The Mill is thrilled to announce The Kinetik Collective as the recipient of the 2024 Brand X Residency, presented in partnership with Brand X, Sydney.

This residency offers place and space as part of a vibrant arts community, for artists to develop and show new or existing work and then take that work interstate for further development, presentation and networking opportunities.

About the artists:

Bianka Kennedy (Designer/ Co-Founder of The Kinetik Collective): Bianka is a designer + maker with a diverse practice, working across the stage, screen and gallery settings. Bianka has been Head of Prop Making for the multi-award-winning children’s TV series Beep and Mort, lectured in the creative industries division of Adelaide College of the Arts, is Co-Founder of Kinetik Collective and operates a workshop from Fab, the former acclaimed George Street Studios. Currently, Bianka is working on the design of DreamBIG festival (2025).
Bianka’s design for State Theatre Company of South Australia’s 2019 sold-out season of Animal Farm was a national finalist in the Australian Production Guild’s awards for emerging designer for live performance. Her debut solo exhibition Sugar won an Adelaide Fringe 2021 visual arts award and was an industry example of integrating accessibility into the design, fabrication and exhibition of an art experience. Her accessible theatre designs have also been recognised with a 2022 Ruby Award. Permanent public artworks can be found in Adelaide and in the Kangaroo Island Sculpture Trail. Collaborators include Warner Brothers, Windmill Theatre, Windmill Picture + ABC, State Theatre Company of South Australia, Theatre Republic, Kinetik Collective, Crossover (London) + Adelaide Fringe, Largent Studio (New York) +FOMO, Fox Creek + Garden of Unearthly Delights, SA Water, SA Tourism Commission, SA Power Networks, Adelaide City Council, independent theatre and private commissions.
Clara Solly-Slade (Director/ Co-Founder of The Kinetik Collective): Clara graduated from the acting stream of The Adelaide College of the Arts (2013) then undertook further training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, London (Acting Shakespeare course, 2016). In 2017 she trained in Italy with La Mama Experimental Theatre Company at their International Directors Symposium. Clara was awarded the Helpmann Academy’s Neil Curnow Award (2018) where she interned in the USA with The H.E.A.T Collective, Working Classroom and continued her work with La Mama Experimental Theatre Company. She is a member of the multidisciplinary art collective The Bait Fridge.
Clara worked for two years full-time as an Emerging Director Fellow with the State Theatre Company of South Australia and State Opera of South Australia (2019-2020). In 2021 Clara directed Lemons, Lemons, Lemons, Lemons at Adelaide Collage of the Arts and for Dream Big Children’s Festival with Finnigan Kruckemeyer’s Everything They Ever Said with Fingers Crossed Behind their Backs for the Say Art’s Youth Ensemble. Co-Founder of Independent Company The Kinetik Collective she Directed Kill Climate Deniers in 2022 as part of The State Theatre Company of South Australia’s ‘Stateside Program’. Clara Co-Directed The River that Ran up Hill with Andy Packer for Slingsby Theatre Company presented in the 2023 Adelaide Festival, Hypercolour Miscellaneous Bistro Buffet with Dave Court for Slow Mango and The Bait Fridge as a part of Illuminate Festival and The Sight with Victoria Falconer for Dark Mofo.
Anthony Nocera is a writer based in Adelaide. He writes essays, criticism and plays.
In 2017, he was commissioned to co-write Boys of Sondheim for Woodward Productions. The play premiered at Melt Festival before touring to Sydney Mardi Gras in 2019. In 2023, Anthony’s work My Hair is Thinning was developed as part of Vitalstistix’s Adhocracy program and Theatre Republic presented his short play Black Widow Pussy as part of the FUTURE:PRESENT new writing incubator.
Anthony’s writing has appeared in The Guardian, The Saturday Paper, The Age, Metro, Vice, Voiceworks and CityMag among many others. His essays have been anthologised in collections published by Black Ink and Wakefield Press. He has appeared at the National Young Writers Festival and Noted Festival.
His work has been rejected from many publications and places of note.
Zoë is a performing artist and emerging maker currently living and working on Kaurna Yerta. She studied at the New Zealand School of Dance graduating in 2011 with a Diploma in Dance Performance and is a NZSD Distinguished Alumni for 2021.
After being offered a position at Australian Dance Theatre (ADT) in 2012, Zoë worked full-time and as a guest dancer until 2020 under the directorship of Garry Stewart.
