeth Quay (WA), and the lobby of Portuguese luxury hotel Estalagem da Ponta do Sol (where he bled all over their piano, which they were weirdly fine with). He made his concerto debut in 2021, premiering a new piece for piano and orchestra by Cat Hope - Lampi - with Forest Collective in Naarm.
His current practice focuses predominantly on performance making. Highlights include multiple sound-designs and devising credits with Papermouth (with Mary Angley); composing and sound designing for War of The Worlds (Adelaide Festival, 2025), composing and sound designing eDuard Helmbold’s Elegy for the Pale Lion; composing, devising, and performing XXX Neon Sign - a solo, full-length theatrical piece commissioned by BIFEM in 2019; and writing and performing his concerto for acting pianist and large ensemble - You Are Jeff, after the poem by Richard Siken - with Forest Collective in Naarm in 2021.
Dan has also composed pieces for - amongst others - Decibel, the MSO, WASO, ASQ, Kupka’s Piano, and Conrad Tao.
Shay Leach (she/they) is a feminist raconteur, creative producer, visual artist, performer living and working on Kaurna Yerta.
She is a graduate of the University of Adelaide, with two degrees in Gender Studies and Social analysis + Media. She is a long time collaborator with Yoz, under our indie production company + artist collective Cackling Jackal.
Her most recent project has been being a creative doula and producer to Yoz’s project ‘No Babies in the Sauna’ from conception in 2022, birth in 2023 at queer bar My Lover Cindi’s and subsequent sensation. With 50+ performances over 9 seasons, 6 festivals, across Australian and internationally including Prague Fringe and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. After winning multiple awards, sell out shows and 5-star reviews, we put the baby to bed at Adelaide Fringe 2025.
Shay started her journey into the arts and coming of age with Ramble Arts FKA Riverland Youth Theatre in her regional hometown. This included working as an Arts Administrator, performer, workshop facilitator, bus driver etc. Shay has studied visual art at the University of South Australia, and her creative practice has grown organically into photography, costume design, and set design.

This showing has support from

galleries, public program

Artist Talk: Dai Trang Nguyen, alONEness - một

Adele Sliuzas · September 15, 2025

Image: Dai Trang Nguyen, *Threads of Life* (detail), 2025, yarns, repurposed fabric and wire, dimensions variable, courtesy of the artist

Artist Talk

register tickets

When: Friday, November 28, 5:30-6:30pm

exhibition catalogue

Gallery I& II, 154 Angas St, Kaurna Yarta

Free entry, all welcome

You can find Dai Trangs’s exhibition in The Mill’s Gallery II, located at 154 Angas St, Kaurna Yarta (Adelaide).
Gallery I is open Monday-Friday, 10am-4pm.
Accessibility
The Mill’s entrance has a small step into the building. We have a ramp available, please ring the doorbell and our friendly team will assist you.
During gallery hours, our entrance will be unlocked. If the door is closed, please ring the doorbell to alert our team.
The Mill has concrete flooring throughout with no internal steps and a disability toilet on site.
Read more in-depth information on our accessibility web page.The Mill has concrete flooring throughout with no internal steps and a disability toilet on site.
Read more in-depth information on our accessibility web page.

Join exhibiting artist Dai Trang Nguyen in conversation with The Mill’s Visual Arts Curator Adele Sliuzas for a chat about her exhibition, alONEness - một. Hear the artists speak about process, material and making work about aloneness and oneness.

Dai Trang Nguyen is a Vietnamese artist and designer based in Kaurna Country, with a creative journey spanning Vietnam, the UK and Australia. Originally trained in graphic design, her practice has evolved from structured precision to a meditative, intuitive approach rooted in mindfulness, presence and the unfolding of each moment.
During the solitude of COVID-19, art became her sanctuary and a guide for self-understanding, leading to her first solo exhibition in Vietnam and inspiring her move to South Australia in 2022 to pursue a Master’s in Contemporary Art. Since then, her practice has deepened through introspection and experimentation, expanding materially from digital illustration into tactile forms.
Living far from home has enriched her connection to her Eastern heritage. Influenced by Zen Buddhist roots and her experience as a migrant, Dai Trang’s process is slow and embodied, embracing making as meditation - each gesture responding to internal and external conditions. Working with textiles, found objects and mixed media, she creates contemplative sculptures, wall pieces and installations that reflect life’s fluidity, impermanence and interconnectedness.
Her Kayangan residency at The Mill Adelaide marked a first step toward relational, community-connected making, opening her process to place, people and the more-than-human world, while remaining grounded in herself through mindfulness.

This exhibition has support from

This exhibition received support from Geoff Martin and Sorayya Mahmood Martin

public program, first nations dance

First Nations Dance Program: Dance Classes

Adele Sliuzas · September 9, 2025

July 30 - September 17, 2025

contact us

Every Wednesday between July 30 to September 17, 6:30-7:30pm

AC Arts, Level 3, Rehearsal Studio, Kaurna Yarta

Free (no need to register tickets!)

Accessibility
The Mill has two entrances, the main entrance on the corner of Angas and Gunson Street and an accessible entrance further down Angas Street.
Both doors are locked from the outside, there is a doorbell on the main door that will alert The Mill team. They will meet you at the accessible entrance to welcome you into the building.
The Mill has concrete flooring throughout with no internal steps and a disability toilet on site.
Read more in-depth information on our accessibility web page.

We are partnering with AC Arts to present contemporary dance technique classes for First Nations dancers.

These classes are open to First Nations dancers only, interested in contemporary dance and for those who wish to maintain their dance technique.

Classes will be held at AC Arts every Wednesday between July 30 to September 17.

What to expect:

A mixture of South Australian-based facilitators will give a variety and mixture of different contemporary styles, including Indigenous infused movements depending on the dance facilitator.

If you have any questions, please contact The Mill’s WAYIN:THI Collective Co-Lead Caleena Sansbury, her working days are Mondays and Tuesdays.

This program has support from

centre stage residency

Centre Stage Residencies: Announcing the successful 2025 recipients

chloe metcalfe · August 19, 2025

We are thrilled to announce CRAM Collective and Yoz Mensch as the recipients of the 2025 Centre Stage Residencies.

The Centre Stage Residencies are presented in collaboration with Adelaide Fringe as part of their Arts Industry Collaborations program. This unique incubator program is for South Australian artists to progress a new performance work in its second or third stage of development to the next level, culminating in a season at The Mill as part of the 2025 Adelaide Fringe Festival.

About the artists:

Melissa Pullinger is an Australian/ English theatre and film actor and is a 2020 Honours graduate of Flinders University Drama Centre. Growing up in England, Melissa appeared in the Andrew Lloyd Webber production of The Sound of Music (2008) at the London Palladium, where she played Brigitta Von Trapp for six months. Upon emigrating to Adelaide, Melissa performed in Border Project’s Disappearance (2008) and then Windmill Theatre and the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s Granpa (2008).
Along with specialising in devising and physical theatre, Melissa is a co-founder of independent theatre collective, The CRAM Collective.Since graduating, Melissa has toured with Perform! Education in their Book Week Tour, Bigger, Better, Brighter! (2021) and Story Quest (2022). Since co-founding CRAM, Melissa has produced and starred in the sold-out world premieres of New World Coming, Something Big, The Future is You and EDGE. In 2022, Melissa travelled to England after being selected to train at Frantic Assembly’s International Summer School.
Melissa began working as a puppeteer for Slingsby’s collaboration with A Blanck Canvas, for Illuminate Adelaide. She then joined the USA & Canada tour of Bluey’s Big Play puppeteering both Bluey and Bingo and touring through 2023 & 2024. She then joined the UK & Northern Ireland tour of Bluey’s Big Play, puppeteering Bingo. In April, Melissa toured across New Zealand with Bluey’s Big Play, puppeteering Bluey.
Connor Reidy is a South Australian director and theatre maker. He graduated with first class Honours in Directing at the Flinders University Drama Centre. His directing credits include pool (no water), BC, Control, Iphigenia in Orem, The Seagull, and Lungs (Flinders DC).
In 2021, Connor co-founded The CRAM Collective, a South Australian independent theatre company. His credits for CRAM include NEW WORLD COMING, Anna Barnes’ Something Big and THE FUTURE IS YOU. CRAM is the proud recipient of the 2022 Helpmann Academy Creative Innovator seed funding.
Connor’s professional assistant directing credits include Circle Mirror Transformation (Sydney Theatre Company), Lines and The Bleeding Tree (Theatre Republic), Oleanna (Flying Penguin Productions), and The Normal Heart and Hibernation (STCSA). Connor recently directed Emily Steel’s The Worst (Theatre Republic) AND Proud (Famous Last Words).
Ren Williams is an Australian film & theatre actor, having trained with Honours at the Flinders University Drama Centre. Also specialising in directing and writing, Ren is a co-founder of independent theatre company CRAM Collective. After graduating in 2020, Ren has performed in theatre shows such as Kinetik Collective's STCSA StateSide show Kill Climate Deniers (Dir. Clara Solly-Slade), the North American Tour of Bluey’s Big Play as Bluey (Dir. Rosemary Myers), the one-woman show at DreamBIG Guthrak (Dir. Matthew Briggs), Hits at the AFC (Dir. Rebecca Meston), CRAM Collective's world premiere Something Big (Dir. Connor Reidy) and Slingsby Theatre Company’s trilogy A Concise Compendium of Wonder (Dir. Andy Packer) premiering in the 2026 Adelaide Festival. With a screen-acting diploma from Actors Studio UK at the prestigious Pinewood Studios, Ren has appeared in a number of short films such as The Hitcher which premiered at the 2024 Adelaide Film Festival (Dir. Henry Reimer-Meaney, With Love, Lottie premiering at the 2025 Sydney Film Festival (Dir. Lily Drummond), and ABC’s Beep & Mort Season 2 as an additional puppeteer. Ren’s latest directorial short This is Fine. won Best Directing and Best Film at the 2024 Adelaide 48HFP, sending it to the Filmapalooza Seattle wining 3rd Best Film; where it will now go to the 2025 Cannes Film Festival Short Film Corner
Connor Pullinger graduated Flinders Drama Centre with a First Class Honours degree in Acting.
Key roles include the AACTA award winning SBS mini-series The Hunting as OLIVER. In 2024 he starred in SAPOL’s Stop Flirting With Death TVC State-Wide campaign. Connor led BULLDOG, which was officially selected at 5 Film Festivals across Australia. Connor plays the titular role in The Hitcher, which premiered at AFF2024. Connor has seven shorts and one indie feature awaiting release/festivals this year.
These projects collaborated with Closer Productions, Heesom Casting, Proetic Productions, Stepney Studios & Showpony Advertising.
Extending beyond screens, Connor starred in The CRAM Collective’s sold out 5-Star theatre production FAG/STAG, as well as the encore season - continuing the critical and commercial success. In 2024 he led Deus Ex Femina’s 5-Star award-winning Fringe show Dirty Energy and WHORE for Flinders University.
This year he was chosen to be an actor for the BAFTA and Golden Globe nominated Sophie Hyde in her LAUNCH LAB Directors Workshop.
Yoz Mensch (they/she) is a multi-award-winning clown, comedian, writer, and performer living and working on Kaurna Yerta. Their primary arts focus is storytelling that engages through humour and offers thoughtful catharsis.
In 2024 they trained in Clowning, Le Jeu and Buffon at L’Ecole Philippe Gaulier 2024, toured No Babies In The Sauna to Perth, Adelaide, Prague, and Edinburgh Fringes, and Melbourne International Comedy Festival, picking up the Best Comedy Award at Prague Fringe, and the House of Oz Purse Prize at Adelaide Fringe.
YOU’RE ALL INVITED TO MY SON SAMUELS FOURTH BIRTHDAY PARTY received the Melbourne Fringe Tour Ready Award at Adelaide Fringe 2022, and picked up the Spirit of The Fringe Award at Melbourne Fringe 2022. They co-wrote, directed and performed in the ambitious sketch-sci-fi ensemble The End is High-Concept - which garnered positive reviews and pioneered live motion-capture for animated on-stage characters. They also co-produced, co-wrote and co-presented HUGE NEWS for Radio Adelaide, a satirical news sketch programme turned live podcast for Edinburgh Fringe 2018.

