Harmonie Downes

Harmonie was part of Sync Australia in 2022. She is an arts facilitator and manager.

“Making mistakes and missteps have been a crucial ingredient in exploring and developing innovation within both political and cultural context.”

Since participating in both Sync Australia and Sync Twilight, I have continued to draw on numerous learnings and grow them by completing courses in facilitation, the art of hosting and leadership training. This continuous development has fostered a deep willingness to fill my consciousness full of hope, the reverence for humility and to be openly courageous. I continue to explore self-acceptance in my quiet time between the busyness of each day and new projects which stretch me and the relational web around me.

As a co-pilot in developing programs that fulfill skills development and career pathways, finding others who also employ others to skill them up has been a wonderful journey to share – with funders, managers, other colleagues and participants. For all the years I spent as an artist and arts manager, creative and out of the box thinking have been intrinsic to seeing patterns in systems and spotting ways to cut through. With all this lived experience I have absorbed, it enables me to ride waves where emergent trends pop up and then delve into shared creation. Additionally due to the maturing of my arts practice and community engagement with others, I have gained something to offer, perhaps some sort of wisdom to pass on so they can succeed where I have not.

I love a challenge and I am comfortable with chaos; it always seems to result with new collaborators meaningfully working together. Yet, the nagging feeling of coming back for the rush of performing sees me return to playing in a band again, just to make fun for the sake of joy without the stimuli of over intellectualising everything even though the project has its educational roots in activism aiming to shake up the Children’s music genre. It is still a rehoming of the child within me, honouring her as she embraces young minds and young hearts in smaller and larger bodies.

I believe as a creative with a social justice bent, it’s important to challenge the status quo, however, it is also important to understand where things are ok to just ‘be’ and to sit well with a slower pace to dream and do when we come together and support a collective goal appreciating each person’s contributions no matter how large or how small they are.

The feelings of hope have nourished my passion surrounding coaching and mentoring others in their journeys.

Harmonie Downes

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