The Wheeler Centre

The Wheeler Centre is the centrepiece of Victoria’s City of Literature initiative, a hub and home for writers and thinkers. As Head of Programming, I was responsible for developing three innovative programmes of conversations, interviews, lectures, debates and discussions in 2014, themed as Disagree, Discuss and Disrupt.

These programmes featured 279 unique events attended by over 48 000 people throughout 2014 - the largest in the centre's history and an increase of 23% in 12 months. The program expanded on the centre's literary base by including for the first time live art works, a participatory citizen's forum, a performance party, a cabaret show and theatre performance.

My curatorial investigations included contemporary artistic practice, sex, gender and sexuality, and the role of young people as agents for change through the creation of nine new series including Art & Us, Words & Music, Let's Talk About Sex, Points of View, Men Overboard, Middlesex Queer Program, Sammy J's Democratic Party, Wheeler Kids and Now Read This.

High profile speakers included David Walsh, Julia Gillard, Yotam Ottolenghi, Alain de Botton, Jennifer Saunders, Alison Bechdel, Bob Brown, Malcolm Fraser, Laura Bates and Annabel Crabb with all events broadcast at either wheelercentre.com or on ABC.

Some of my favourite events can be viewed online, including Epic Fail and Children on Death, as well as 20 Questions, The Show of the Year, Ignoramus Anonymous, Melbourne Citizen's Forum, Woolf and Wilde (read Maxine Beneba Clarke's interpretation for The Saturday Paper) and the international climate change project Weather Stations.

Click below to see each of my three programs in full.