This residency has support from

strut residency

STRUT Residency 2025: Motus Collective

chloe metcalfe · August 14, 2025

We’re thrilled to announce Motus Collective as the recipient of our STRUT Residency for 2025.

Felicity and Zoe will be travelling to Perth to develop and present their second-stage development TRIFLE at STRUT Dance.

This residency unites national dance sectors by providing development opportunities for dance-makers across Australia.

About the artists:

Motus Collective was formed in 2019 by Adelaide College of the Arts graduates, Zoe Gay and Felicity Boyd.
The collective was formed out of a desire to create a sense of community, to foster collaborations, expand performance opportunities, and to create a revenue of exploration and experimentation.
Motus Collective began their journey hosting Improvisation and ‘Jam Sessions’, before conducting residencies through Australian Dance Theatre, The Mill, VitalStatistix and more. With a heavy importance being placed on inter-disciplinary collaboration, Motus Collective have worked extensively within the visual arts world including performing with Tom Borgas and Amber Cronin in HyperObject, created in Arthur Art Bar’s SA LA LA LAND program, worked with Fine Print Magazine in their live response to If the future is to be worth anything, performed Hiromi Tango’s Brain Flower at Splendour in The Grass, and more recently collaborated with eDuard Helmbold in Elegy of The Pale Lion for VitalStatistix.
Motus Collective were selected to be Share House residents at Carclew in 2021, where they produced Open House, a platform for emerging artists to create and perform, and premiered White Rhino in the Adelaide Fringe, performing to sold out audiences and winning the ‘Best Emerging Artist’ award. 2022 saw Motus Collective premiere The Leftovers, a collaboration with sculptor Nicholas Hanisch, and were selected to be a part of the InSpace program through Adelaide Festival where they developed Trifle, a choreographic experiment melding clowning, cabaret and contemporary. In 2023, Motus Collective returned to the Adelaide Fringe with a remount of The Leftovers and collaborated with Dragon Mill on Unseen Fire Festival, a month long performance celebrating the Winter Solstice. 2024 saw Motus Collective present The Leftovers at the Space Theatre, produced in collaboration by Adelaide Festival Centre. In 2025, Motus Collective is focusing on building the independent sector within South Australia, by starting weekly free classes for professional dancers, and a monthly newsletter highlighting funding opportunities, classes, workshops and more happening within the state.
Felicity is currently working as a dancer, choreographer and physical theatre performer based on Kaurna Yerta, South Australia. Felicity is the co-director of project-based dance company Motus Collective, founded in 2019 after returning from touring Q&A with ilYoung dance company in Sweden. Her practice involves a multi-disciplinary approach to dance.
Felicity’s roles as a performer have most recently involved working for Lina Limosani on What Lurks on the Edge (2025), Requardt & Rosenberg (UK) on Future Cargo at the 2024 Adelaide Fringe, and as producer/performer in Motus Collective’s The Leftovers at the Space Theatre at Adelaide Festival Centre 2024. She has worked for Australian Dance Theatre as a replacement dancer on Garry Stewart’s South and toured and performed with Lewis Major Projects on Losers. She has worked with Tobiah Booth-Remmers, Eldad Ben-Sasson, Matan David and APHIDS. Felicity’s theatrical credits include Adelaide Cabaret Festival’s L’Hotel and Frank Theatre’s Chameleon, as well as Aaron Schuppan's short film Heavy Red.
Felicity’s choreographic commissions include works for Australian Dance Theatre’s The World’s Smallest Stage, Vitalstatistix’ Adhocracy, Tom Borgas’ HyperObject, Dragon Mill’s Unseen Fire Festival and Motus Collective’s co-choreographed White Rhino (winner of Best Emerging Artist award 2021), Old Body, New Management and Trifle.
Felicity holds a Bachelor of Creative Arts (Dance) from Flinders University, and a Certificate IV in Commercial Dance from Gravity Studios.
Zoe Gay is an independent contemporary dancer, choreographer, and producer based on Kaurna Land. A graduate of the Adelaide College of the Arts with a Bachelor of Creative Arts (Dance), Zoe has collaborated with a range of acclaimed artists including Lee Brummer, Israel Aloni, Lina Limosani, Garry Stewart, Michelle Ryan, and Larissa McGowan. In 2019, she co-founded Motus Collective, through which she has developed and performed in projects such as Brain Flower by Hiromi Tango, eDuard Helmbold’s Elegy of The Pale Lion, and the Vitalstatistix Adhocracy program. Her co-choreographed work White Rhino won Best Emerging Artist at the 2021 Adelaide Fringe. She also directed The Leftovers, presented in both the 2022 and 2023 festivals.
Zoe moved to Bergen, Norway in 2023, where she completed a choreographic residency at Bergen Dansesenter for a new work, Narrated by Cillian Murphy, worked for Borealis Music Festival as Ticketing Manager, and premiered Once More With Feeling in collaboration with Norwegian artist June Lysjø at Festival Danserom in Bergen. In 2024, Zoe returned to Australia to create and premiere On Not Knowing with the Bachelor dancers at Adelaide College of the Arts, and was commissioned by Adelaide Festival Centre to present The Leftovers at the Space Theatre. Zoe’s choreographic work explores the space between realism and absurdism, often drawing from time paradoxes, thought experiments, and the complexities of the human condition—constantly returning to the universal stories that connect us all.

This residency has support from

scotch college residency

Scotch College Residency 2025: Steph Daughtry

Adele Sliuzas · August 12, 2025

We are thrilled to announce Steph Daughtry as the recipient of the 2025 Scotch College Residency.

In partnership with Scotch College, Steph will receive a five-week paid residency within the English Faculty. Aiming to help further develop students’ writing and communication skills responding to creative themes.

During this residency, Steph will be introducing students to personification and embodiment writing, challenging and inspiring students with daily writing focuses.

About the writer:

Steph is an award winning cross-disciplinary artist, producer, director, and writer working predominantly in live performance and installation.
Specialising in collaborative and devised forms of theatre that explore social and environmental impacts, her credits include Brag Drunch (Adelaide Cabaret Festival 2023), The Fish Bowl (Best Theatre and Physical Theatre Award at the Adelaide Fringe in 2022), and Eating Tomorrow (Sustainability Award Adelaide Fringe 2021).
Steph works as an independent freelance artist, as well as in her role as the co-Founder and co-Artistic Director of production company Post Dining, producing award-winning, innovative forms of entertainment and education designed to engage all the senses.
Steph is currently completing her PhD as part of Uni SA Creative exploring the impact of cultural policy on the capacity for artists to engage in professional practice. As part of this research Steph has published in the Journal of Sociology exploring the impact of arts funding, and has previously written for Felt Space as part of their writers program, and published pieces in Fine Print magazine and The Skinny (Edinburgh). Steph looks forward to using her residency to translate her research into smaller digestible pieces that engage with the artistic community at The Mill and wider Adelaide.

Exhibition: In Reflection: In Response, curated by Stella Martino

Adele Sliuzas · July 29, 2025

Image: *Filling in the Blank(et) - Stitching Stories* by Elina Priha, Eline Gaudé, Stella Martino, Anna Kozonina, Martta Nieminen, Onerva Heikka

July 18 - September 5, 2025

Finissage tickets

curator essay

Finissage: Friday, September 5, 4:30-6:30pm

List of Works

Gallery I, 154 Angas St, Kaurna Yarta

Free entry, all welcome

You can find In Reflection: In Response in The Mill’s Gallery I, located at 154 Angas St, Kaurna Yarta (Adelaide).
Gallery I is open Monday-Friday, 10am-4pm.
Accessibility
The Mill’s entrance has a small step into the building. We have a ramp available, please ring the doorbell and our friendly team will assist you.
During gallery hours, our entrance will be unlocked. If the door is closed, please ring the doorbell to alert our team.
The Mill has concrete flooring throughout with no internal steps and a disability toilet on site.
Read more in-depth information on our accessibility web page.
The Mill has concrete flooring throughout with no internal steps and a disability toilet on site.
Read more in-depth information on our accessibility web page.

For SALA Festival 2025, we are excited to present In Reflection: In Response, a new group exhibition curated by Stella Martino, featuring the work of five South Australian artists; Shani Engelbrecht (textiles), Tash Evele (textiles), Carman Skeehan (glass), Lotte Schwerdtfeger (ceramics) and Yana Lehey (sculpture). In Reflection: In Response has been developed through a collaborative, community-driven component led by Stella, who sites Ursula Le Guin’s essay The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction in the conceptual underpinning of the exhibition.

