CONTACT US
Vic McEwan, Artistic Director:
vic@cadfactory.com.au
0409 543 952
Sarah McEwan, Creative Producer:
sarah@cadfactory.com.au
0405 447 490
Lachlan Herd, Business Manager:
lachlan@cadfactory.com.au
Kimberley Beattie, Project Assistant:
kimberley@cadfactory.com.au
PURPOSE
To connect and share with people and places across difference.
VISION
To be an established contemporary arts organisation celebrated at home and recognised globally.
MISSION
The Cad Factory is an artist led organisation creating an international program of new, immersive and experimental work guided by authentic exchange, ethical principles, people and place.
Join The Cad Factory
mailing list HERE
DONATE TO US
The Cad Factory is a registered charity.
You can support the work we do by donating to us. All donations over $2 are tax deductible.
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.
Creative Producer, Artist, Secretary
Sarah McEwan is an artist, musician and artist-curator who lives and works on Wiradjuri country in Birrego NSW. She is passionate about 'onto-ethics'; how to make the present world different from the past.
Business Manager
Lachlan Herd is an artist and arts worker based in-between Melbourne and Sydney. Lachlan has worked in sector investment at Create NSW, for Asialink in their arts team and as one third of the 110% Collective for almost 10 years. He is passionate about supporting the development of original Australian work in the areas of experimental arts and electronic music.
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.
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.
Co-Chair
Sabiene is a senior executive and lawyer with experience running an Australian music industry body, stakeholder relations in NBN and many years in a top law firm. She is passionate about the arts and regularly works with clients across the creative industries. She holds a First Class Honours Degree in Law, Bachelor in International Business and recently graduated from an MBA between liberal arts university Brown in the US and IE Business School in Spain while working for the United Nation's World Intellectual Property Organisation in Switzerland.
Deputy Chair
Kirsten Wehner is an Australian curator, visual anthropologist and narrative designer. Her practice explores people's inter-relationships with the more-than-human world, with a particular focus on how creative collaboration between artists and communities can build ecological understanding, cross-species empathy, and flourishing multi-species places. Kirsten has worked in the Australian cultural sector for over 20 years, and is currently Director of PhotoAccess, the ACT's centre for photography and photo-media arts. She holds a PhD from New York University and an MA from Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London.
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.
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.
LOCAL ADVISORY GROUP
Lindee, Kerri, Julie, Matthew, Emma
Emma Piltz is an emerging artist who is interested in the collection of objects to suggest a greater and deeper meaning of the intangible. Her work involves installations created from these collections often made using natural materials or ephemeral in nature, making the work temporal and subject to change and decay over time.
Julie Briggs is a writer, occasional maker and a long-time Narrandera resident. She is interested in environmental and social justice. Julie writes poetry, vignette, creative non-fiction and enjoys collaborations with visual artists.
Matthew McLellan is the Hatchery Manager at the Narrandera Fisheries Centre where he has recently led efforts to rescue mature Murray Cod from the Menindee Lakes, a site of significant mass fish kills due to environmental degradation of the river system. Matthew has been influential in connecting Barkandji and Wiradjuri Elders to these fish to ensure cultural safety on their journey and to encourage care and conversations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous stakeholders.
Lindee Russell is a multi-disciplinary practitioner with an interest in textiles, stitch, metals and reusing and transforming existing objects to create art and reduce waste. Lindee enjoys teaching, collaborating and involving the local community, having worked on a number of community arts projects, adult education projects and collaboratively in designing and developing concepts to extend and expand participants and intended audiences experiences.
Sandra Carberry has lived in Narrandera for more than 45 years, during which time she has raised a family, served on the Bendigo Bank steering committee and later board, and volunteered at op shops in both Narrandera and Leeton. She enjoys being involved with the community ‘in the background’ to help Narrandera to look forward.
PURPOSE
To connect and share with people and places across difference.
VISION
To be an established contemporary arts organisation celebrated at home and recognised globally.
MISSION
The Cad Factory is an artist led organisation creating an international program of new, immersive and experimental work guided by authentic exchange, ethical principles, people and place.
HISTORY
CADOGAN ST MARRICKVILLE
2005–2008
The Cad Factory began when Vic McEwan rented out the upstairs of a warehouse in Marrickville in 2003.
Vic went to work modifying the space into a recording studio and gained a flatmate, friend Kieran Carroll. Both were musicians playing in bands and had the great idea of having gigs in their lounge room and giving all the door money to the bands. The Cad Factory was born. From 2005 – 2008 the space saw a plethora of bands play and it became an infamous underground space for fun, trashy times and always interesting nights with great acts.
In 2006, Sarah McEwan and Darrin Baker became core members, with Sarah organising exhibitions plus being the door lady and DB filming and documenting the goings on.
HISTORY
STRONTIAN RD BIRREGO
2010–NOW
In 2007, the Cad Factory purchased an old school house in the Riverina in regional NSW, 100km South West of Wagga Wagga and 30 km South East of Narrandera. The school house, which was falling apart, was intended to be a place where we would send artists to work. It wasn't until we spent time at the school house that we decided to move the Cad Factory there permanently.
We were amazed by the landscape, the access to space, the giant structures and machinery used in primary industry. The whole region spoke to us of possibilities for installations, making sounds from unusual sources, of working with local communities and the great Australian landscape.
So, Birrego is where we now reside, build, create and develop our programs and projects. Away from the static of a big city, we are able to focus our intentions and energy into artistic and musical explorations.
HISTORY
HANDLEY ST MARRICKVILLE
2008–2010
After being evicted from the Cadogan St address, which was an ordeal that made us question the humanity of the big city, the Cad Factory regrouped and set about meeting their two week eviction deadline.
Posting an inspirational sign on their wall which read, "The Cad Factory is More Than Just a Physical Space,"
a new warehouse was found within 24 hours. With much more space to play with, an owner who loved what we were doing and a sympathetic real estate agent, the Cad Factory set about developing their practice into the multi arts organisation it is today.
