Aseel Tayah is a Melbourne-based Palestinian artist, creative director and cultural leader who uses her practice to advocate for artists of color, mothers, children and young people, changing the world, one project at a time. Resident in Melbourne since 2016, Aseel works globally, using the power of storytelling to create awareness, facilitate connections and humanise the experiences of people who have been displaced.

As such, her work is embedded in the community and is often highly responsive to current issues. Her signature project, Bukjeh, began as a one-off weekend event in 2018 and has grown into a significant collective of culturally diverse artists from refugee communities presenting public events, school workshops, and corporate programs right across Victoria. Aseel’s work with the Bukjeh company was recently endorsed by the receipt of multi-year funding from Creative Victoria’s Creative Ventures Programme.

Highlights of her work include:

– The Bukjeh performance of refugee songs and stories told inside a specially repurposed The disaster relief tent has been presented dozens of times at Theatres, performing arts centers, and Communities across Victoria

– Preparing x hundred Eid Festival care packages for children locked down in Melbourne’s public housing towers in 2020

– Funding and coordinating Palestine’s first-ever toy libraries

– Sabahiya Youtube channel for Australian, Arabic-speaking children and their parents

– The Singing Feast cultural kitchen events for Melbourne Knowledge Week

– We Deserve to play, a community arts fair held at Aida Refugee Camp in Palestine

In addition, Aseel is a sought-after speaker, musical performer, and consultant to the arts, culture and community sector. Her latest work in development, Ardna, is a collaboration with First Nations artists exploring the experience of land and country common to Indigenous Australians and displaced persons.