Curate Your Career is a program designed to provide insights into careers in Museums and Galleries for Access Melbourne students. The program provides a series of informal ‘In Conversation’ sessions with Museum and Gallery professionals with practical guidance and advice on how to compete for jobs and other opportunities in the Museum and Gallery sector.
Join early to mid career professionals from the sector to learn from them about their unique career pathways as well as their insights into the key factors for employment in the field. Each event will include further networking opportunities over lunch.
Access Melbourne students only are invited to book into the program’s free events (check the eligibility criteria).
As catering is provided, bookings are essential.
Program Events
Skills expected of current graduates
Tuesday 21 August, 12:00 1:00pm, Leigh Scott Room
with Myles Russell-Cook, Curator, Indigenous Art, National Gallery of Victoria and Ashlee Baldwin, Program and Visitor Services Coordinator, Buxton Contemporary
At this session the discussion will focus on the sector specific skills that are likely to be sought in graduates entering the field alongside desirable attitudinal traits. The panel will touch upon the core transferrable skills that have propelled them through their careers and those they wish they’d developed at a tertiary level. Panellists will discuss their personal career trajectories, including key advice they would have given their younger selves.
New and emerging jobs in the sector
Tuesday 4 September, 12:00 – 1:00pm, Leigh Scott Roomwith Hannah Presley, Curator, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art and Eugenia Flynn, First Nations Curator, Australian Centre for the Moving Image
In an era of inevitable restructures at the state’s large cultural institutions what are the jobs that are growing in numbers and diversity? Do more general employment trends, such as the proliferation of communication and marketing roles, hold true for the museum and gallery sector? Are museums and galleries catering to the needs of diverse audiences through a change in resourcing?
Internships, volunteering and other opportunities
Tuesday 18 September, 12:00 – 1:00pm, Leigh Scott Room
with Olivia Meehan, Curator, Academic Programs, Ian Potter Museum of Art and Jon Buckingham, Collections Coordinator, RMIT Gallery
In the museum and gallery sector, as in many others, volunteering and Internships provide valuable professional experience for students and graduates. Hear from our presenters about how to select your unpaid projects carefully and what to expect and look out for once within an organisation. Learn about an array of other opportunities, such as volunteering for conferences and concession memberships only available while you are a student.
Networking
Tuesday 2 October, 12:00 – 1:00pm, Leigh Scott Room
with Danielle Measday, Conservator, Natural Sciences, Museums Victoria and Feyza Yazar, Cultural Development Public Programs Officer, Shepparton Art Museum
Join us for a discussion of the ways in which networking and creative collaboration can further a career in museums and galleries. While ‘networking’ can seem like a daunting proposition, the panel will discuss ways that this can occur organically and starting at the tertiary level. As with every session there will be plenty of opportunity for questions to presenters and discussion over lunch at the end of the event.
Curate your Career Project Manager
Chelsea Harris
Special Collections and Grainger Museum
curate-your-career@unimelb.edu.au
Curate your Career is a project managed by Special Collections and Grainger Museum, Scholarly Services and is funded through a Chancellery Equity Innovation grant awarded in 2018.
Myles Russell-Cook
Myles Russell-Cook is the Curator of Indigenous Art at the National Gallery of Victoria. Myles is jointly responsible for the National Gallery of Victoria’s collections of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art and the art of Oceania, Pre-hispanic America and Africa. In addition to this Myles, facilitates and supports activities involving the acquisition, display and interpretation, research into and public dissemination of Indigenous Art within the galleries collection. Much of Myles' influence and inspiration comes from his maternal Aboriginal heritage in Western Victoria with connections into Tasmania and the Bass Strait islands. Myles has lectured in Indigenous Studies, Art history and Design Anthropology and is a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne, where his research looks at how the museum absorbs and decolonises its own complex history as both protector and plunderer through access, empowerment, and repatriation.
Ashlee Baldwin
Ashlee Baldwin is Programs and Visitor Services Coordinator at Buxton Contemporary. She has a background in contemporary arts and cultural organisations across a range of public and private contexts. She was previously Studio Coordinator for the visual artist John Young and holds a Graduate Certificate in Art History and Master of Arts and Cultural Management from the University of Melbourne.
Hannah Presley
Hannah Presley is an Aboriginal curator based in Melbourne, she is currently the inaugural curator for the Yalingwa program at Australian Centre for Contemporary Art. Presley was First Nations Curatorial Assistant for My Horizon: Tracey Moffatt at the 57th International Art Exhibition, Venice Biennale 2017. Her practice focuses on the development of creative projects with Aboriginal artists, working closely with artists, learning about the techniques, history and community that informs their making to help guide her curatorial process. Recent curatorial projects include A Lightness of Spirit is the Measure of Happiness, 2018, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne; Every Second Feels Like A Century, (with Debbie Pryor), 2017, West Space, Melbourne.
Eugenia Flynn
Eugenia Flynn is a writer, arts worker and community organiser. She is First Nations Curator at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) and has previously worked at The Social Studio, The Wilin Centre for Indigenous Arts and Cultural Development and Kurruru Youth Performing Arts Inc. She is currently on the Board of Blak Dot Gallery, Ilbijerri Theatre Company and Peril Magazine.
Olivia Meehan
Olivia Meehan received her MPhil and PhD in History of Art from the University of Cambridge, King’s College. Since graduating she has worked in museums and galleries and as lecturer and tutor in the History of Art. Most recently she has been researching effective object based learning models in the museum and gallery environment focusing on reading, language and visual literacy. Olivia is currently Curator of Academic Programs at the Ian Potter Museum of Art at the University of Melbourne.
Jon Buckingham
Jon Buckingham (BA (Hons.), Art History, La Trobe; MA (Art Curatorship) Uni. Melb.) has spent over 15 years in the arts industry, firstly in the commercial sector, and more recently at RMIT Gallery where he is currently the collection coordinator. He manages the development and care of roughly 2000 fine art objects; oversees the commission and the installation of public artworks; and has curated a number of exhibitions, including Sound Bites City (2013), Revelations (2014), Quiddity (2016), and Chaos & Order (2018).
Danielle Measday
Danielle Measday is the Conservator of Natural Sciences for Museums Victoria. Danielle’s love of museum conservation began the first time she saw an X-Ray of a painting. She trained as an objects conservator at the University of Melbourne’s Masters of Cultural Material Conservation program, and then stepped sideways into the sciences and never looked back. Danielle is passionate about natural sciences collections and works across zoology, palaeontology and geology to preserve the collections in good condition for the future.
Feyza Yazar
With a lifelong love of art and books, and degrees in art history and cultural heritage, Feyza feels luck to now lucky to work in both an art museum and a public library! As the Cultural Development Public Programs Officer at Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) her role involves developing, planning and delivering public programs and working with artists, community groups and organisations. She has a keen interest in how galleries and libraries function as civic and social spaces.