Re-imagining the world through contemporary art practices.
We do this by creating new artistic work, providing professional development opportunities for artists, initiating partnerships and collaborations, producing resources and contributing to talks and conferences locally, nationally and internationally.
Our Team
Artistic Director, Artist, Public Officer
Vic McEwan is an interdisciplinary artist working with sound, video, installation and performance with a particular interest in site-specific work. He is interested in creating new dynamics by working with diverse partners and exploring difficult themes within lived experience. Vic aims to use his work to contribute to and enrich broader conversations about the role that the arts sector can play within our communities.
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Creative Producer, Artist, Secretary
Sarah McEwan is an artist, musician and artist-curator who lives and works on Wiradjuri country in Birrego and on the Eora Nation in Sydney.
She is passionate about 'onto-ethics'; how to make the present world different from the past.
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Office Manager and Project Assistant
Kimberley Beattie is a Narrandera local with a passion for community engagement and cultural storytelling. As a short fiction and non-fiction writer, and casual poetry buff, Kimberley loves the power of storytelling in all its forms as a means of bringing people together despite the barriers of time, distance and culture.
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Communications and Digital Content Creator
Mirabelle Wouters is a Belgian/Australian artist and co-director of Branch Nebula. Mirabelle’s work is driven by a deep dissatisfaction with the hierarchies that shape the world. She values the devalued, spotlights the marginal, and celebrates the clefts in the concrete where the weeds push through. Grass roots culture drives her passion and skill for making shared experiences with and for communities, and authentic collaborations with a range of sub-cultural forms.
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History
The Cad Factory was born from the DIY band and underground warehouse scene that was prominent in Sydney during the 2000s. This time was alive with creative people driven to express themselves in any way they could, in any kind of place, but always amongst a supportive community eager to be part of any activity, in any way.
This risk-taking, filled with care and energy, grew the Cad Factory and built its foundations.
2003
Vic McEwan rents the upstairs of a warehouse at Cadogan Street Marrickville and begins transforming it into a recording studio. Musician Kieran Carroll moves in as a flatmate.
2004
Vic and Kieran put on their first gig as the Cad Factory in their lounge room.
2005
Bands, artists and performers start becoming aware of the space and it grows in popularity as an underground space for interesting (and wild and trashy) nights.
2006
Sarah McEwan starts organising exhibitions. Darrin Baker starts documenting the space through video.
2007
Vic McEwan purchased the Old Birrego School House, 600km south west of Marrickville in the Riverina.
2008
The Cad Factory moves to Handley Street Marrickville.
2010
The Cad Factory has its last gig in Sydney on 6 August then moves to the Old Birrego School House the next day.
2014
The Cad Factory becomes a not-for-profit organisation. The Cad Factory completes the building work and launches its new, purpose-built recording studio.
2017
The Cad Factory becomes a charity.
2023
The Cad Factory opens a studio in the inner-Sydney suburb of Rosebery to promote a rural and urban flow of artistic ideas and practices.
2024
The CASE (Contemporary Art Socially Engaged) Studio begins to further socially engaged practices within Australia.
Our Board
Keith Besgrove
Co-Chair
Keith was a senior official in the Commonwealth Department of Communications for fifteen years. Since 2014, he has mentored technology start-up companies and provided strategic advice to not-for-profit groups including Financial Counselling Australia and Energy Consumers Australia. Keith was a research associate at the University of Technology (Sydney) and an honorary fellow at the Cyber-security Research Centre at Macquarie and Newcastle Universities. He is a member of the Australian Computer Society’s Professional Advisory Board, a vice chair of Internet Australia, and a governing member of auDA.
Kirsten Wehner
Co-Chair
Kirsten is an Australian curator, artist, writer and creative producer. Her practice explores people's relationships with the more-than-human world, with a focus on how creative collaboration between artists and communities can build ecological understanding, cross-species empathy, and flourishing multi-species places. Kirsten is the James O Fairfax Senior Fellow in Culture and Environment at the National Museum of Australia and was formerly Director of PhotoAccess, the ACT and region’s centre for photographic arts and culture. She holds a PhD in Anthropology from New York University and an MA in Narrative Environments from Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London.
Tahni Froudist
Treasurer
Tahni is a performing arts producer and consultant based in Albury-Wodonga. She is the Executive Producer at Flying Fruit Fly Circus, and a Producer with Performing Lines. In 2017 she founded her company Froudist, with a focus on contemporary practice and participatory work. Froudist works with artists across the country proudly supporting the development, creation and touring of new Australian work.
Lisa Middlebrook
Board Member
Lisa is a senior partnership & corporate relations manager with over 15 years’ experience managing external relations across a diverse range of sectors including education & research, non-profit, charity and public policy networks. She has held senior roles at Macquarie University, Sydney University and several charities managing government relations and large, strategic relationships with key corporate partners. Lisa was previously the Deputy Chair of the National Standing Committee on Digital Engagement and Cloud, and initiative of Global Access Partners. She was also Executive Manager for GAP's flagship initiative - the National Economic Review, a series of annual Growth Summits, amongst many other roles. She also spent time in Washington DC working at the Democratic Leadership Council working towards the US/Australia Free Trade Agreement.
Beate Duesterwald-Peplow
Board Member
Beate is a digital strategist and marketing executive with over 25 years of experience working with companies in Europe and Australia. She co-founded a successful digital agency in 1996 and held various management positions in digital agencies and at a large Australian bank. She now works as a marketing consultant with SMEs and Not-for-Profit organisations assisting them in translating their business objectives into compelling customer-centric marketing strategies. She is a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and an Approved Board Advisor at the Advisory Board Centre. She holds a Masters in Visual Communication and Certificates in digital marketing.
