Culture Makers: Season Four

These heartwarming personal stories play across three screens in a quiet and cosy setting within Melbourne Story Gallery. Get lost in these rarely heard stories during this unique digital showcase.

Thang Van Pham & Pauline Pham – A Second Life

Portrait of Culture Makers experience creators Thang Van Pham and his daughter Pauline Pham. / Source: Copyright Sarah Pannell 2025 / Photo: Sarah Pannell

Thang Van Pham and Pauline Pham are a father and daughter from the Western suburbs of Melbourne. Thang came to Australia as a 21-year-old refugee of the Vietnam War in 1981 with his three younger brothers. Over the last four decades, he has become a husband and father, contributing to shaping modern Australian society. As a storyteller, he preserves family history through poetry.

Pauline is a mixed media artist and community worker. Her practice is inspired by themes of cultural identity and societal expansion and meditation of the present moment.

A Second Life is an intergenerational reflection on what has passed. Having navigated very different Vietnamese Australian identities, Thang and Pauline‘s film bounds two generations of perspective, merging memory with archival imagery as an act of love and preservation of their family story.

Yo Soy Collective – NOSOTRXS SOMOS

Portrait of Culture Makers Season Four experience creators Yo Soy Collective members, (L to R) Denisse Sandoval, Patricia Abalos, Ruby-Rose Pivet-Marsh and Jess Ibacache. / Source: Copyright Sarah Pannell 2025 / Photo: Sarah Pannell

The story of Yo Soy Collective is the story of the Melbourne Latinx community. There are nearly 48,000 people with Latin American heritage living in Victoria. Across this hugely diverse diaspora, the art of gathering - of connecting with community, culture, and creativity – is a shared practice vital to building and maintaining a strong sense of identity and fostering social connections.

In this film, we meet Yo Soy Collective, a Latinx arts collective based in Melbourne. Established in 2018, Yo Soy actively advocates for Latinx artists in Australia. Viewers are welcomed into the home and to the dinner table, to learn about the complex cultural challenges and vibrant experiences of growing up Latinx in Australia and the significance of coming together in collective art spaces.

Youbi & Taka – 20 Years Later

Portrait of Culture Makers Season Four experience creators Taka Takiguchi (on left, wearing cap) and Youbi Lee (on right). / Source: Copyright Sarah Pannell 2025 / Photo: Sarah Pannell

Since 2021, Youbi and Taka have collaborated on Obang, the award nominated theatre for babies, and their new shadow puppetry show for kids, Kiki and Zuki, is currently touring through Victoria.

20 years later was created with shadow puppets, tracing their journeys and rites of passage as migrants in Australia. The story begins with the character Matsu, known as Jack, arriving by train at Spencer Street Station, heart pounding, uncertain, yet hopeful.

Each scene was developed through a reflective process undertaken during the early stages of creation: the lively streets of Brunswick, the sting of alienation, the ongoing search for identity, the citizenship ceremony, a deepening appreciation of First Peoples culture and history, and the everyday realities of a multicultural society - leading to the final scene, where Youbi & Taka are creating this work in the studio, 20 years later.

Through this work, Youbi & taka wish to acknowledge all the migrants who paved the way before us and contributed to shaping Australia into what it is today.

Supported by

Produced by Museums Victoria with support from the Scanlon Foundation, Culture Makers is a groundbreaking initiative that brings underrepresented voices into museum spaces through co-created digital storytelling.

Don’t miss this vibrant celebration of community, resilience, and creative identity.

Visit the Melbourne Museum and discover stories that burn bright in Melbourne.

Culture Makers has been made possible thanks to the generous support of The Scanlon Foundation.