For each of the artists, this exhibition has been an opportunity to come together, share ideas, collaborate, form communal bonds and develop their work. We’re excited to see the artists’ process, both in their individual practices and in creating collaborative work, showcased together in the gallery.

In Reflection: In Response is a group exhibition with collaboration at its core. This exhibition explores how we collect memories, experiences, time and stories and how we share them with our community. The idea of the exhibition is an extension of previous research and projects I (the curator) have been part of; a shared hand-sewn quilt, a collective recipe book and creative non-fiction short stories exploring the same themes. There are lots of little things that connect every project I undertake, but the single connecting thread is Ursula Le Guin’s essay The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction. Le Guin’s essay challenges the idea of stories that centre one individual and instead offers the viewpoint that stories are a collection of moments and experiences gathered over time. Le Guin uses the term ‘carrier bag’ as a figurative and literal image of how we collect things and put them in a vessel to save for a time when those things are shared amongst others. In this exhibition, you’ll find various forms of ‘carrier bags’ or vessels that have been created by each artist using their chosen medium. In each of the artists’ pieces are motifs and acknowledgements of one another. At the centre of this collaborative exhibition is a shared patchwork sampler created over three residency workshops hosted at The Mill. In these workshops, the artists were invited to use various fabrics and materials to hand-stitch, sew or embroider stories, memories and pieces of themselves that are important to them, their community and their practice. Each workshop was a chance for the artists and myself to spend time together, tell stories, ask questions, share skills, share food, share thoughts to create our collective ‘carrier bag’.
Stella Martino is an emerging curator and writer originally from Dharug/Sydney, now based in Tarndanya/Adelaide. Stella completed her Master of Arts (in Visual Cultures, Curating and Contemporary Art) from Aalto University in Finland in 2023. Since then, Stella has undertaken a curatorial internship at The Mill under the mentorship of visual arts curator Adele Sliuzas. While studying in Finland, Stella co-curated and was a participating artist in the group exhibition Ghost Elephant Stitches in the Snow and co-created and developed the community arts and recipe book Recipes for Resilience and Care in the Climate Emergency. Stella is interested in queer ecologies and how the more-than-human interacts with their environments and in art. Her master's thesis aimed to understand how various forms of memory inform storytelling and their impact on our well-being. Through her research and previous projects, Stella also explores the benefits of community care practices within and beyond art spaces.
Dear diary, is a homage to the diary I received from my cousins during my first trip to Fiji in 2013. I was homesick and used it to comfort myself, writing that I would be okay and that I’d be home soon. Since then, I’ve returned to the diary at the end of each year to write a letter to my future self. While some years were missed, the ritual has continued for almost a decade. I reflect on the year, set goals, and often end with, “Good luck, future me!” The diary has become a vessel carrying my past selves and hopes for the future.
For this work, I recreated the diary cover using fabrics, sewing techniques and drawing to introduce softness and texture. I wove raffia along the edge to reference the handmade detailing of my original diary. I invited each artist in our group to write a letter to their future self and included my own past letters. I interpreted these letters into small fabric pieces, drawing from handwriting styles to create visual textures. A single thread connects all elements, symbolising a shared stream of consciousness linking our thoughts, hopes, and futures.
Shani Engelbrecht (she/they) is a multidisciplinary artist of Indo-Fijian and Scottish-Irish heritage, creating and living on Kaurna Land, South Australia. She holds an Honours degree in Visual Arts (2022) and a Bachelor of Creative Arts (2021) from Flinders University. Her work predominantly explores her identity and sense of belonging in the space she grew up in. Race and identity are at the core of Engelbrecht’s practice as she interrogates the incidences of racism experienced by people of colour daily. By using performance, photography, video, drawing and painting, her work blends traditional and contemporary techniques to convey the duality of her upbringing and to reflect on the feelings of otherness. Engelbrecht has shown works in multiple exhibitions including Art That Walks OFF the Walls (Goodwood Theatre & Studios 2024), Hatched: National Graduate Show Exhibition (Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts 2023), not white/not brown (FELTspace 2023).
The Pools explore connection between artists, family, community, and the wider world. I have always felt a profound safety and sense of calm when standing in the sea. Wherever I am in the world, wherever my loved ones may be, we have the ocean between us.
Each rockpool in the installation acts as a miniature world, a reflection of the individual artists featured in the exhibition. Crafted with care and intention, these rockpools are filled with ocean treasures I collected alongside my family. When holidaying together recently, we collected shells, sponges, sea glass and more, embedding the work with personal memory, gratitude and the quiet power of shared experience.
I asked each artist in our collective to do their own reflection on special memories at the beach. The photos provided are stitched together and mixed media is used to add elements of interest.
By recreating these small tidal worlds, I wanted to honour both the individuality of each artist and the collective beauty of community.This installation is a reminder that, even in our own tiny ecosystems, we are part of something vast, unexplored and deeply interconnected.
Broken mirror fragments embedded within the pools invite literal and figurative reflection from the viewer. Finally, a single, continuous rope, weaves through the work, tethering us together as one. The rope itself was made by attaching discarded, found fragments together to create one connecting string.
Calamity Tash, local queer Craft Wizard, believes art is for everyone and is most passionate about inclusivity and accessibility to the creative arts. Over the last decade Tash has been skill sharing with communities across the globe. The spreading of craft joy will continue as Tash becomes an enthusiastic resident at The Mill. Tash’s signature sparkle and use of whimsical dolls have been her wearable art trademark. Calamity Tash joins us on a journey of self expression and discovery. Her private studio will see the creation of many a weird and wonderful thing.
I put it here so I wouldn’t forget
I’ve always kept small things—gifts, fragments, found objects—on a little rack at home. It’s where I put pieces of the world that feel like mine: tiny markers of memory, small gestures of joy. For this exhibition, I’ve made a version of that rack in glass. Each object is a response—to the time shared, the conversations, the stitching, the slowness of sitting beside others and making something by hand. A clover. A safety pin. A necklace. Teeth. A bag. Candles, pencils, thread.
These are replicas of real things, made in glass, they feel a little removed from the world, but still intimate—fragile, exact, sometimes strange. They hold the trace of someone’s story, or a moment passed between us.
Ursula Le Guin reminds us that stories aren’t always linear or heroic—they can be soft vessels, carriers of collective experience. That idea stayed with me as we stitched and talked and shared time.
This shelf is both archive and offering. A way of holding memory that isn’t fixed, but refracted—through glass, through time, through others. In the making, I’ve come to know, understand, and appreciate the group I’ve worked alongside—through their stories, their hands, their quiet generosity. It’s a collection of small things that don’t belong to just me, gathered with care and left open to interpretation.
Carman Skeehan is a glass artist and maker, living in Adelaide, South Australia. Having completed the Jam Factory associate program in 2023, Carman has hit a milestone in her work, elevating her artistic practice. Guided by the meticulous creative process, Carman centres her work on the art of storytelling through glass, exploring the intersection of narrative and materials. Skeehan draws inspiration from early oil paintings and still lifes, creating a unique likeness in glass materials. Her work is an exploration of these elements, seamlessly blending them to create unique and compelling pieces of art.
A human thing: useful, edible, or beautiful
A leaf, a gourd, a shell, a net, a bag, a sling a sack a bottle a pot a box a container, a Sea Sponge Vessel
My practice has often included collaborations with artists, working in tandem and responding to each other's work, presence and life; creating and complicating narratives and expanding our boundaries together. The residencies sessions to create a textile work were both daunting and exuberant, in facilitating connecting between a group of relative strangers. I followed this formula, inviting the participating artists to visit my studio and work one on one alongside me on a large scale ceramic vessel.
After hand-building a very large vase shape with thick walls; I guided each artist in technique, and together we cut away pieces from the vessel, creating a delicate lattice structure.
This ‘porous vessel’ references a net, basketry or fish trap, objects often traditionally crafted in group settings. It is a vessel to capture our experiences and time spent getting to know each other.
Whilst our hands were busy and eyes averted, conversation through joint work facilitated deeper connection.
To further this metaphor we created beads from offcuts of clay, stringing together our work and experience into a continuous thread of coral fragments.
My ceramic works repeatedly reference motifs of sea creatures such as corals and sponges. These colonial animals have become symbols of the fragility of nature, as the first flag of the environmental system collapses. However these foundation species, the architects of ecosystems have long endured climate fluctuations across deep geological time. Just as algae and animal cells cooperate to build a reef and it is only by collaborating that humanity can create the narrative of our future.
Lotte Schwerdtfeger is an artist and is currently a studio tenant at the JamFactory Ceramics Studio, Tarndanya/Adelaide. She is materially led across many mediums, being consistently drawn to ceramic processes. Lotte hand builds ceramics, coiling and pinching both functional, sculptural and installation works; combining tendrils of research which span anthropology, biology, symbolism and revelry in the small psychedelic moments of existence. Lotte is delighted by the alchemical and elemental processes of ceramics. She is always intrigued by the role of objects, quotidian and ritual, in defining and connecting human and nonhuman experiences. Lotte is a graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts; regularly working on commission, collaborative projects and gallery exhibitions. Where possible all materials are salvaged, reused and recycled, working towards a zero waste practice.
As Above, So Below
Chews Wisely
Throughout my varied practice, the project has dictated the medium. Thus I have picked up a middling aptitude for various techniques, collecting skills like baubles. The ones I handled and polished the longest are those I have wanted or enjoyed since childhood.
This trend continues into my contribution to In Reflection: In Response. In the techniques employed and the stories shared, there is an odd tension between nostalgia and hope. The nostalgic anecdotes swapped within the group prompted me to choose floral motifs in my embroidery: common European plants which carpeted the meadows of my childhood, but struggle in the cracks here.
I explored Irish lace in an attempt to connect with a heritage of which I retain only a bastardised surname. The scale of my work lent itself to constructing wisdom teeth in response to the surprisingly common conversations about teeth in our midst. As we were encouraged to read Ursula LeGuin’s The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction, I came to think of the mouth as a carrier bag of stories. Five teeth, five stories; wisdom optional.
Yana Lehey is an environmentally motivated visual artist based on Kaurna land. Her practice spans various mediums, covering drawing, painting, and sculpture, depending on what a project calls for. Most recently, she has applied a textile approach to petroleum-based waste materials like plastic and rubber on a large scale, creating oversized crocheted sculptural works. She developed the necessary techniques as an accessible means for every person to tackle the waste problem without the need for expensive technology and infrastructure. Yana’s interest in environmental art first started to gain traction in 2020, with her first solo exhibition Face Up, featuring monumentally scaled watercolour portraits of nine young climate activists from diverse cultural backgrounds with diverse approaches. The research behind this project formed the basis for Yana’s current practice.

