Who we are: Mia Stocks: Arts and cultural facilitator

WHO WE ARE: Mia Stocks

Mia Stocks has worked in creative industries and community development for most of her life. She started out cooking for the neighbourhood kids when she was just a kid herself, and later helped out providing meals for the homeless and working on blanket drives in her teenage years.

The intrepid optimist

Story by Kelly Golding. Photograph by Jason Porter.

‘I had a pretty traumatic childhood and we all have different ways of responding to this,’ Mia says. ‘I chose to be aware of those around me and to live for more than just my own needs. I believe everyone deserves to rise from the ashes.’

Originally from the west coast of the United States, Mia came to Australia in 1999 as a nineteen year old to work for an NGO in Townsville called Youth With A Mission. It was during this time that she came across the Women’s and Children’s Advocacy Centre, and turned her focus toward fighting against human trafficking. This took her all over Australia, South-East Asia and into Europe. When her Mum passed away in 2010, Mia realised she needed to care for herself as well as others. She relocated to Melbourne, working for Urbanlife as the Community Development Manager, overseeing projects from soup kitchens to developing the Maroondah Art Trail.

‘I’ve always been a “yes” person,’ Mia says. ‘Every opportunity has led to the next.’ Her latest ‘next’ is working for the City of Victor Harbor as the Arts and Cultural Facilitator in partnership with Country Arts SA. So how did this intrepid optimist wind up on the Fleurieu?

‘It was seven years ago that I moved to SA with my three daughters and then-husband to start a business with friends called Happy People Company. I fell in love with the place and haven’t wanted to leave. I feel my best self here. I can breathe, think and create, and that’s made me feel at home. It’s my pocket of the world,’ she says.

The move was accompanied by a certain amount of serendipity that’s slowly unfurled over time. One particular ‘woo-woo’ moment, as Mia calls it, came when she first met local Ramindjeri/Ngarrindjeri artist Cedric Varcoe and a Native American woman at a basket weaving workshop in Adelaide. Mia is Native American on her mother’s side, and it was something she was in the process of coming to terms with at the time. shared by both the local Ngarrindjeri people and Alaskan natives – a story where the northern whale and the southern right whale have an underwater trail in the ocean where they meet. The underwater trail runs from Alaska and ends at Basham Beach,’ Mia recalls.

To Mia, the story felt simultaneously incredibly significant and deeply mysterious. She has come to believe her soul and ancestors are connected to this place, which is why she feels so at peace on the peninsula. She attributes that connection to the local Aboriginal community and is grateful for it.

Prior to her role with the Victor Harbor Council, Mia was the Local Engagement Officer for Community Bank Fleurieu, overseeing grants and helping to activate the new business hub Connect Victor. This local business is committed to making banking more relevant to the local community, giving eighty percent of profits back to the people through a range of projects that have included supporting the South Coast Choral and Arts Society, sports clubs, a reprint of the Ngarrindjeri dictionary, as well as Indigenous singing group The Deadly Nannas, enabling them to run dance workshops for kids to keep them connected to their culture.

Connecting with the community has been a consistent driving force for Mia, from her ‘cold gang’ who she meets everyday for an ocean swim, to dear friends and the local business community, through to the projects she works on to contribute to creative and sustainable development. It’s this community that helped her through the toughest moment of her life: being diagnosed with breast cancer in 2020. ‘The only way I can describe my experience with cancer and going through treatment was a complete shedding of my skin, like a rebirth of my soul. After cancer, I decided I would find my truth and live it onehundred percent,’ says Mia. And she certainly has.

Right now, she’s focused on the transformation happening in Victor Harbor. ‘It’s exciting to see where Victor Harbor is heading right now. We’ve been peeling back the gyprock on the walls, exposing the most beautiful aspects of historic buildings like The Goods Shed,’ says Mia. ‘Removing the facades so the true soul of the town can be revealed.’ Personally, she’s bringing a long-dreamed-of project to life with Mama Happy, which brings people together to share stories and connect over food.

It would be hard to miss the similarities between Mia’s story and that of Victor Harbor, a town in a state of profound and lasting transition. Like many others who share a love of the Fleurieu, Mia’s spirit and commitment to community is bringing a positive new energy to this beautiful pocket of South Australia.