POWERHOUSE
OF CARDS
September 8, 2026
Observations recorded in this article:
Friday October 30th, 2025
INFORMATION FOR THINKERS:
1. Havilah is from Berry, an affluent part of the South Coast but was very familiar with Western Sydney; Seiuli, and her magnetic platform, being the ex Director of Campbelltown Arts Centre and Deputy Director of Casula Powerhouse.
Havilah has had a very blessed career trajectory in the Arts, despite not being an artist. She is known for her profit making focus and for bringing people to the yard but this Kelisa didn’t need milkshakes despite being born on a dairy farm.
Havillah has a knack of spotting actual art, a good talent that can become exploitative in the wrong hands.
The wrong hands tend to have wrong feet that stand on the shoulders of the trending demographic, or indeed they use the demographic to further their gains.
Rest assured that Havilah is well respected and is looked upon as the saviour of Pacific Arts.
Here is how her career started, proving that if someone who was described in school as “disengaged and uninterested” [as per Havilah’s Wikipedia page] can go on to become one of Sydney’s ” most dynamic and hard-working cultural figures” AND the foremost expert in Indigenous and Pacific Arts and Culture.
Despite not being a Person of Colour.
Good optics though.
1. ‘While I was studying at the University of Wollongong, myself and a couple of friends established a contemporary art space called Project Contemporary Art Space. We were able to get financial support from the local council as well as support from Dion’s Bus Company who gave us the space.”
– ‘Lisa Havilah on Art, Culture and Place.’ – Nation
2. “At the age of 21, she and her then boyfriend, now husband, ceramicist Glenn Barkley, managed to find a space and get funding from a youth arts grant, Wollongong Council and BHP to create a new gallery, which they ran for four years.” – summarized by Wikipedia from an article in AFR Jan 2020