This exhibition has support from

galleries, public program

Exhibition: Erin Renfrey, Once Upon a Lemon Drop

Adele Sliuzas · July 28, 2025

Image: Erin Renfrey, *Past, Present and Future (Elspeth, Harold and Doris)*

July 18 - September 5, 2025

Finissage tickets

Finissage: Friday, September 5, 4:30-6:30pm

list of works

Gallery II, 154 Angas St, Kaurna Yarta

Free entry, all welcome

You can find Erin’s exhibition in The Mill’s Gallery II, located at 154 Angas St, Kaurna Yarta (Adelaide).
Gallery II is open Monday-Friday, 10am-4pm.
Accessibility
The Mill’s entrance has a small step into the building. We have a ramp available, please ring the doorbell and our friendly team will assist you.
During gallery hours, our entrance will be unlocked. If the door is closed, please ring the doorbell to alert our team.
The Mill has concrete flooring throughout with no internal steps and a disability toilet on site.
Read more in-depth information on our accessibility web page.The Mill has concrete flooring throughout with no internal steps and a disability toilet on site.
Read more in-depth information on our accessibility web page.

For SALA Festival 2025, we are excited to present Once Upon a Lemon Drop, a new solo exhibition by watercolour artist Erin Renfrey. Invoking a sense of childlike curiosity, Erin’s compositions encourage us to see the world through new eyes.

Familiar and friendly faces co-exist with unexpected, sinister and uncanny characters, and just like a Grimm fairytale, we are drawn into a conversation about social mores and societal expectations.

In Once Upon a Lemon Drop, I am presenting a collection of new, intriguing watercolour paintings. My work reveals an otherworldly journey through the lives of fantastical creatures as they search for communion with each other and the universe. Hieronymus Bosch, theatre, and vintage illustrations are just some of my sources of inspiration.
My process involves meticulously layering watercolour on paper and panel to create colourful and eye-catching imagery. Each work begins with daydreaming and doodling, which becomes conceptually realised through thrifted toys and handmade miniatures, functioning as a guide for form, light and shadow, and composition.
Erin is an emerging artist based on Kaurna Land. She commenced her Bachelor of Creative Arts at Flinders University and Adelaide College of the Arts in 2020 and graduated in 2023. In the same year she was selected for the Helpmann Graduate Exhibition, receiving the Hill Smith Art Advisory Award and Square Holes Award. She has since been a finalist in the Adelaide Parklands Art Prize and exhibited at BMGArt, Collective Haunt and St. Peters Town Hall.
Erin is currently a studio resident at The Mill.

Past, Present and Future (Elspeth, Harold and Doris) watercolour, 27 x 41., Erin Renfrey.jpg

The Garden of Unearthly Delights, (close up) watercolour, 90 x 60 cm, Erin Renfrey .jpg

This exhibition has support from

first nations dance, public program

First Nations Choreographic Lab Showing

Adele Sliuzas · July 26, 2025

book tickets

Showing and Q&A

When: Friday, August 1, 6-7pm

Where: The Breakout at The Mill, 154 Angas St, Kaurna Yarta

Cost: $10 (+ booking fee)

Note: Please arrive 15 minutes early to grab a drink. This event will be 1 hour (including a Q&A)

Getting to the showing
This showing and Q&A will be held in The Mill Breakout. Please come to the Exhibition Space at 154 Angas Street, the bar will be open to grab a drink before we take you through to The Breakout.
Please arrive at 5:45pm arrival for a 6pm sharp start.
This event will be 1 hour (including the Q&A).
Accessibility
Disability access is available via our Angas St entrance, access the pedestrian ramp on the corner of Gunson St to get to our front door, which will be open.
The Mill has concrete flooring throughout with no internal steps and a disability toilet on site.
Read more in-depth information on our accessibility web page.
If you have questions or would like to talk to one of The Mill team contact info@themilladelaide.com

Join us for a work-in-progress showing by choreographer Kaine Sultan-Babij, developed through The Mill’s First Nations Choreographic Lab in 2025.

This first stage development will explore movement based on cultural understandings and use of Aboriginal artefacts.

Over four days, Kaine will co-facilitate the lab with Caleena Sansbury, The Mill’s First Nations Dance Program Coordinator, working with dancers Keisha Barrow, Tiarna Power and Rikki Wilson.

The Mill’s First Nations Choreographic Lab is a program designed to create performance outcomes while supporting emerging and mid-career First Nations dancers in South Australia.

About the Facilitators:

Arrernte and Gurindji Contemporary Dance Artist, Kaine Sultan-Babij, is making a lasting impact on the world of dance and drag.
With a background that includes performing with Leigh Warren and Dancers, Bangarra Dance Theatre, and the Australian Dance Theatre, Kaine has skilfully blended Contemporary Dance and Contemporary Indigenous Dance. Based in Kaurna Country, Kaine stands as an Independent Dancer and Choreographer, contributing to the vibrant Australian performing arts scene.
Beyond Kaine's achievements in the dance world, the emergence of Estelle, a captivating Drag Performer and Persona, has added another layer to their artistic repertoire. Estelle quickly gained recognition, establishing herself as a standout performer in the Adelaide Drag Scene. Through electrifying performances, Estelle has earned a respected place in the realm of drag.
Together, Kaine and Estelle embody a powerful fusion of Tradition, creativity, and contemporary expression, making a lasting impression on the dance and drag communities in Australia.
Caleena Sansbury is a prominent First Nations artist whose diverse background and extensive experience have established her as a leading figure in the arts. Her heritage, encompassing Ngarrindjeri, Narungga, and Kaurna cultures, deeply influences her work and perspective.
A graduate of NAISDA Dance College, Caleena’s career spans various disciplines including performance, choreography, and program coordination. She has showcased her talents on both national and international stages, working with respected artists and companies.
Her notable collaborations include:
- Vicki Van Hout on productions like Long Grass and Les Festivities Lubrufier.
- Thomas E. S. Kelly on the performance work [MIS]CONCEIVE.
- Karul Projects on the piece SSHIFT.
Caleena’s experience extends to children's theatre, where she has performed in shows produced by InSite Arts such as Saltbush and Our Corka Bubs, and with Polyglot Theatre in Tangled. Her work demonstrates a deep understanding of both dance and theatre, particularly in contexts involving young audiences.
In addition to her performance career, she has contributed to theatre as an actor in Legs On the Wall’s The Man With The Iron Neck and has showcased her organizational skills as a producer for the Melbourne Fringe in 2018. She has also toured South Australia with Taree Sansbury’s Mi:wi 2019, and performed in Jacob Boheme’s dance work Gurranda in 2024. Caleena continues to perform and practice dance in and throughout South Australia.
Currently, Caleena is a Program Coordinator at The Mill, an award-winning multi-disciplinary arts organisation. Her role at The Mill continues to reflect her commitment to fostering a vibrant and dynamic First Nations arts community.

view the performing arts residency archive

This project has support from

theatre residency, public program

Theatre Residency: Katherine Sortini, Beneath the Mountain

chloe metcalfe · July 25, 2025

Showing and Q&A

book tickets

When: Friday, August 22, 6-7pm

Where: The Breakout at The Mill, 154 Angas St, Kaurna Yarta

Cost: $10 (+ booking fee)

Note: Please arrive 15 minutes early to grab a drink. This event will be 1 hour (including a Q&A).

This showing and Q&A will be held in The Breakout. Please come to The Mill at 154 Angas Street, the bar will be open to grab a drink before we take you through to The Breakout.
Please arrive at 5:45pm for a 6pm sharp start.
This event will be 1 hour (including the Q&A).
Accessibility
Disability access is available via our Angas St entrance, access the pedestrian ramp on the corner of Gunson St to get to our front door, which will be open.
The Mill has concrete flooring throughout with no internal steps and a disability toilet on site.
Read more in-depth information on our accessibility web page.
If you have questions or would like to talk to one of The Mill team contact info@themilladelaide.com

Beneath the Mountain is an ambitious new interdisciplinary theatrical work that confronts the invisible and undervalued labor inherent in motherhood and domestic life.

Developed and produced by Deus Ex Femina, the production integrates spoken word, live music, theatre, and physical performance to explore the quiet violences of emotional labor and the slow erosion of autonomy within domestic settings. Inspired by Aesop’s fable The Mountain in Labour, the work interrogates the disparity between the lofty expectations of caregiving and the isolating, complex realities experienced by women; particularly within heterosexual relationships. It asks: what happens when women are expected to be everything to everyone, and what remains beneath the weight of it all?

The show’s narrative structure is built from a series of non-linear, thematically connected vignettes, culminating in a central arc that follows WIFE and HUSBAND; a newly married couple who, after falling pregnant, experience the gradual collapse of their relationship under the pressure of societal roles. WIFE, while navigating her pregnancy, is increasingly left to carry the household and emotional burden alone as HUSBAND becomes more disengaged, controlling, and emotionally absent.

During this development residency at The Mill, we will test the narrative structure, key moments, and thematic throughline. Audiences can expect an evocative and personal exploration of caregiving’s emotional and physical impact.

About the artists:

Katherine (she/they) is a queer, first-generation Italian theatre maker, actor, writer, and founder of Deus Ex Femina. A 2018 Honours graduate from Flinders Drama Centre, Katherine’s work spans acting, producing, dramaturgy, directing, and spoken word poetry.

In 2023, Katherine won the Australian Poetry Slam South Australian Heat and performed at the Grand Final at the Sydney Opera House. Their debut show All The Things I Couldn’t Say won the Adelaide Festival InSpace Award at the Adelaide Fringe. It was then chosen to premiere in theRUMPUS 2023 Season. Their show Dirty Energy won the Holden Street Theatre Award at the Adelaide Fringe. Both shows had sold out seasons.

Katherine and Deus Ex Femina hold a two-year residency at Goodwood Theatre & Studios (2025–2026) and were selected for The Mill’s Theatre Residency for Beneath the Mountain (2025). The other production within the residency, Scenes with Girls, was chosen for State Theatre Company South Australia’s 2025 Stateside program.