As an ADT dancer and independent artist, Zoë has toured nationally and internationally, and worked with local and international choreographers including Daniel Jaber (Nought and Dirt) and Ina Christel Johannessen (North).
Whilst living in SA, Zoë has also performed with local companies in children’s theatre and puppetry shows including Patch Theatre Company (Home and I Wish...), Windmill Theatre Co (Grug and Bluey’s Big Play) and Windmill Pictures (Beep and Mort: Season 1 and Season 2).
Zoë is an emerging maker and in 2023 she choreographed Co-Incident which featured fourteen AC Arts students. She also completed a first-stage development for her new dance theatre work Llama, which deals with motherhood, transformation, and intergenerational peculiarities.
When she isn’t performing, Zoë enjoys teaching people of all ages and abilities within a wide range of dance organisations, institutions, and studios.
Elizabeth Hay (Performer): Elizabeth is a graduate of the Flinders Drama Centre and lives and works as an actor on Kaurna land. Her theatre credits include Hibernation, The Gods of Strangers, Red Cross Letters, Volpone and Jesikah for the State Theatre Company South Australia, The Garden for Theatre Republic, Baba Yaga, Grug and Grug and the Rainbow for Windmill Theatre Company, Yo Diddle Diddle and The Lighthouse for Patch Theatre Company, and the Helpmann Award-winning Emil and the Detectives for Slingsby. Elizabeth was part of the Australian cast of Girl from the North Country for GWB Entertainment/STCSA.
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. Most recently, she appeared in A Sunburnt Christmas on Stan. Elizabeth is the voice of Olli in Sun Runners, a collaboration between Audioplay and Windmill Theatre Company.
Elizabeth made her directing debut in the inaugural season of RUMPUS at the end of 2019, with Sarah DeLappe’s The Wolves.
Max is an artist working on Kaurna land, specialising in real-time visual arts, interactive programming, and artistic integration with multimedia systems. Max graduated with a BA in Photography from Charles Sturt University in 2012 and built their technical skills by working at art festivals including the Edinburgh Fringe, Sydney Festival and Adelaide Fringe, and was creative producer at The Lab (Adelaide) until 2022.
Max is a member of The Bait Fridge arts collective and is currently based at Washdog Studios. From a lifelong interest in digital technology, Max has developed a creative practice that blends technical knowledge and multimedia arts, centred around collaboration and experimental process. Installation works include In The Belly Of The Beast (2023), a participatory experimental performance, and Computer Vision (2021) an early AI synthesized video installation. Notable collaborations include ROCKAMORA by Kaspar Shmidt Mumm at ACE Adelaide (2023), Trippin Up (2023) music video by The Jungle Giants created with volumetric 3D data, and ATM-001 (2023), an AI powered talking vending machine by Dave Court. With a diverse range of skills including photography, music and sonic arts, interactive programming, performance art, and lighting design, Max's experience allows them to connect and create using technology across disciplines. Max is proud to be have been selected to be one of Creative Australia’s Digital Fellows for 2024.
Adelaide-based musician and community arts facilitator, Mat Morison (he/they), is always looking for new ways to forge connections between disparate styles and ideas. Originally training in jazz piano, Mat has since taken their skills in improvisation and applied it to a wide variety of pursuits, from film and theatre composition, to performance art, Auslan interpreting, community arts facilitating, coding, and language making.
Mat performs regularly with musical outfit Slowmango, and performance art group The Bait Fridge, and is the Coordinator of Music at disability arts organisation Tutti Arts. They also work in Deaf adult education classes at TAFE SA, and contribute to a number of other community arts organisations such as Girls Rock! Adelaide, Open Space Contemporary Arts, and MUD.
Rob (they/them) is an actor, and writer born in the USA and currently based on Kaurna country. Prior to graduating from Sydney Actors School in 2021, Rob studied engineering, education, and dance, having trained in Ballet (RAD) for 10 years.
They dive head first into everything they do; from contemporary works - Five Women Wearing the Same Dress (Shane Anthony, 2021), to classic texts - The Comedy of Errors (Kyle Rowling, 2019), to short works of their own devising - Chip Off The Old Block (Rob C Wells, 2023).
After the 2022 season touring Australia with Poetry In Action, Rob last year moved to Adelaide for love. With a few things in the works, they can't wait to continue to tell challenging stories, and show their dad that the theatre isn't just a "stage".