About The Salons
The Salons is an independent curatorial micro organisation creating unusual arts experiences through sustainable practice. Founded by co-curators Angie Contini, Joan Gillison and Penny Daw, our projects are the expression of our enduring friendship and the dynamics formed through the people we engage with. Together, between Sydney and London, across time zones and oceans, we create experiences which invite conversation, encourage simplicity, sustainability, diversity and inclusivity, and recognise the progressive potential of the unusual.
The Salons works with independent artists and organisations across diverse styles, media and backgrounds, fostering the cross-pollination of interdisciplinary practice, shared knowledge, experimentation and collaboration.
Our purpose
For artists
The Salons follows a slow and small event philosophy, where the qualitative values of empathy, learning and critical reflection steer our ideas and choices.
We create projects for artists to learn, practice, play, develop, share and celebrate their work without major financial risk. We seek out meaningful placements to further extend the work of our programs and the artists we collaborate with.
Our curations seek to respond to the needs of our time, to build relationships through diversity and inclusion, to begin empowering conversations, to encourage collaborative process and to extend the values of shared knowledge.
The Salons offers a place for voicing stories, reviving abandoned, neglected or unfinished projects, launching intrepid new works, treading lightly over heavy ground and announcing glorious arrivals.
For nature
The Salons is committed to the care of the earth and humans through best practice methods of environmental sustainability.
Across event research and development, administration, promotion, production, performance and exhibition, our micro approach allows us to continually engage with, and re-evaluate, conventional industry practices to ensure the least possible eco-footprint.
The Salons also follows a circular economy philosophy, which further supports the financial sustainability of our organisation. Followingly, we encourage our artists and collaborating partners to think locally, and to embrace practices of recycling, reducing, restoring and removing rather than replacing.
For partnerships with substance
The Salons welcomes the opportunity to build relationships with other arts organisations, venues and small businesses. We are available for commissions, placements and partnerships which provide empowering platforms for our projects, and offer meaningful opportunities for the artists we collaborate with.
If you’re interested in working with The Salons, or would like to include a Salons work in your event or project, please contact us or visit us on Instagram
Co-curators
Angie Contini
Angie is an experimental interdisciplinary artist and writer living on Gadigal lands. She holds a double BA in music and film studies (awarded first-class Honours and The University Medal 2013), and a PhD from the University of Sydney (2018). Angie’s work has been shown in solo, group and award exhibitions, with her photography, artworks, essays and poems published in open access journals and anthologies.
Angie’s body of original music includes solo piano works and singer/songwriter albums, with scores and recordings available through Wirripang Publishers and Bandcamp. Her recent interdisciplinary projects include the poetry and hand-cut collage work fierCe (Flying Islands, 2023) and the photography/fragments essay Becomings (Gothic Nature Journal, 2023). Angie’s ongoing interest in the connection between the arts, nature and mental health is supported by a rabid curiosity in the ever-unfolding delights of sustainable arts practice.
Penny Daw
Penny has been a producer, stage, touring and events manager in Sydney and regional Australia since the early 1990s.
Joan Gillison
After nearly two decades working as a theatre stage manager and actors’ agent in Brisbane and Sydney, Joan relocated to the UK in 2001. She has been the communications designer for a London investment firm since 2008.