In 2022, Katherine was nominated and selected as a finalist for the 7 News Young Achiever Award. In 2024, she was again recognised for her contributions to the arts and community, becoming a finalist for the South Australian Italian Awards in the category of Young Achiever, as well as being nominated for the Frank Ford Young Achiever Award at the Ruby Awards. Also in 2024, she was selected to be a part of the Helpmann Academy Creative Innovators Co-Hort and won the State Theatre Company of South Australia award which provides mentorship throughout 2025.
Elizabeth is a graduate of the Flinders Drama Centre and lives and works as an actor on unceded Kaurna land. Her theatre credits include The Dictionary of Lost Words, Girl From The North Country (GWB and Damien Hewitt), Hibernation, The Gods of Strangers, Red Cross Letters, Volpone and Jesikah for the State Theatre Company South Australia, Baba Yaga, Grug and Grug and the Rainbow for Windmill Theatre Company, Yo Diddle Diddle and The Lighthouse for Patch Theatre Company, the Helpmann Award winning Emil and the Detectives for Slingsby, and Emily Steel’s The Garden with Theatre Republic.
Elizabeth made her directing debut in the inaugural season of RUMPUS at the end of 2019, with Sarah DeLappe’s The Wolves, and continues grow as a director. She joined the main cast of Danger 5 as
‘Holly’ for the series return on SBS and has worked on many other locally made television productions, commercials and short films. Elizabeth is the voice of Olli in Sun Runners, a collaboration between Audioplay and Windmill Theatre Company.
Nate is an award-winning, multidisciplinary theatre facilitator, educator, performer, and researcher whose work spans genres, continents, and communities. Trained at the Victorian College of the Arts in Naarm and currently based in Tarntanya, he has created and performed across Australia, the Netherlands, and the USA.

Nate is currently completing Honours at Flinders University under Dr. Sarah Peters, researching an “inside-out” model for inclusive, participant-led devised theatre—centering artists’ intrinsic creative agency over imposed frameworks. As a queer, disabled artist of culturally and linguistically diverse background, Nate’s practice is grounded in accessibility and cultural equity. He has facilitated with SAYarts, Riverland Youth Theatre, Open Space Contemporary Arts, and ActNow Theatre, and mentors emerging artists from marginalised backgrounds.

Most recently, he has mentored young Narungga playwright Mali Harkin-Noack in developing her first full-length plays, including Tell Me Something, which will be featured in the Adelaide Festival Centre’s 2026 inSPACE program and Our Mob Festival. Nate has been funded by Carclew to create improvisation-based writing tools for learning-disabled young artists, and to develop and run their first theatre intensive school holiday program for young people. He is currently collaborating with Fleur Kilpatrick on Beginnings—a new work exploring donor conception and non-traditional families.

As one half of theatre-trash duo Muse of Fire, Nate’s creative ethos is irreverent, collaborative, and fiercely inclusive—reimagining theatre as a space where difference is celebrated, and access drives innovation.
Steven is a multi-talented live theatre technician and lighting designer. He has worked on numerous of productions such as NUISIA & KINDER by a ry production, The Ugly One by Famous Last Words, I Know The End by Alix Kuijpers, That's Amore by Kate Burgess and is the in-house technician for Goodwood Theatre & Studios. He has been apart of shows for indie, amateur and professional productions of all types. In his off-time he produces music, graphic designs, video edits and has used those skills towards productions.

This residency has support from

galleries, public program

Artist Talk: In Reflection: In Response

Adele Sliuzas · July 24, 2025

Artist Talk

book tickets

When: Friday, August 29, 5:30-6:30pm

Gallery I, 154 Angas St, Kaurna Yarta

Free entry, all welcome

You can find In Reflection: In Response in The Mill’s Gallery I, located at 154 Angas St, Kaurna Yarta (Adelaide).
Gallery I is open Monday-Friday, 10am-4pm.
Accessibility
The Mill has two entrances, the main entrance on the corner of Angas and Gunson Street and an accessible entrance further down Angas Street.
Both doors are locked from the outside, there is a doorbell on the main door that will alert The Mill team. They will meet you at the accessible entrance to welcome you into the building.
The Mill has concrete flooring throughout with no internal steps and a disability toilet on site.
Read more in-depth information on our accessibility web page.

Join Stella Martino for a chat about In Reflection: In Response, presented during SALA Festival.

Stella will be chatting with artists Carman Skeehan, Shani Engelbrecht and Yana Lehey, talking about the inspiration behind the exhibition and their artistic process.

About the exhibition

In Reflection: In Response is a group exhibition curated by Stella Martino, featuring the work of five South Australian artists; Shani Engelbrecht (textiles), Tash Evele (textiles), Carman Skeehan (glass), Lotte Schwerdtfeger (ceramics) and Yana Lehey (sculpture). In Reflection: In Response has been developed through a collaborative, community-driven component led by Stella, who sites Ursula Le Guin’s essay The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction in the conceptual underpinning of the exhibition.

For each of the artists, this exhibition has been an opportunity to come together, share ideas, collaborate, form communal bonds and develop their work. We’re excited to see the artists’ process, both in their individual practices and in creating collaborative work, showcased together in the gallery.

Stella Martino is an emerging curator and writer originally from Dharug/Sydney, now based in Tarndanya/Adelaide. Stella completed her Master of Arts (in Visual Cultures, Curating and Contemporary Art) from Aalto University in Finland in 2023. Since then, Stella has undertaken a curatorial internship at The Mill under the mentorship of visual arts curator Adele Sliuzas. While studying in Finland, Stella co-curated and was a participating artist in the group exhibition Ghost Elephant Stitches in the Snow and co-created and developed the community arts and recipe book Recipes for Resilience and Care in the Climate Emergency. Stella is interested in queer ecologies and how the more-than-human interacts with their environments and in art. Her master's thesis aimed to understand how various forms of memory inform storytelling and their impact on our well-being. Through her research and previous projects, Stella also explores the benefits of community care practices within and beyond art spaces.
I put it here so I wouldn’t forget
I’ve always kept small things—gifts, fragments, found objects—on a little rack at home. It’s where I put pieces of the world that feel like mine: tiny markers of memory, small gestures of joy. For this exhibition, I’ve made a version of that rack in glass. Each object is a response—to the time shared, the conversations, the stitching, the slowness of sitting beside others and making something by hand. A clover. A safety pin. A necklace. Teeth. A bag. Candles, pencils, thread.
These are replicas of real things, made in glass, they feel a little removed from the world, but still intimate—fragile, exact, sometimes strange. They hold the trace of someone’s story, or a moment passed between us.
Ursula Le Guin reminds us that stories aren’t always linear or heroic—they can be soft vessels, carriers of collective experience. That idea stayed with me as we stitched and talked and shared time.
This shelf is both archive and offering. A way of holding memory that isn’t fixed, but refracted—through glass, through time, through others. In the making, I’ve come to know, understand, and appreciate the group I’ve worked alongside—through their stories, their hands, their quiet generosity. It’s a collection of small things that don’t belong to just me, gathered with care and left open to interpretation.
Carman Skeehan is a glass artist and maker, living in Adelaide, South Australia. Having completed the Jam Factory associate program in 2023, Carman has hit a milestone in her work, elevating her artistic practice. Guided by the meticulous creative process, Carman centres her work on the art of storytelling through glass, exploring the intersection of narrative and materials. Skeehan draws inspiration from early oil paintings and still lifes, creating a unique likeness in glass materials. Her work is an exploration of these elements, seamlessly blending them to create unique and compelling pieces of art.
Dear diary, is a homage to the diary I received from my cousins during my first trip to Fiji in 2013. I was homesick and used it to comfort myself, writing that I would be okay and that I’d be home soon. Since then, I’ve returned to the diary at the end of each year to write a letter to my future self. While some years were missed, the ritual has continued for almost a decade. I reflect on the year, set goals, and often end with, “Good luck, future me!” The diary has become a vessel carrying my past selves and hopes for the future.
For this work, I recreated the diary cover using fabrics, sewing techniques and drawing to introduce softness and texture. I wove raffia along the edge to reference the handmade detailing of my original diary. I invited each artist in our group to write a letter to their future self and included my own past letters. I interpreted these letters into small fabric pieces, drawing from handwriting styles to create visual textures. A single thread connects all elements, symbolising a shared stream of consciousness linking our thoughts, hopes, and futures.
Shani Engelbrecht (she/they) is a multidisciplinary artist of Indo-Fijian and Scottish-Irish heritage, creating and living on Kaurna Land, South Australia. She holds an Honours degree in Visual Arts (2022) and a Bachelor of Creative Arts (2021) from Flinders University. Her work predominantly explores her identity and sense of belonging in the space she grew up in. Race and identity are at the core of Engelbrecht’s practice as she interrogates the incidences of racism experienced by people of colour daily. By using performance, photography, video, drawing and painting, her work blends traditional and contemporary techniques to convey the duality of her upbringing and to reflect on the feelings of otherness. Engelbrecht has shown works in multiple exhibitions including Art That Walks OFF the Walls (Goodwood Theatre & Studios 2024), Hatched: National Graduate Show Exhibition (Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts 2023), not white/not brown (FELTspace 2023).
As Above, So Below
Chews Wisely
Throughout my varied practice, the project has dictated the medium. Thus I have picked up a middling aptitude for various techniques, collecting skills like baubles. The ones I handled and polished the longest are those I have wanted or enjoyed since childhood.
This trend continues into my contribution to In Reflection: In Response. In the techniques employed and the stories shared, there is an odd tension between nostalgia and hope. The nostalgic anecdotes swapped within the group prompted me to choose floral motifs in my embroidery: common European plants which carpeted the meadows of my childhood, but struggle in the cracks here.
I explored Irish lace in an attempt to connect with a heritage of which I retain only a bastardised surname. The scale of my work lent itself to constructing wisdom teeth in response to the surprisingly common conversations about teeth in our midst. As we were encouraged to read Ursula LeGuin’s The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction, I came to think of the mouth as a carrier bag of stories. Five teeth, five stories; wisdom optional.
Yana Lehey is an environmentally motivated visual artist based on Kaurna land. Her practice spans various mediums, covering drawing, painting, and sculpture, depending on what a project calls for. Most recently, she has applied a textile approach to petroleum-based waste materials like plastic and rubber on a large scale, creating oversized crocheted sculptural works. She developed the necessary techniques as an accessible means for every person to tackle the waste problem without the need for expensive technology and infrastructure. Yana’s interest in environmental art first started to gain traction in 2020, with her first solo exhibition Face Up, featuring monumentally scaled watercolour portraits of nine young climate activists from diverse cultural backgrounds with diverse approaches. The research behind this project formed the basis for Yana’s current practice.

