User:Kape~enwiki

Fotis Kapetopoulos

Fotis Kapetopoulos, born 1962 in Adelaide South Australia, is a nationally recognised advocate for cultural diversity, a theatre producer, and commentator on multiculturalism, the arts and a range of social policies in relation to cutural diversity, the arts and culture. He completed a BA Honours in Politics from Flinders UNiversity of South Australia where he researched the Schism between the Greek Orthodox Communities of the diaspora and the Greek Orthodox Church or Archdioce. He later completed a Masters of Arts at Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria.

He was one of the first in the Australian arts industry to develop multicultural marketing strategies and make audience development a focus for the inclusion of culturally diverse citizens in the arts. He developed national strategies and projects which increased diverse audiences to mainstream arts programs. As the Director of Multicultural Arts Victoria (1992-2001), he assisted communities and artists with funding, marketing and media profile and developed a range of international programs. His work has resulted in visual exchanges with Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Budapest and Athens.

Fotis Kapetopoulos secured a Short-Term Internship at the Smithsonian Institution Washington DC and was the first recipient of the Victorian Arts Leadership award in 1994.. He was a recipient of the Asialink Arts Management residency in 1997 where he spent time working for the National Arts Council of Singapore. There he recieved wide attention for his rejection of the policies of Australia's One Nation party and its leader Pauline Hanson, a party which attacked the rights of Indigenous Australians, and cultural diversity. He also initiated a Memorandum of Understanding between Arts Victoria (state government) and the National Arts Council of Singapore.

After MAV, Mr Kapetopoulos was senior policy consultant for the Italian Assistance Association 2001-2003, where he secured funding and designed Alzheimer’s and Diabetes prevention campaigns for older Italians.

Fotis Kapetopoulos currently heads Multicultural Arts Professional Development (MAPD), an initiative of Australia Council for the Arts. MAPD includes intensive, one-to-one and on-line training on leadership, cultural brokerage, communications and income generation. Fotis Kapetopoulos completed national research for the Australia Council on culturally diverse audience titled, Who Goes There?

He hosted and managed the Donna Walker–Kuhne forums in 2003; Ms Walker–Kuhne is America’s leading audience specialist. In 2004 he hosted a lecture series by Dr Richard Kurin from the Smithsonian Institution Washington DC and in 2005 a national lecture series by Gerald Yoshitomi from California and Ruud Breteler from Theater Zuidplein in Rotterdam. In all cases, the main focus being the development of greater public participation in the arts, from people of culturally diverse background.