Ms Lee-Ann Buckskin, Chair, South Australia
Term of Appointment: 2012 onwards

Lee-Ann Buckskin was appointed Chair of the ATSIA Board and a member of Council for three years from 16 May 2012.

Lee-Ann Buckskin is a Narungga Wirangu Woman from South Australia. Lee-Ann has a strong background in festivals and events throughout Australia. Her current position is with Carclew Youth Arts in Adelaide as manager, Indigenous arts and culture program working with children and young people aged four to 30 years.

Lee-Ann produced Blak Nite 05;  Australia's leading Indigenous Youth Arts Showcase as part of the 2005 Come Out Festival and is about to deliver her second Blak Nite. Lee-Ann's focus program is working in APY Lands developing leadership and community through the arts for young people aged 15 to 25 years. She has a BA in Communications from the University of South Australia and is a graduate from the Australian Indigenous Leadership Program (Canberra).

Ms Melissa Lucashenko, New South Wales
Term of Appointment: 2011-2014

Melissa Lucashenko is a Yugambeh/ Bundjalung woman and a novelist with a Bachelor degree in Communications and Honours in Social Policy. Her writing explores the stories and passions of ordinary Australians. Melissa is currently working on Mullumbimby, a contemporary novel of romantic love and cultural warfare set in a remote NSW valley. 

Melissa’s novels have won or been shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, the Courier-Mail Book of the Year, the Anita Kibble Award, the Dobbie Award, the Fairlight Talking Book awards and the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize.

Over the past 15 years, Melissa has been a guest of every major literary festival in Australia, as well as fulfilling various international speaking engagements.

Her novels include Steam Pigs, University of Queensland Press, 1997. Shortlisted regional Commonwealth Writers Prize; Winner Dobbie Award for Australian Women’s Writing; Shortlisted NSW Premier’s Award, Killing Darcy, University of Queensland Press, 1998. Winner Aurora Prize for Young People’s Writing; shortlisted NSW Premier’s Award, Hard Yards, University of Queensland Press, 1999. Shortlisted NSW Premier’s Award; Shortlisted Courier Mail Book of the Year Award, Too Flash, young adult novel, Tjukurrpa Press, Alice Springs, Northern Territory, 2002.

Ms Jeanette James, Tasmania
Term of Appointment: 2011-2014

A traditional shell necklace stringer who has been handed down the tradition from her mother, Auntie Corrie Fullard, one of three women elders regarded as senior custodians of the stringing tradition. Shell necklace stringing is a valued Palawa cultural tradition that has remained intact and continued without interruption since before white settlement; it is a tradition that is many thousands of years old.

The Aboriginal community has always highly valued the Maireener shell. The green Maireener species is harder to locate and collect and therefore prized over the more commonly found blue Maireener shell. A necklace of single species green Maireener shells of the traditional length (around 182 cm) is the most valued of all necklaces. Collecting enough shells to make such a necklace, may take as long as three years.

The necklaces of Jeanette James have been acquired by many museums and private collections throughout Australia and internationally. Jeanette has been nationally recognised for her very fine work with a Telstra Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Award in 2000. She has exhibited in the Darwin Museum and Art Gallery, Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery Launceston. Her work exists in private and public collections locally and nationally.

Ms Rachael Maza, Victoria
Term of Appointment: 2011-2014

Rachael Maza, currently Artistic Director of Ilbijerri Theatre, is one of Australia’s most recognisable faces of the Australian film, television and theatre industry with credits including the AFI award winning Radiance, Cosi and Lillian’s Story. Rachael’s television credits include roles in some of Australia’s most loved programs such as Marshall Law, Halifax f.p., Stingers, SeaChange, Heartland and A Country Practice.  She also hosted the critically acclaimed Message Stick for the ABC.

A Western Australia Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA) graduate, Rachael’s outstanding performances have been acknowledged with a Green Room Award, Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role, for Holy Day and a Sydney Theatre Critics Circle Award - Best Performance - for Radiance.

Rachael has had a long association with Company B, one of Australia's most respected theatre companies. Her stage performances at Belvoir Street include leading roles in Conversations with the Dead and The Dreamers. Rachael worked with director Wesley Enoch again in the Melbourne Theatre Company (MTC) and Sydney Festival production of The Sapphires, a musical production set in Vietnam which tells the story of four sisters who dared to be singers in the politically charged era of the sixties. Other theatre roles include Miranda for Bell Shakespeare’s The Tempest and the lead role in Playbox Theatre’s production of Holy Day.

Rachael directed Stolen for Playhouse/Ilbijerri and again for Malthouse Theatre/ Ilbijerri and Yandy for Perth’s prestigious Black Swan Theatre Company. She was associate director on the Windmill Theatre Company’s Riverland. Rachael has also worked as a narrator for ABC Radio National and as Indigenous Liaison Advisor on films such as the multi-award winning Rabbit Proof Fence. Most recently, Rachael has performed in the short films Nia’s Melancholy with S.F. Tusa and Aunty Maggie and the Womba Wagkun written by Angelina Hurley and directed by Leah Purcell.

Ms Monica Stevens, Queensland
Term of Appointment: 2011-2014

Monica is an Aboriginal Barburum woman and is of Yidinji and Kuku Yalanji ancestry of Far North Queensland. She is a dance practitioner, disciplined in dance performance and is a professional in dance business and brings strength and cultural sensitivity to the Australian dance and arts industry.

Monica graduated from the National Aboriginal Islander Skills Development Association (NAISDA Dance College), has danced with the Aboriginal Islander Dance Theatre (1983 -1988) and is a founding member of the Bangarra Dance Theatre Australia (1989 -1994). She has held administrative positions as the Course Director, Assistant Course Director, Dance Teacher, Tour Manager of the Cultural Residency Programs and Festival Director of the NAISDA Dance College 25th Anniversary festival.

A highlight of her dance career was to participate as a dancer/supervisor in the opening ceremony and assistant choreographer of Treaty in the closing Ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. She has taught dance in Far North Queensland and has worked as a choreographer in far North Queensland with involvement in the Queensland's 150 Creative Generation project.

She is currently working on a project coding Indigenous dance movements at the Deakin MotionLab in collaboration with the Yirrkala and Saibai communities.