Badass Women: Jess Scully
JESS SCULLY
Jess Scully is an inspiring city councillor, creative industries expert, event director and public art curator. Through her projects, she uses creativity and the arts to engage communities in our knowledge economy, and with the public realm. She is the founding curator of Vivid Ideas, a cultural strategist for UNSW Art and Design, and is an active voice, fighting the good fight for creative industries and nightlife in Sydney.
WHAT ARE YOU MOST PROUD OF?
My work on Council fighting the good fight on the big issues that challenge us as we try to make a sustainable, creative, socially inclusive future. That includes working to support nightlife and live music in our city through policy and planning changes, pushing the city to fund a competition for alternative models to support new forms of affordable housing in our city.
WHO OR WHAT INSPIRES YOU MOST?
I’m pretty inspired to work with Clover Moore, a fearless, progressive, independent woman who has been representing local communities for as long as I’ve been alive! I also get to meet incredible people every day who are contributing their own time and energy to run kids’ playgroups, community gardens, or protest campaigns to build the kind of future they want future generations to live in.
WHAT IS ONE MOUNTAIN YOU’VE CLIMBED TO GET TO WHERE YOU ARE THAT PEOPLE MAY NOT BE AWARE OF?
Sometimes I’ve doubted myself, in a political environment, about what I know when I come from a creative background… but for the most part, I think I’ve been incredibly privileged and very lucky
YOU HAVE 3 HOURS TO YOURSELF. NO ONE ELSE IS INVITED. WHAT DO YOU DO? WHERE DO YOU GO?
I’d lie in the shade of a tree in Centennial Park and read and read and read.
NAME ONE TRACK THAT TOTALLY RECHARGES YOU.
Miami by Kali Uchis is as good as a holiday.
HOW DO YOU PICK YOURSELF UP WHEN YOU’RE NOT FEELING GREAT?
I get to a body of water (like down at Blackwattle Bay or on the Bondi to Bronte walk) and take some very very deep breaths.
IT’S 2030. YOU’RE SENDING YOUR CURRENT SELF A MESSAGE OF SUPPORT. WHAT DOES IT SAY
The good ones win some of those fights. Keep at it. Plus, the next generation are awesome, they’re going to bring it home.
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Be sure to follow Jess on her mission via her twitter page