Elham Eshraghian-Haakansson (she/her) is an award-winning Iranian-Australian researcher, director, and video artist. Her arena of work centers itself within communal and collaborative social practice. Her research navigates inherited stories and postmemory felt by displaced community through the poetics of the moving image. She invites viewers to become the ‘witness’ rather than the ‘passive bystander’, examining empathy in film poems, and immersive multi-media experiences facilitating a critical discussion surrounding empathy, custodianship, compassion, and social change. She has collaborated with multiple art organizations, such as Spaced, Next Wave, Victoria Park Community Centre, PICA, Community Arts Network, Immerse Australia, Co3 Dance Contemporary and Encounter theatre. Her work has exhibited nationally and internationally, receiving numerous prestigious art awards for her video installations such as the 2018 Dr. Harold Schenberg Art Prize, 2020 Invitation Art Prize, 2020 14th Arte Laguna Special Prize Award and the 2022 Ellen José Art Prize as well as a recipient for the inaugural Early-Career Creative and Performance Leadership Fellowship 2022 with the Forrest Research Foundation. Her artistic values prioritize agency, empathy and legacy advocating for community arts programs, as co-founder of the Second Generation Collective, which seeks to bridge intergenerational gaps, navigating trauma and communal care.