About

Hey, hi and hello!

Nice to meet you. My name is Gaelle.

I’m an award-winning designer, collaborator and consultant. I have a background in arts and culture and I have always been interested in effecting change and pushing aesthetic boundaries to tell new stories. 

With a passion for provoking conversation and change around disability. I’m a creative person, change agent, dreamer, doer and a thinker that sees possibility everywhere.

As luck would have it, I’ve got a passion to collaborate and enthuse others with the possibilities of creativity, equality, diversity, and change.

Everything about me…well not everything.

Applause

Gaelle has had the opportunity to collaborate with many exceptional artists and through these collaborations, she has designed many award-winning productions. 

Individual Awards include: 

Adelaide Critics Circle Individual Award, Adelaide Critics Circle; Winston Churchill Trust, Churchill Fellowship;  Adelaide Fringe Festival Award for Design; South Australian Screen Award for production design; Creative Australia Fellowship, Australia Council of the Arts,2012; Community Service Award, Rotary Club of Adelaide;  Women’s Honour Roll, SA Government; Creative Partnerships Australia, Arts Access Award SANT, Take Up Thy Bed and Walk, with producer Vitalstatistix;  Best Show, Drama, Take Up Thy Bed and Walk, Adelaide Theatre Guild; The Arts Award, National Disability Awards 2019. She has also been shortlisted for a number of awards including a Ruby Award for Sustained Contribution to the Arts, Green Room Award for Design and London International Awards.

My experiences. What I’ve done. A Summary

Gaelle is an award-winning designer. She has been working as a theatre designer and collaborator in Australia and overseas or over 25 years. Her designs have toured to the United Kingdom, Europe, Asia, New Zealand and the United States.

Seen as a cultural leader within both the disability arts and mainstream arts sectors, Gaelle was one of 50 people globally invited to attend the International Convening of Thought Leaders  run by the Kennedy Centre,  Washington DC. Invited by the Theatre Board of the Australia Council as one of 15 women filmed for the Woman in Theatre exhibition that celebrated the fabulous women of the contemporary Australian theatre scene.

She has designed for companies including ADT (Australian Dance Theatre); Restless Dance Theatre ( resident designer 1991 – 2011 & 2013);Brink Productions; State Theatre Co SA; Ladykillers, Patch; Vitalstatistix; Rambert Dance (UK), Closer Productions; State Opera SA; Australian Theatre of the Deaf; Graeae (UK); and Tanja Liedtke. Gaelle designed the world premiere of Ancient Rain starring Irish chanteuse, Camille O’Sullivan, and iconic Australian singer-songwriter, Paul Kelly for the Dublin Theatre Festival. Additionally, she was a co-founder of Ladykillers and a co-founder Creative Director of Access2Arts.

Gaelle has both facilitated and spoken on many panels and forums which include including Vitalstatistix Boss Lady, Arts Activated Conferences, Meeting Place, Festival of Unpopular Ideas, IFFICA conference, National Experimental Arts Forum (NEAF) in 2015, The Other Film Festival and Screen Makers in 2019.

Gaelle Mellis is currently the Disability Screen Strategy Executive at the South Australian Film Corporation, Chair of Disability-led Outlandish Arts as well as working as a designer, and access consultant.

Life philosophy