Planting Party: a day of community action and celebration

Riddells Creek, Macedon
Macedon and Mount Macedon Landcare Group

Hillcroft Park, South Morang
Friends of Hillcroft Park

J C Donath Reserve, Reservoir
Intrepid Landcare

Darebin Creek, Reservoir
Darebin Creek Management Committee

Iramoo Wildflower Grassland Reserve, Cairnlea
Cairnlea Conservation Reserves Committee of Management in partnership with Friends of Iramoo

Merri Creek, Northcote
Merri Creek Management Committee

Yalukit Willam Nature Reserve, Elsternwick
Port Philip Eco Centre in partnership with Yalukit William Nature Association

Gardiners Creek Reserve, Burwood
KooyongKoot Alliance

Andersons Creek, Warrandyte
Andersons Creek Landcare

Planting Party is commissioned and presented by Fed Square in partnership with Creative Climate, as part of RESET – A free festival for greener living.

Planting Party is generously supported by Landcare Victoria, Bupa, and Melbourne Water.

dirtgirl

dirtgirl is the star of ABC’s dirtgirlworld, a multi-award-winning sensation whose passion for the great outdoors, growing healthy food, and embracing a fulfilling, simple lifestyle has captured the hearts of children and families worldwide. dirtgirl eats sunshine for breakfast and composts empty promises before lunch. She’s the gumbooted truth-teller of the Naturehood – part grit, part grace, all in. With a voice like birdsong and a backbone built from busted tools and second chances, she doesn’t just tell stories – she plants them, waters them, and dares them to grow. She reinspires the future from the ground up, shares glimmers and scrolls for joy, sipping chai at sundown like it’s strategy fuel.

Ella Thompson

Ella Thompson is a musician and songwriter whose music traverses the landscape of classic and contemporary soul. Ella’s lyrics explore themes of belonging, both to the microscopic and the universal. She invites listeners to contemplate the vast expanse of human emotion and the interconnectedness of all things.

Chamber Soul Trio is comprised of Ella Thompson, harpist Siwei Wong (Freedom Fly) and flutist Erica Tucceri, drawing on the European classical tradition to frame Thompson’s songwriting in a more intimate, spacious context.

The Orbweavers

The Orbweavers are Marita Dyson and Stuart Flanagan, multidisciplinary artists working in songwriting, music, performance and visual art, based in Narrm/ Melbourne, on the unceded sovereign lands of the Wurundjeri Woiwurrung people. The Orbweavers songwriting and creative work responds to local histories, memory and place, often with a focus on water. Their latest album New Moon / Silver Moon responds to the many layered histories of two places: Narrm/ Melbourne and Broken Hill on Wilyakali Country (and surrounding Barkindji Country). The songs of New Moon / Silver Moon contemplate waterways, ecosystems and the impacts of industrialisation on Country, along with personal stories and reflections from the present. For Planting Party, The Orbweavers will perform songs about plants and place.

Allara

Allara is a powerful Yorta Yorta winyarr. She is a storyteller, composer, director, producer, musician and sound-designer. With humour and integrity, Allara uses the double-bass and sound samples from Country to weave textures for healing in her work “I am Sovereign, I am Free”. Allara’s innovative music speaks to Blak justice and sovereignty.

Robert K Champion

Robert K. Champion moves audiences with his haunting guitar music and compelling songs of life, love, and loss. With guitar in hand and a cup of tea always by his side, Robert’s skilful storytelling warms audiences as he performs original songs of contemporary folktales and country ballads. Originally from the far west coast of South Australia, Robert is a Gubrun, Kokatha and Mirning man now living and making music in Narrm (Melbourne).

Earworthy DJs

Earworthy is a community-driven listening experience that started with a simple idea: to create space for people to slow down, reconnect, and enjoy soulful music together in open-air settings. Earworthy believes good music is truly worthy of the ears and need to be shared with intention and care. Their events have grown from small gatherings in the park to something that feels much bigger than just music – it’s about presence, people, culture and good energy.

Emma Stenhouse

Emma Stenhouse is taking the first steps on her journey in belonging and becoming connected with her Ngarrindjeri heritage. Her work is predominantly inspired by nature, connection to country using elements of contemporary art and traditional Iconography.

