Jess Scully — Author & Councillor for City of Sydney
About Jess
Jess Scully is an author, curator and community representative who uses creativity to support and inspire everyone to get involved in shaping a sustainable and inclusive future.
She has been the Deputy Lord Mayor of Sydney since 2019 and an elected community representative since 2016. As a Councillor at the City of Sydney, Jess advocates for new models to address the housing crisis and support a more inclusive economy, is working on reviving nightlife and expanding access to culture, and on opening up politics to younger and more diverse people, to expand who plays a role in shaping the life of the city.
Prior to that she was the founding director of festival Vivid Ideas, Australia’s largest creative industries event; and has worked as a policy advisor, a public art curator, cultural strategist, radio host and magazine editor.
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Her first book, Glimpses of Utopia: Real Ideas for a Fairer World, was published by Pantera Press in August 2020. Glimpses of Utopia explores projects from around the world empowering people and communities to build a future we can be excited about: from participatory democracy to power bottom-up decision making, to for-purpose finance drawn from ancient traditions, structures for fairness in land use and collaborative city-making, and much more. Jess is passionate about promoting and incubating solutions to bring climate and social justice into being in Sydney and cities around the world.
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