Photo: Daniel Marks

This exhibition has support from

first nations residency, public program

First Nations Dance Residency: Kaine Sultan-Babij, Sovereign Sequins

chloe metcalfe · July 16, 2025

Showing and Q&A

book tickets

When: Friday, September 5, 6-7pm

Cost: $10 (+ booking fee)

Note: Please arrive 15 minutes early to grab a drink. These events will be 1 hour (including a Q&A for the 6pm showing).

This showing and Q&A will be held in The Mill Breakout. Please come to the Exhibition Space at 154 Angas Street, the bar will be open to grab a drink before we take you through to The Breakout.
Please arrive at 5:45pm arrival for a 6pm sharp start.
This event will be 1 hour (including the Q&A).
Accessibility
Disability access is available via our Angas St entrance, access the pedestrian ramp on the corner of Gunson St to get to our front door, which will be open.
The Mill has concrete flooring throughout with no internal steps and a disability toilet on site.
Read more in-depth information on our accessibility web page.
If you have questions or would like to talk to one of The Mill team contact info@themilladelaide.com

Kaine Sultan-Babij weaves contemporary Indigenous dance with the bold artistry of drag, creating a performance that is full of life, movement, and storytelling.

The show journeys through themes of identity, culture, and self-expression, exploring how character and movement can speak as powerfully as words.

With playful twists, striking visuals, and moments of heartfelt emotion, it’s a performance that celebrates creativity, connection, and the joy of embracing who we are.

This is a second-stage development, as part of our First Nations Dance Residency program 2024-2025.

About the artist:

Kaine Sultan-Babij is an Arrernte and Gurindji Contemporary Dance Artist, renowned for their work in dance, choreography, and drag performance. Based in Kaurna Country, Kaine stands as an Independent Dancer and Choreographer, contributing to the vibrant Australian performing arts scene.
Alongside their achievements in dance, the emergence of Estelle, a captivating Drag Performer and Persona, has added another layer to Kaine's artistic repertoire. Through electrifying performances, Estelle has earned a respected place in the Adelaide drag scene, embodying a powerful fusion of Tradition, creativity, and contemporary expression.
With a background that includes performing with Leigh Warren and Dancers, Bangarra Dance Theatre, and the Australian Dance Theatre, Kaine has skilfully blended Contemporary Dance and Contemporary Indigenous Dance. Based in Kaurna Country, Kaine stands as an Independent Dancer and Choreographer, contributing to the vibrant Australian performing arts scene.
Together, Kaine and Estelle embody a powerful fusion of Tradition, creativity, and contemporary expression, making a lasting impression on the dance and drag communities in Australia.

This residency has support from

public program, galleries

Exhibition: Walytja munu Ngura, Art and Films from the Aṉangu Lands Partnership

Adele Sliuzas · June 18, 2025

June 25 - July 11, 2025

Galleries I & II, 154 Angas St, Kaurna Yarta

Free entry, all welcome

You can find the Waltja munu ngura exhibition in The Mill’s Galleries, located at 154 Angas St, Kaurna Yarta (Adelaide).
The Mill’s Galleries are open Monday-Friday, 10am-4pm.
Accessibility
The Mill has two entrances, the main entrance on the corner of Angas and Gunson Street and an accessible entrance further down Angas Street.
Both doors are locked from the outside, there is a doorbell on the main door that will alert The Mill team. They will meet you at the accessible entrance to welcome you into the building.
The Mill has concrete flooring throughout with no internal steps and a disability toilet on site.
Read more in-depth information on our accessibility web page.

We are excited to present Walytja munu Ngura, a new exhibition of Art and Films from the Anangu Schools Lands Partnership, Department for Education, South Australia.

June 25-nguru July 11-kutu, 2025

Galleries 1 & 2, 154 Angas St, Kaurna tjutaku ngurangka

Nganana pulkara pukularinyi nyuranya nintintjaku Walytja munu Ngura, exhibition kuwaritja, panya Anangu Lands Partnership-angku palyantja tjuta. Panya kuula tiinpa ngaranyi partnership nyangangka: Kuula panya aitpa ngaranyi APY Land-ta, kuula kutju Maralinga Tjarutjala, munu kutju Yalatala ngaranyi. Anangu munu Piranpa educator tjutaya tjungu waakaripai kuulangka munu putingka kulu-kulu.

Exhibition nyangangka (ini panya Walytja munu Ngura), art munu film kuulangka palyantja tjutala nintini, panya yiya kutjupa, yiya kutjupa nganana palyantja tjuta nintilpai Fregon Arts Festival-ta. Ka waaka nyanganpa student, walytjapiti, munu kiminiti tjutangku visiting artist tjutangka tjungungku palyantja tjuta ngaranyi ka tjukurpa kutjupa tjuta video-ngka ngaranyi. Ka video tjutangka tjukurpa wiru tjuta ngaranyi palyanku nyinanytjatjara munu kiminitingka wirura nyinanytjatjara. Wangka kutjarangkaya video-ngka tjukurpa wangkapai; Pitjantjatjara munu English.

There are 10 Anangu schools in remote South Australia: 8 are located on the red dirt of the APY (Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara) Lands, with Oak Valley located on the red dirt of the Maralinga Tjarutja Lands, and Yalata on the coastal sands of the far west where Anangu Educators work shoulder to shoulder with non-Anangu educators in classrooms and learning on Country.

Walytja munu Ngura (Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara for Family and Place) is an exhibition of art and films from the schools of the Anangu Lands which are presented annually at the Fregon Arts Festival. The works are created by students, family, and community, in collaboration with visiting artists, and include videos of stories that explore concepts of wellbeing and citizenship, narrated in Pitjantjatjara and English.

masterclass series, public program

Workshops: Screen Printing with Bob Window

Adele Sliuzas · June 10, 2025

book tickets

Workshops

Workshop 1: Friday, June 20, 1-4pm

Workshop 2: Friday, July 4, 1-4pm

Where: The Mill, 154 Angas Street, Kaurna Yarta, Adelaide

Cost per workshop: $190 (+ booking fee)

The Mill has two entrances, the main entrance on the corner of Angas and Gunson Street and an accessible entrance further down Angas Street.
Both doors are locked from the outside, there is a doorbell on the main door that will alert The Mill team. They will meet you at the accessible entrance to welcome you into the building.
The Mill has concrete flooring throughout with no internal steps and a disability toilet on site.
Read more in-depth information on our accessibility web page.

Join artist Bob Window for a screen printing workshop where you’ll learn to print on fabric!

This beginner-level workshop will explore Bob’s signature styles with shapes, layers and stunning colours.

What to expect:

In this 3-hour session you will learn the basics of screen printing and learn two different techniques for creating amazing prints! Master screen printer Bob Window will share his expertise and guide participants through the process of printing using pre-exposed screens, followed by printing with blank screens and butchers paper.

Bob will provide participants with 1m of fabric, but you are welcome to bring along additional fabric, t-shirts or totes - natural fibres only.

This can be a messy process, so please wear covered shoes and studio clothes or an apron.

At the end of the day, you will get to take home your amazing screen-printed artworks!

Robert Viner Jones (AKA Bob Window) is a contemporary printer/painter based in Adelaide (Kaurna Country). Robert’s works offer bold, uncompromising graphics - stark and confident in their nature. Trained in Sydney, obsessed with design and colour, Robert’s works draw heavily on fearlessness of mid 20th century design plus an unbridled willingness to simply paint and print things that make him smile.
https://bobwindow.com.au/

PREFERRED web size TheMill_MorganSette-2.jpg

virtual gallery, oriana julie

Virtual Gallery: Oriana Julie, Head in the Clouds

Adele Sliuzas · May 27, 2025

For our first exhibition of 2025 we presented Head in the Clouds, a new exhibition by Oriana Julie developed through our Visual Arts Studio Residency presented with support from donors Geoff Martin and Sorayya Mahmood Martin.

This Virtual Gallery includes exhibition photography and social photography from the opening night and the live stream of Oriana’s artist talk.

First Nations Workshop: Performing Business

Adele Sliuzas · May 15, 2025

book tickets

First Nations Workshop: Performing Business

Day 1: Tuesday, July 1, 9:30am - 4:30pm

Day 2: Tuesday, July 22, 9:30am - 4:30pm

Where: Gallery 1 at The Mill, 154 Angas St, Kaurna Yarta

Cost: Free

First Nations Performing artists only

Getting to the showing
This showing and Q&A will be held in The Mill Breakout. Please come to the Exhibition Space at 154 Angas Street, the bar will be open to grab a drink before we take you through to The Breakout.
Please arrive at 5:45pm arrival for a 6pm sharp start.
This event will be 1 hour (including the Q&A).
Accessibility
Disability access is available via our Angas St entrance, access the pedestrian ramp on the corner of Gunson St to get to our front door, which will be open.
The Mill has concrete flooring throughout with no internal steps and a disability toilet on site.
Read more in-depth information on our accessibility web page.
If you have questions or would like to talk to one of The Mill team contact info@themilladelaide.com

We invite First Nations performing artists and dancers to join us for a two day Business workshop, strengthening entrepreneurship and self-management skills. Facilitated by The Mill’s Program Coordinator, Caleena Sansbury, and supported by our team of experienced arts managers, the workshops will build confidence in the business side of creative practice.

What to expect:

Day 1: Quoting for your Practice & Services: Learn about how to price, speak and set the industry standard of you as a business. Learn to think of your creative practice in a business sense

Self Producing & Project Management: Learn how to do the really fun stuff, writing budgets, timelines and where and how to quote yourselves using industry standard websites.

Day 2: Grant Writing Skills: In this workshop you will learn what grants are accessible, getting started and how to talk about your art practice.

