MICHAEL GENTLE

Michael is a Noongar man with ancestral ties to Minang Boodja who recently moved to Melbourne from Perth. Passionate about contemporary Australian Aboriginal art and theatre, Michael has worked in the gallery and arts education sectors and is excited to pursue curation moving forward. Currently studying Art History and English and Theatre Studies at the University of Melbourne, he hopes to celebrate his Indigenous background through arts writing, curation and performance.

Carla abate

Carla Abate is an emerging art writer and curator based in Narrm (Melbourne, Australia). She is currently studying Art History at The University of Melbourne, and is particularly interested in using archiving, curation and arts programming as a means of artistic experimentation and innovation. Her practise attempts to address issues of accessibility, and of lesser-known histories involving women and non-binary people, local communities and cultural material.

Isabella Chow

Isabella holds a Bachelor of Environments (Architecture) from The University of Melbourne and is currently undertaking her Masters of Urban and Cultural Heritage. Her interests lies at the intersection of Architecture, Conservation and Sustainability. Isabella is intrigued by the potential to redefine the contemporary understanding of waste through re-use and preservation.

CELINE SAOUD

Celine Saoud is a second-generation Lebanese-Australian writer, arts worker and emerging curator based in Naarm. Her practice is centred around resituating cultural and familial traditions within a modern framework, particularly through a feminist lens.

Lucy Heath

Lucy is an architecture student looking to learn from the technical and aesthetic richness of the world’s architectural traditions to discover how today’s built environment can achieve environmental and social sustainability. She believes that traditional architectures reveal the history of human thought and embodied experience, and importantly, reflect the aspirations ordinary people had for a beautiful, humane world. Through dialogue with fellow students and the public, Lucy hopes to explore a shared vision for flourishing Australian places. She recognizes that these conversations necessarily need to include the experiences of everyone – including the often-overlooked but hard-won, invaluable wisdom of generations past.

SOPHIE WEI

Originally from Wellington New Zealand, Sophie has been studying architecture in Melbourne since 2021. she has a particular interest in public spaces and accessibility, and is inspired by projects that consider the needs of the young or the elderly. she believes that architecture should always have a human focus

Ayomi Olasoji

Driven by a personal passion centered on how design can be democratised to cultivate inclusivity, Ayomi is an emerging architectural writer and built environment professional who is currently completing a Master of Architecture at Monash University.

She seeks to assess ways in which citizens can be reframed as practitioner to cultivate responsive visions of the public spaces that they occupy. This line of thinking underlines her creative practice, which includes looking to further understand how multidisciplinary approaches and user-directed initiatives can positively inform design approaches within the scheme of the built environment and beyond.

By participating in M_Curators, Ayomi hopes to extend the conversation around what future design practice could look like and how this may inform cross-collaborative place making strategies.

ELIJAH EASTLEY

Elijah Eastley is queer, disabled person working in a transdisciplinary art space. Inspired by emerging technologies, and Informed by lived experience, they focus on provocative themes of identity, intersectionality and activism.

Their work has previously featured video game design, performance art and installation design. They are interested in smooshing as many disciplines as possible into one incredible piece of work, and will do so however they can.

They also have an academic background in law, politics, and philosophy, which contributes to their unenviable habit of thinking too much about everything. Elijah will be making weird and confusing conceptual art till they manage to kick that habit, so probably forever.

LUCY WALKER COX

Lucy Walker-Cox is a Scottish/Australian knitwear designer. Inspired by her heritage and the traditional crafts found in the North of Scotland, her aim is to share these crafts and explore how they can be innovated with to ensure that they remain relevant far into the future. Within her practice, she also seeks to celebrate the techniques and processes that have historically been dismissed as “womens’ work” and bring them to the forefront.

TOM VILAR

Tom is a Portuguese-Australian community worker who is keenly interested in the power of creative expression in bringing people together and overcoming differences. He holds a Bachelor of Marketing and Management from The University of Melbourne and has also worked in advertising, the arts and in the not-for-profit sector. Through MCurators, he hopes to focus on fostering community engagement by encouraging creativity, connection and well-being through the arts.