When Art Creates Space for Adoptee Voices
On 15 August 2026, ICAV brought our Melbourne community together at Northcote Town Hall Arts Centre for a special community evening around Cut Chilli, written by Sri Lankan Tamil Australian playwright Chenturan Aran and directed by Isabella Vadiveloo. The evening was designed as more than simply attending a performance. We wanted to create a space where people could connect before the play, experience it together, and then have an opportunity afterwards to reflect on some of the complex issues it raises.
Why Cut Chilli?
Cut Chilli explores family, identity, culture, belonging and the often contradictory realities that can exist within adoption. For intercountry adoptees, some of these themes are deeply familiar: loving our adoptive families while questioning the systems that created our adoptions; navigating race and culture within predominantly white environments; wondering about our first families and the circumstances of our separation; and gradually revisiting the adoption narratives we were given as children. The play creates room for those contradictions rather than trying to resolve them neatly.
Having worked with the development of Cut Chilli from its earlier Sydney season, it was important to me that adoptees were not simply an audience for a story about adoption. I wanted us to have the opportunity to respond to it, challenge it, recognise ourselves within it, and add our own lived experiences to the conversation.
Our evening began with a Sri Lankan community buffet, followed by the performance of Cut Chilli and a moderated panel discussion.
Watch our short 4min video of our time together before the performance.
For ICAV, the evening was about bringing art and lived experience together.
The moderated panel
Following the performance, I moderated a discussion with four people who brought very different perspectives.
Rather than asking whether the play represented some single universal “adoptee experience”, I wanted the discussion to explore the complexity underneath it.
Watch the panel discussion
30min
How did the community experience the night?
The feedback was overwhelmingly positive.
Across the responses I received, people repeatedly described the play as powerful, confronting, moving and sensitively presented. The Sri Lankan meal was also an important part of the experience, described as generous and delicious, but more importantly as something that helped create warmth, cultural connection and community before entering the theatre.
For many, the panel was an essential part of the evening. Of those who provided feedback specifically about it, people spoke about how the discussion helped them process an emotionally intense performance, rather than simply leaving the theatre carrying everything the play had raised.
The panelists were appreciated for their honesty, vulnerability and very different perspectives, and the questions were described as thoughtful and well curated. The conversation prompted people to reflect not only on adoption itself, but on identity, race, culture, family, institutional practices and whose voices have historically shaped adoption narratives.
For me, the feedback that mattered most was about connection. People spoke about feeling a sense of belonging, being among others who understood aspects of their experience, and the value of having a community space around the performance. I have worked alongside many adoptees for decades and watched our community grow from people searching for one another and trying to make sense of our individual experiences, into a much stronger collective community that is increasingly prepared to speak, question, create and support one another. It has been my lifelong honour to help create and be a part of this sense of connection and community.
Community matters because none of us should have to navigate these experiences alone.
With thanks
This community event was made possible through funding from Relationships Australia South Australia, Intercountry Adoptee and Family Support Service (ICAFSS), thanks to the Australian Government Department of Social Services (DSS).
My sincere thanks also go to my co-host Darebin Arts – especially to their team led by Hiroki, Omar, Andy and Chanelle; producer – Briannah; playwright – Chenturan, Director – Isabella and the entire Cut Chilli cast and creative team; our panelists Jai, Hana and Penny; for the tasty foods of Sri Lanka by Hop & Spice – Jill & Chamal; our taste tester – Rebecca; the ICAFSS team who provided emotional support on the evening; and everyone who attended and contributed so generously to the conversations.
Most of all, thank you to our community for continuing to show up for one another.
For those interested in purchasing a copy of the play, Chenturan has published it, with an introduction from me. You can order and purchase a copy here.