Marketing: Learn how to promote yourself as a business, understand the timing of promoting and using the best photos that capture what you do

About the Facilitator:

Caleena Sansbury is a prominent First Nations artist whose diverse background and extensive experience have established her as a leading figure in the arts. Her heritage, encompassing Ngarrindjeri, Narungga, and Kaurna cultures, deeply influences her work and perspective.
A graduate of NAISDA Dance College, Caleena’s career spans various disciplines including performance, choreography, and program coordination. She has showcased her talents on both national and international stages, working with respected artists and companies.
Her notable collaborations include:
- Vicki Van Hout on productions like Long Grass and Les Festivities Lubrufier.
- Thomas E. S. Kelly on the performance work [MIS]CONCEIVE.
- Karul Projects on the piece SSHIFT.
Caleena’s experience extends to children's theatre, where she has performed in shows produced by InSite Arts such as Saltbush and Our Corka Bubs, and with Polyglot Theatre in Tangled. Her work demonstrates a deep understanding of both dance and theatre, particularly in contexts involving young audiences.
In addition to her performance career, she has contributed to theatre as an actor in Legs On the Wall’s The Man With The Iron Neck and has showcased her organizational skills as a producer for the Melbourne Fringe in 2018. She has also toured South Australia with Taree Sansbury’s Mi:wi 2019, and performed in Jacob Boheme’s dance work Gurranda in 2024. Caleena continues to perform and practice dance in and throughout South Australia.
Currently, Caleena is a Program Coordinator at The Mill, an award-winning multi-disciplinary arts organisation. Her role at The Mill continues to reflect her commitment to fostering a vibrant and dynamic First Nations arts community.

view the performing arts residency archive

This project has support from

public program, galleries

Exhibition: Lucky Smith, Under 30's Eat Free

Adele Sliuzas · May 11, 2025

Lucky Smith, *I stood 10 Feet from accountability inside Purgatory*, detail, 2025, oil & Acrylic on Canvas,

April 11- June 20, 2025

finissage tickets

Opening: Friday, April 11, 5:30-7:30pm

list of works

Finissage: Friday, June 20, 4:30-6:30pm

Gallery I, 154 Angas St, Kaurna Yarta

Free entry, all welcome

You can find Under 30’s Eat Free in The Mill’s Gallery I, located at 154 Angas St, Kaurna Yarta (Adelaide).
Gallery I is open Monday-Friday, 10am-4pm.
Accessibility
The Mill has two entrances, the main entrance on the corner of Angas and Gunson Street and an accessible entrance further down Angas Street.
Both doors are locked from the outside, there is a doorbell on the main door that will alert The Mill team. They will meet you at the accessible entrance to welcome you into the building.
The Mill has concrete flooring throughout with no internal steps and a disability toilet on site.
Read more in-depth information on our accessibility web page.

We are excited to present Under 30’s Eat Free, a new solo exhibition by studio artist Lucky Smith.

Combining pop-art flatness with anthropomorphic characters, Lucky explores contemporary anxieties in a way that is both jovial and deadly serious. Bold and bright, and slightly disconcerting, we see his subjects navigating everyday scenarios in unusual ways - a day at the beach turns into a most strange place to adopt a kitten, while a Rapa Nui (Easter Island) moai statue spills the tea on a date at a Parisienne bistro. Lucky has also begun exploring the addition of textured oil paint within his otherwise modernly flat scenes, bringing a new quality within the paintings.

The body of works are uncanny and relatable, shedding light on the ‘coming of age’ we experience as we enter our 30s.

The impending turn of thirty is an age of paralytic decision-making, the frazzled and hurried pursuit of escaping dreams, and an overwhelming sensation one is not where they need to be as they are compared to their contemporaries and generations before them.
Under 30s Eat Free is a visual representation of my comparative and anxious feelings towards turning 30 in the present day.
This introspection began through reading about Peter Freuchen, an early twentieth century Danish explorer who before thirty had raised a family of three in the midst of mapping the borders and climate of the arctic circle, and literally fought off wolves that encroached on his weather recording outpost - a three day sled from the expeditions’ operations command centre.
He spent five years in the arctic. Upon returning home to Denmark Frechuen journaled, “I felt like a stranger when I encountered my old friends. I was proud of my strength and ability to live for long periods without food, but these things meant nothing to them.”
As the biological urge to start a family and forego the insecurity of contract work weighs, I began a transition from the fast paced and tortuous nature of the film industry to the seemingly more sensible corporate 9 to 5. I feel the aforementioned quote summarises my experience in making this transition quite well.
My most recent experience in the film industry consisted of 14 hour days, six day weeks, an eight week stretch without a lunch break, six weeks of social isolation, Non Disclosure Agreements loaded with very real threat of legal action, and crippling heat all done for the largest serial commissioned in Australia, by the biggest streaming platform of our age. However, within short succession I was informed by BUPA I have the option to stay on my parents’ private health insurance until the age of 32, and I was told by my new workplace if I wish to come in early to get work done I first need to earn the company’s trust via a year long probation before being granted access to the security alarm code.
In this exhibition nine images in oil and acrylic on canvas, empathetically visualise many contemporary lifestyle and workplace problems shared by Generation Z and their fringes. Such concerns include whether to choose a career of passion or financial comfort, the requirements to enter a job with a wealth of knowledge beyond one’s years, whether to choose a soul mate or children, and the confiscation of autonomy, which all seemingly prolong childhood into one’s late-thirties.
This series of works is my life and career retrospective built on strong fluctuating binary feelings of guilt, shame, regret, anger, and self-loathing which necessitates expressive colour, scale, and visuals that demands the viewer’s attention, like a pub banner announcing free meals for us kids. The imagery is confusing and abrasive, uncanny, dreamlike, familiar and yet… off, perpetuated by a fluctuating use of palette knives and brushes, and the contrast of thickly layered oils on an acrylic background.
The creation of these artworks journal my epiphany into what I believe adulthood is; that old adage, if you want to be treated like an adult you have to behave like an adult.
Lucky Smith is a passionate expressionist painter from rural South Australia, now living and working in Adelaide. Lucky specialises in large scale portraiture of pop culture personalities and surrealist scenes using oil & acrylics. An avid painter from the age of six, his organically developed style has blossomed into grand and colourful artworks that fill a wall, brighten a room, and invite a crowd into vibrant conversation.
Lucky is an imaginative storyteller, learning foundations from John Collee’s AFTRS Screenwriting seminar, and travelling to New York in 2022 to study story structure under screen and writing lecturer Robert McKee. Lucky uses these storytelling principles to construct scenes in his artwork which empathetically explore complex interpersonal exchanges and idiosyncratic social situations, with recurring motifs such as anthropomorphised animals and retro pop culture.
Lucky has worked in graphic design and the film industry for over a decade, working on such
significant projects as The Tourist (2020, STAN), La Brea (2020, NBC), & Territory (2024, NETFLIX).
Lucky’s artwork is displayed in numerous public and private collections domestically and internationally. His solo exhibition ‘Your Spectrum is Showing’ was held at Linhay Gallery in Auburn SA in 2022. Lucky has a studio at The Mill - Adelaide, and will be exhibiting as part of The Mill’s Visual Art program in 2025.

This exhibition has support from

public program, galleries

Exhibition: Meg Mader, Patterned Disproportion

Adele Sliuzas · May 9, 2025

Meg Mader, You’re Cactus!, 2024, gouache on wooden Panel, 407mm x 508mm, courtesy of the artist

April 11- June 20, 2025

finissage tickets

Opening: Friday, April 11, 5:30-7:30pm

Finissage: Friday, June 20, 4:30-6:30pm

list of works

Gallery II, 154 Angas St, Kaurna Yarta

Free entry, all welcome

You can find Patterned Disproportion in The Mill’s Gallery II, located at 154 Angas St, Kaurna Yarta (Adelaide).
Gallery II is open Monday-Friday, 10am-4pm.
Accessibility
The Mill has two entrances, the main entrance on the corner of Angas and Gunson Street and an accessible entrance further down Angas Street.
Both doors are locked from the outside, there is a doorbell on the main door that will alert The Mill team. They will meet you at the accessible entrance to welcome you into the building.
The Mill has concrete flooring throughout with no internal steps and a disability toilet on site.
Read more in-depth information on our accessibility web page.

We are excited to present Patterned Disproportion, a new solo exhibition by Clare Valley based artist Meg Mader.

In this exhibition Meg uses her signature vibrant painting style, taking viewers on an imaginative journey through playful, disproportionate and extraordinary scenes. Checkerboard floors and ornate wallpaper come together to give a glimpse into the lives of music-playing ornaments, mischievous gnomes and a most sophisticated doll house. We’re invited to fill in the narrative, whose beautiful house is this? Is this maggie performing a Billie Holiday tribute? Indeed, could the ornaments and pets in our own homes also have such glamorous secret lives?

In bringing to life the ordinary and everyday, Meg also imbues her characters with agency, a portrait of a dog is playfully titled ‘Fetch me Equality’, mirroring the sentiment of her portrait titled ‘Determination Inspiration Imagination’. The work is equally entertaining and playful as it is personal and political.

As an illustrative artist, I’m captivated by the vibrancy of acrylic ink and gouache, using them to bring life and colour to objects, animals, and scenes. Recently, my work has delved into the role of patterns, which evoke a sense of time and place within each composition. For this exhibition, I have created a series of paintings using objects, patterns and colour to capture an imagined moment in time. Alongside these are still-life scenes drawn from a mix of found, gifted, and personal objects—each carrying its own story—arranged in settings with playful, disproportionate scales.
The altered scales introduce a sense of surrealism, inviting viewers to see everyday objects in new and unexpected ways. Patterns within each disproportionate room add depth and rhythm, framing each scene within a distinct narrative context.
The exhibition is an entertaining, immersive journey inviting viewers to experience a new life for ordinary objects, reimagined in a timeless, dynamic space. This exhibition encourages a closer look at the ordinary, a rethinking of scale, and an interactive encounter with past and present woven together.
Meg Mader works predominantly with acrylic inks, gouache, and pen to create vibrant illustrations of animals, still life, and pop culture mash-ups. She has participated in many group exhibitions. Noteworthy are her duo exhibitions with collaborator Stu Nankivell, where she ventures into augmented reality, adding another layer to her works. In her solo exhibitions, Meg explores themes and narratives of her choice including literary mashups and still life, allowing for unrestrained expression.

Her artistic style has earned her a Highly Commended and the Incentive Award at the Clare Valley Portrait Prize along with winning the Balco Art Prize's Best Work on Paper. A pivotal moment arrived when Meg was chosen for the Nebula Program by Country Arts SA, offering her the chance to deepen her practice and build connections with fellow regional artists. Meg's art often takes the form of commissioned pieces, frequently commemorating beloved pets and cherished memories.

Since 2017, Meg has expanded her artistic practice by organising art events and workshops across South Australia and a series of large events at Puddleduck Vineyard in Tasmania. Her involvement in a local arts committee and establishment of a weekly art group are other ways to enjoy arts within the community.

