Practice profile

I am an Australian Arts & Heritage Consultant, curator and design historian. I consult to the cultural sector, alongside personal creative projects.

I have worked at senior levels across curatorial practice, cultural asset management, design review, government strategy, policy and regulation. Using a mix of specialized content knowledge, strategic foresight and analysis, I help cultural property owners navigate the care and management of their assets. My consulting work has a strong focus on stewardship strategies for significant cultural sites and collections, including embedding sustainability values in heritage and museum practice.

My research, writing and art projects examine the economic and socio-cultural meanings and values attributed to materials and design. I continue to explore how values are expressed and received through objects, between cultures and over time.

Biography

After completing a science degree (psychology and zoology), with Honours in Zoology at the University of Queensland, my interests in ethology (animal behaviour) and environmental design grew to studying the design of objects, buildings and interiors. The common threads of my work focus on understanding the whole context of an environment, place, or object.

Between re-training as an arts curator at the University of Manchester and receiving my doctorate in architectural and design history at the University of Melbourne, I worked for over 12 years in the National Trusts of the UK, Victoria and Queensland, providing curatorial and conservation management advice for more than 80 significant properties and collections. Later I held senior executive positions in State governments leading responsibilities for heritage, as Director Heritage Division at the New South Wales Office of Environment and Heritage, and Executive Director, Heritage Victoria. I am a graduate of the AICD’s Company Directors’ Course, and a current member of the Victorian Design Review Panel, within the Office of the Victorian Government Architect.

More details of my experience can be found here.

I live and work on the land of the Dja Dja Wurrung People, and pay my respects to Elders past, present, and emerging.