Steph Vajda

Background

About Steph Vajda

Ferment Collaborate specialises in facilitating creative community projects that happen through engagement, dialogue and participation. Using multimedia and cross-cultural engagement skills learned and developed over 20+ years of working with leaders in engagement, community arts and placemaking, my work has a history of creating high quality, engaging outcomes while strengthening local skills and networks. My passion is to work with people to design, create and share multimedia that identifies community needs and shares solutions. My approach to multimedia and engagement is dialogue-based and participatory. This means that I design and facilitate processes for communities to actively participate in sharing stories and shaping the content and outcomes created. Their stories are developed, documented, curated, designed and shared to maximise impact and reach, while maintaining authenticity and connection. I am strongly interested in sharing stories by and about First Nations peoples, as well as working with people from diverse cultural backgrounds. Creating content directly with these communities allows us to develop powerful stories told directly by those who hold them. I am a project manager, creative producer, cross-cultural engagement facilitator, independent filmmaker and community cultural development (CCD) practitioner. Projects delivered by Ferment Collaborate prioritise community involvement from start to finish - project decision making and planning, co-design, network and audience building, exploring enterprise-seeding opportunities, mentoring and training, technical delivery, cultural exchange and knowledge and skill sharing. My work combines my experiences in multiple fields and roles over the past 25 years - social planning, community engagement, project management, events, community arts and multimedia - building on over 20 professional awards, three publications and an extensive professional network.