HERO IMAGE - Meg Mader - The Swooping Notes - 2025 - Gouache on Wooden Panel - 407mm x 508mm - Photography Meg Mader.jpg

Meg Mader - Fetch Me Equality - 2025 - Gouache on Wooden Panel - 305mm x 229mm - Photography Meg Mader.jpg

Meg Mader - The Dining Room - 2024 - Gouache and Gold Leaf on Wooden Panel - 305mm x 229mm - Photography Meg Mader.jpg

This exhibition has support from

public program, marina deller, galleries

Exhibition: The Myth of the Lonely Artist, Marina Deller

Adele Sliuzas · May 7, 2025

April 11- June 20, 2025

opening tickets

Opening: Friday April 11, 5:30-7:30pm

Gallery Foyer, 154 Angas St, Kaurna Yarta

Free entry, all welcome

You can find The Myth of the Lonely Artist in The Mill’s Gallery Foyer, located at 154 Angas St, Kaurna Yarta (Adelaide).
The Mill’s galleries are open Monday-Friday, 10am-4pm.
Accessibility
The Mill has two entrances, the main entrance on the corner of Angas and Gunson Street and an accessible entrance further down Angas Street.
Both doors are locked from the outside, there is a doorbell on the main door that will alert The Mill team. They will meet you at the accessible entrance to welcome you into the building.
The Mill has concrete flooring throughout with no internal steps and a disability toilet on site.
Read more in-depth information on our accessibility web page.

We are excited to present The Myth of the Lonely Artist, a new Foyer exhibition featuring 2025 Writer in Residence Marina Deller. The digital exhibition explores the stereotypes forced onto writers and artists, focusing on the bright spots of companionship which form part of an art practice or day-to-day life.

I have long been fascinated by stereotypes. This fascination began after deciding I wanted to be a writer when I ‘grew up’. I was interested in the way stories were built, and especially in the idea that characters could have ‘tropes’ like plots could. As a queer teenager, I faced a different kind of stereotyping. It encouraged me to consider what kinds of stereotypes are rife in not only stories but the world they depict, and how – when unexamined, when taken as truth – these can veil or derail true and complex personhood.
Writers are often painted as poor, obsessive to the point of destruction, and lonely. Though the first two I can attest to, the last never sat quite right with me. I asked myself, ‘In examining the world through artistic forms are artists doomed to feel lonely?’
Undertaking the Writer in Residence program at The Mill has been a transformative experience and has helped me explore this question. Early 2024 I was at a kind of post-PhD crossroad professionally and creatively. I craved a space to reconnect with my practice beyond academia. At The Mill, I fell in love with the capacity for a collection of creative humans to inspire, challenge, and support one another. Even the smallest moments – hellos in the hallways and chats over coffee – lit my days. I also found myself inspired by the multi- and inter- disciplinary nature of many of the artists’ works. As well as writing, I wanted to paint and draw (even if badly) and found myself reaching for my camera often. Being at The Mill in this period of change, I felt keenly that the world had a lot to offer me. I also began to observe where and how I was being kept company in my practice and taking note of it, which led to this hybrid project.
So, is there such a thing as a lonely artist? I’m sure there is, somewhere, just as I am now certain I have never been one. My hope for this work is that it allows you to focus on the small, bright spots of companionship which form part of an art practice or simply day-to-day life.
Marina Deller is writer, academic, and critic, working and creating on Kaurna Land. Marina has a PhD in Creative Writing (Life Writing) from Flinders University, where they are an award-winning teacher of Writing and Literature.
In their creative practice Marina examines art, culture, (queer) identity, family, love, and loss. They write essays, short stories, poetry, and hybrid works incorporating objects, art, and photography.
Their writing appears in such outlets as The Conversation, Westerly, Voiceworks, Archer, Babyteeth Journal, and InDaily and has been painted on the city streets as part of Raining Poetry in Adelaide. Their short story “Nostos” was shortlisted for the Rachel Funari Prize for Fiction 2021, and their essay “Dresses, heavy with water” was highly commended in the AAWP/Westerly Magazine Life Writing Prize 2022.
Marina is also a recent recipient of the Island View Writers’ House Emerging Writer Residency and an active member of the Life Narrative Lab where they curate and run reading events which platform emerging life writers.

This exhibition has been created as a personal project through The Mill’s Writer in Residence program.

public program, galleries

Artist talk: Lucky Smith, Under 30s Eat Free + Meg Mader, Patterned Disproportion

Adele Sliuzas · May 5, 2025

Artist Talk

book tickets

When: Friday, May 30, 5:30-6:30pm

livestream

Where: The Mill, 154 Angas Street, Kaurna Yarta

Cost: Free

The Mill has two entrances, the main entrance on the corner of Angas and Gunson Street and an accessible entrance further down Angas Street.
Both doors are locked from the outside, there is a doorbell on the main door that will alert The Mill team. They will meet you at the accessible entrance to welcome you into the building.
The Mill has concrete flooring throughout with no internal steps and a disability toilet on site.
Read more in-depth information on our accessibility web page.

Join Lucky Smith, Meg Mader and The Mill's Visual Arts Curator Adele Sliuzas for a chat about Under 30s Eat Free and Patterned Disproportion, showing in Galleries I and II.

About the exhibitions

Under 30s Eat Free combines pop-art flatness with anthropomorphic characters, exploring contemporary anxieties in a way that is both jovial and deadly serious. Bold and bright, and slightly disconcerting, we see Lucky’s subjects navigating everyday scenarios in unusual ways - a day at the beach turns into a most strange place to adopt a kitten, while a Rapa Nui (Easter Island) moai statue spills the tea on a date at a Parisienne bistro. Lucky has also begun exploring the addition of textured oil paint within his otherwise modernly flat scenes, bringing a new quality within the paintings. The body of works are uncanny and relatable, shedding light on the ‘coming of age’ we experience as we enter our 30s.

Patterned Disproportion uses Meg’s signature vibrant painting style, taking viewers on an imaginative journey through playful, disproportionate and extraordinary scenes. Checkerboard floors and ornate wallpaper come together to give a glimpse into the lives of music-playing ornaments, mischievous gnomes and a most sophisticated doll house. We’re invited to fill in the narrative, whose beautiful house is this? Is this maggie performing a Billie Holiday tribute? Indeed, could the ornaments and pets in our own homes also have such glamorous secret lives?

About the artists

Lucky Smith is a passionate expressionist painter from rural South Australia, now living and working in Adelaide. Lucky specialises in large scale portraiture of pop culture personalities and surrealist scenes using oil & acrylics. An avid painter from the age of six, his organically developed style has blossomed into grand and colourful artworks that fill a wall, brighten a room, and invite a crowd into vibrant conversation.
Lucky is an imaginative storyteller, learning foundations from John Collee’s AFTRS Screenwriting seminar, and travelling to New York in 2022 to study story structure under screen and writing lecturer Robert McKee. Lucky uses these storytelling principles to construct scenes in his artwork which empathetically explore complex interpersonal exchanges and idiosyncratic social situations, with recurring motifs such as anthropomorphised animals and retro pop culture.
Lucky has worked in graphic design and the film industry for over a decade, working on such
significant projects as The Tourist (2020, STAN), La Brea (2020, NBC), & Territory (2024, NETFLIX).
Lucky’s artwork is displayed in numerous public and private collections domestically and internationally. His solo exhibition ‘Your Spectrum is Showing’ was held at Linhay Gallery in Auburn SA in 2022. Lucky has a studio at The Mill - Adelaide, and will be exhibiting as part of The Mill’s Visual Art program in 2025.
Meg Mader works predominantly with acrylic inks, gouache, and pen to create vibrant illustrations of animals, still life, and pop culture mash-ups. She has participated in many group exhibitions. Noteworthy are her duo exhibitions with collaborator Stu Nankivell, where she ventures into augmented reality, adding another layer to her works. In her solo exhibitions, Meg explores themes and narratives of her choice including literary mashups and still life, allowing for unrestrained expression.
Her artistic style has earned her a Highly Commended and the Incentive Award at the Clare Valley Portrait Prize along with winning the Balco Art Prize's Best Work on Paper. A pivotal moment arrived when Meg was chosen for the Nebula Program by Country Arts SA, offering her the chance to deepen her practice and build connections with fellow regional artists. Meg's art often takes the form of commissioned pieces, frequently commemorating beloved pets and cherished memories.
Since 2017, Meg has expanded her artistic practice by organising art events and workshops across South Australia and a series of large events at Puddleduck Vineyard in Tasmania. Her involvement in a local arts committee and establishment of a weekly art group are other ways to enjoy arts within the community.

Meg Mader - Stayin' Alive...Nine Times - 2025 - Gouache on Wooden Panel - 305mm x 229mm - Photography Meg Mader.jpg

This exhibition has support from

Under 30s Eat Free has support from

Showing and Q&A

Getting to the showing

About the artists:

Yoz Mensch

Mary Angley

Dan Thorpe

Shay Leach

Artist Talk

Visiting the exhibitions

About the artist

July 30 - September 17, 2025

Visiting us

What to expect:

About the artists:

CRAM Collective

Yoz Mensch

About the artists:

Motus Collective

Felicity Boyd

Zoe Gay

About the writer:

Steph Daughtry

July 18 - September 5, 2025

Visiting the exhibition

Curatorial Statement

About Stella

About Shani

About Tash

About Carman

About Lotte

About Yana

July 18 - September 5, 2025

Visiting the exhibition

Artist Statement

About the artist

Showing and Q&A

Getting to the Showing

About the Facilitators:

Kaine Sultan-Babij

Caleena Sansbury

Showing and Q&A

Getting to the showing

About the artists:

Katherine Sortini

Elizabeth Hay

Nate Troisi

Steven Durrey

Artist Talk

Visiting the exhibition

About the exhibition

About Stella

About Carman

About Shani

About Yana

Showing and Q&A

Getting to the showing

About the artist:

Kaine Sultan-Babij

June 25 - July 11, 2025

Visiting the exhibition

Workshops

Accessibility

What to expect:

About the workshop leader

First Nations Workshop: Performing Business

Access

What to expect:

About the Facilitator:

Caleena Sansbury

April 11- June 20, 2025

Visiting the exhibition

Artist Statement

About Lucky Smith

April 11- June 20, 2025

Visiting the exhibition

Artist Statement

About Meg Mader

April 11- June 20, 2025

Visiting the exhibition

Artist Statement