Emma ignites the flame of love for Country in other hearts and minds. A multifaceted creative, she explores diverse practices. Each piece is braided with learning, exchange between artist and viewer, a continuation of culture – a platform for cross cultural exchange.

An experienced early childhood educator, Emma imparts her knowledge of culture, including traditional Indigenous creative practices guided by Gunditjmara elders. A gatherer and sharer of knowledge, she uses this to guide her own journey.

She builds capacity for others to learn and develop their own connections.

Veisinia Tonga

Veisinia Tonga is a multidisciplinary artist and storyteller based in Naarm/ Melbourne, with strong ties to the Victorian Pasifika community for over 40 years. Drawing on her background in journalism, floristry and business, Veisinia’s creative practice centres around the concept of ‘Kakala’, which is working with plant materials through the ethno-botanical lens of Tongan and broader Pasifika traditions.

Veisinia is the co-founder of the Pasifika Storytellers Collective, an initiative dedicated to amplifying Pasifika voices and empowering the community to take ownership of their narratives. Her installations, often rooted in cultural symbolism and community practice, have featured in diverse corporate and cultural events.

Her recent work includes projects with Arts House, Blak Dot Gallery, the State Library of Victoria, and RISING Festival. As a writer, her contributions have been published across various platforms in Aotearoa and so-called Australia, continuing her commitment to storytelling as a form of cultural preservation and resistance.

Lichen Kelp

Lichen Kelp is an artist, performer and curator. Her solo work investigates ephemeral biological processes and the transubstantiation of chemical reactions. Melting, subliming, fruiting, flowering, decomposing, bubbling and shapeshifting are explored through field work, photography and live experiments emerging from liquid landscapes. Performing as part of Kelping with Dylan Martorell as well as sometimes members Benjamin Hancock and Jason Hood, she creates haptic and multi-sensorial unfolding scenographies, with soundscapes derived from electronic ikebana; local botanicals and handbuilt electronics; as well as hydrophones, water percussion and ice-based touch-sensitive instruments.

Sophie Cunningham

Sophie Cunningham is the author of ten books, including City of Trees: Essays on Life, Death and the Need for a Forest, and Wonder: 175 Years of Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria. She has a passion for trees, walking and broader environmental issues.

Paradoxa Collective

Formed in 2015, Paradoxa Collective comprises four contemporary artists: Penelope Aitken, Anna Farago, Siri Hayes and Susan Wirth. Based on Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Country in the outer northeast of Naarm/ Melbourne, Australia, they share an interest in peri-urban landscapes, connecting to the land through practical restoration and regeneration activities combined with site-informed art making. In their art practices they work across a range of media, including photography, textiles, painting, sound and video, and often use natural and found materials to create works that reflect on connections between places and people.

Paradoxa Collective have exhibited together in A Crafted History: People and Place, curated by Lisa Byrne and Jane O’Neill at ArtSpace Realm, Satellite of Love – Perspectives from Bunjil Reserve at the Eltham Library and Bark, leaves, soil, berries: conversations on place, at Art Gallery 275, Ivanhoe Library and Cultural Hub in 2021. In 2022, the collective produced a major public art commission, Tread Lightly in memory of Wurundjeri Elder, Aunty Judy Nicholson.

Bili Nursery

Bili Nursery, formerly SKINC, has been growing local Indigenous plants for the community since 1994, originally specialising in species from Melbourne’s Sandbelt and expanding in recent years to accommodate the loss of habitat in what was once Melbourne’s expansive western grasslands. Their team works in collaboration with various organisations and groups including Koala Clancy, Greater Western Grasslands, Gardens for Wildlife, Raising Rarity, Yalukit Willam Nature Reserve, Wetland Revival Trust, and the Heart Gardening Project to conserve species recognised as critically endangered. Westgate Biodiversity: Bili Nursery & Landcare is funded by donations from the local community and is powered by the support of their valued team of volunteers.

Their workshop host, Mars Reid, has almost a decade of experience as a horticulturist specialising in the Indigenous plants of Melbourne. They wish personally to help improve public knowledge on local native plants, to expand community connection with nature and to make habitat gardening more accessible for all – for the purpose of improving biodiversity in the greater Melbourne area.