Brenna Ternus is an educator, artist and producer who has lived and worked all over the world. Their practice is about collaborating with young people and the community on programming that amplifies underrepresented voices.
While studying theatre and interdisciplinary arts at Yale University, they co-wrote an interactive children’s musical called The Dinosaur Hunters about Wild West paleontology, and produced/performed in its tour of 10 US states. Their other musicals, Doc Patterson’s Dragonbone Storyshow and Bunkerville, were both produced at Yale, with the latter chosen for a remount as the Yale Dramatic Association’s Commencement Musical. After graduating, they taught photography and creative writing to young people in New Orleans and then moved to Beijing to build an experimental arts-integrated learning centre called Armada.
Brenna arrived in Naarm Melbourne in 2017 and spent a year orchestrating immersive wellbeing programs at the Reach Foundation and six years supporting ensembles of young people to create professionally-published short story anthologies at 100 Story Building.
Their other recent projects include: Imagination Gamespaces (ArtPlay New Ideas Lab), a program empowering young people to design and build their own story-based escape rooms; Years of Our Lives (City of Melbourne/Victorian Seniors Festival), a lockdown-era community timeline project for older adults; and How Long is a Piece of String (MPavilion/100 Story Building), a string-based interactive storytelling installation.
Brenna works closely with Carlton Primary School to organise arts enrichment programming, and collaborates frequently with ArtPlay, Signal, Artists for Kids Culture, Western Edge, and House of Muchness. Working with the Hubsters in Stonnington on the St Martins Young Changemakers program has been a meaningful place to collaborate with a whole new set of creative humans of all ages.