In 2022 I joined La Trobe Art Institute where I work as Senior Curator. In this role I shape the Institute’s artistic direction, produce a year-round residency program and help care for the University’s collections.
I am also working as a Senior Research officer on the ARC funded project, Difficult Objects.
From 2019 to 2022 I was the Director of West Space, where I commissioned and facilitated a wide range of cross-disciplinary artistic programs, including Disorganising (with Liquid Architecture and Bus Projects) and The Region (with RMIT, Para Site, Western Front and Enjoy Contemporary). I also led the organisation’s highly anticipated moved to Collingwood Yards.
I graduated from the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, in 2018. My thesis exhibition, titled More than mere jelly, was presented at the Hessel Museum of Art. While a student at CCS Bard, I organised programs at The Kitchen in New York City; was commissioning editor of the aCCeSsion journal; and provided curatorial research to the Director of the Graduate Program and Chief Curator Lauren Cornell as Curatorial Fellow. In the United Kingdom and Europe in 2017, I undertook curatorial residencies at Spike Island, Bristol, and Enough Room For Space, Brussels.
Prior to my graduate studies, I was was Curatorial Fellow at Performa in New York City, where I produced exhibitions and performances by artists Richard Bell, Agatha Gothe-Snape, Justene Williams, and Brian Fuata in multiple venues across the City.
Prior to moving to New York, I was based in Sydney, where I held curatorial and administrative positions at the Biennale of Sydney, Campbelltown Arts Centre, Vivid Ideas, Performing Lines, and Performance Space. Through directorial positions at Firstdraft and Tiny Stadiums Festival, and as co-founder of the residency and exhibition program Sydney Guild, I played an active role in arts development in Sydney from 2010—2014.
I hold a BA in Theatre & Performance Studies and Art History & Theory from the University of New South Wales. I am a current PhD candidate at Monash Art Design and Architecture. My docorate identifies the reparative potential of the curator under contemporary conditions of crisis. Through this research, I seek to offer a framework through which processual and intentional institutional change can be pursued.
My writing has been published in Memo Review, Art Guide, Runway, un Magazine, Artlink, Art Collector, Running Dog, amongst others.
Amelia is currently a member of the Performance Review Board, Associate Researcher for Precarious Movements, and peer assessor for the Australia Council for the Arts.
***
Djaara, 2025