Emerging Cultural Leaders 2016

Larissa MacFarlane

Larissa MacFarlane is a Footscray based visual artist, working across printmaking, street art and a community art practice. Her work is inspired by the urban industrial landscapes of Melbourne’s West, as well as by her experience of illness and disability, to investigate ideas of belonging, place, healing, change and ways that we can celebrate what we have here and now.

Larissa came to art late in life after experiencing a life changing brain injury at 29. The many years of slow recovery led her to ponder much about the ways that society excludes those that are different. She is now an active and proud member of Melbourne’s diverse and vibrant disabled community. In recent years she has led art projects that use principles of peer support and self-advocacy to be inclusive of people of all abilities. She is currently passionate about using the arts to build a cultural pride in disability.

Larissa’s website: www.larissamacfarlane.blogspot.com.au