Staff

Penelope Benton has led NAVA as Executive Director since early 2021, after serving as General Manager 2015 - 2020. Based on Gadigal Country, Penelope is an artist with a collaborative practice, identifies as queer and is also a parent. She has worked previously as the Manager of Arc @ UNSW Art & Design, General Manager of the College of Fine Arts Students' Association and was Co-Artistic Director of Art Month Sydney 2013. Penelope was a co-Director at Firstdraft 2007 - 2008 and a Co-Founder/Director of The Red Rattler, an artist and activist run performance space in Sydney's inner west 2008 - 2013.

She has a Bachelor of Arts (Visual Arts) from the University of Newcastle, Masters in Art Administration from UNSW, Graduate Diploma in Arts Management from UTS, and completed a Masters of Fine Arts at UNSW in 2017. 

Janel Yau is a creative producer, arts administrator and now a General Manager currently based in Gadigal Country. Born in colonial per-handover Hong Kong, raised in the unceded lands of the Wurundjeri, Kulin Nation, Janel worked in a number of cultural organisations, festivals in multi artforms spanning over 15 years across Asia Pacific region. Previously she has worked for organsations such Creative Australia 2022 - 2024, Arts Centre Melbourne 2020 - 2022 , Museums Victoria 2017 - 2022, Chinese Museum of Australia 2015 - 2015, Hong Kong Arts Festival 2012 - 2014 as well as landslide of creative projects as a independent producer.  She specialises in strategy, project management, organisational change and storytelling.  She has a MA in Arts Management from the University of Melbourne. 

Leya Reid is a communications and project manager with a history of championing advocacy and communication campaigns for industry bodies and the trade union movement. A writer and researcher, Leya has been published in The Guardian Australia, Eureka Street, Independent Australia, Limelight Magazine, ArtsHub, and Screen Education. Her research interests explore the intersection of politics, economics and culture. Leya holds a Bachelor of Communications (Social and Political Sciences / Public Communication) from UTS. 

Leya works for NAVA on Mondays to Thursdays and is based on Gadigal Country in Sydney.

Georgia Mokak is a Djugun person from Broome, in the West Kimberley. They are grateful to have grown up on Ngunnawal and Ngambri Country, Larrakia Country and to be treading lightly on Wangal and Gadigal Country.  Georgia’s area of interest and research is in First Nations led storytelling, collective practice, memory and care. 

Georgia is in the office Monday, Wednesday and Thursday

For over 10 years Holly Morrison has been the trusted voice offering NAVA Members immediate advice and support. An expert on best practice standards across the sector, Holly holds a Bachelor of Art Theory (Distinction) from UNSW Art & Design and a Certificate IV in Bookkeeping and Accounting. She has worked as an Administration Assistant at The Fact Tree Youth Service in Waterloo, as a Gallery Support Officer at Cumberland Council's Peacock Gallery and Auburn Arts Studio, and as Administration Manager at the Parramatta Female Factory Precinct. Holly is also currently the Finance and Operations Manager at PYT Fairfield.

Holly is in the office on Mondays only and is based on Djaara Country in regional Victoria.

Emma Pham is an artist and arts worker living on unceded Dharug and Dharawal lands. Working with pixel art, digital illustration and animation, her practice engages in digital nostalgia as a playful mode to envision better futures. Emma is passionate about working alongside underrepresented communities to foster self-advocacy and self-determination in the arts.

Emma's work has been exhibited at Powerhouse Museum and Pari. Her work has also been featured in digital publications such as Runway Journal (2023), and numerous editions of Honi Soit, including the cover of the Autonomous Collective Against Racism (2020). Her work was also selected as the winner of the Voiceworks Fan Art competition (2021). She occasionally dabbles in design work, including gig posters for Parramatta Lanes' Eat Street Carpark Rooftop event (2023), Race Matters' Summer School series (2022) and FBi Radio's Art Auction (2022). 

Emma works Tuesdays, Wednesdays and fortnightly on Thursdays.

Donnalyn Xu is an emerging writer, poet, and arts worker living on Dharug land. She is interested in the entanglement between art and language, particularly as a shared mode of enquiry and care. Her creative work has been published in Overland, Peril, Voiceworks, Cordite, and others. 

She received a Bachelor of Arts (Media and Communications) and a Bachelor of Arts (Honours Class I and the University Medal) in Art History and English from the University of Sydney. In her studies, she has been awarded the Francis Stuart Prize for best Honours thesis on Asian Art, the G.S Caird Scholarship for Fine Arts, and the Kathleen Garnham Laurence Prize for Art History. She has previously worked as a gallery assistant and a bookseller, and spends the rest of her time as a freelance writer, editor, and casual academic in Art History at the University of Sydney.

Donna is in the NAVA office Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays only.

Naomi is an artist attentive to vulnerable and interdependent forms of relation. This tends to be materialised, embodied and shared through zines, comics, text, installations and collaborative projects. 

Naomi's work has been supported and mentored through LIMINAL, Voiceworks, Emerging Writers' Festival, Free Association, AGNSW, Cement Fondu, 4a Centre and others. They hold a Bachelor of Art Theory and Bachelor of Arts (Asian Studies) from the University of New South Wales, as well as a codirector position at the grassroots artist-run initiative Pari. They are currently being trained in Intentional Peer Support.

Naomi works Mondays and Thursdays and is based on the sovereign lands of the Gadigal and Wangal.

Ju Bavyka is a writer, visual artist, museum worker, and community organiser working from a queer migrant perspective. Their solo and collaborative projects have been presented nationally and internationally, including the Mladen Stilinović Study Centre (2016–2019, Sydney, Adelaide, Zagreb); Hyperreadings (2018, 6th Moscow Biennale, MOMA, Moscow); and Soft Infrastructure with Connie Anthes (ongoing since 2019, Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra). Ju’s essays, poetry, and creative non-fiction exploring migration, queerness, labour, and structural exclusion have appeared in un Magazine, Runway Conversations, Liminal, and InterAlia.

They have presented at the Queer Displacements Conference (Western Sydney University) and the Humanities Institute Dublin, and have taught at Humboldt University Berlin and the University of Technology Sydney. With a professional background in museums and cultural institutions, Ju has worked with dOCUMENTA (13), the Biennale of Sydney, and the Art Gallery of NSW. They are also a member of Frontyard Projects, a not-only-artist-run initiative for critical research and conversation in Marrickville.

Born in Petropavlovsk, Kazakhstan, Ju studied Architecture and Visual Communication in Kassel, Germany, before migrating to Australia in 2015. They now live and work on Wangal and Gadigal Country.