Christiane Statham is a curator, project manager, cultural researcher and writer. She lives and works on Gadigal, Wangal and Dharug land, which was never ceded. She acknowledges Elders past and present, and recognises Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ deep and continuing connection to this Country.
Christiane’s curatorial practice has a particular focus on public space and the environment, and she is dedicated to expanding the potential of public art through collaborative projects with artists, communities, scientists, activists, academics, architects and design professionals. She believes in the potential for art and artists to effect positive social and environmental change, and aims to facilitate this through her work. She brings her passion for contemporary art to all of her projects, along with strong organisational and interpersonal skills, a talent for listening, a commitment to equity and inclusion in public discourse, and a keen ability to identify and amplify the heart and soul of any art project.
Christiane works as a:
public art project manager
public art consultant
creative producer
strategy writer
cultural researcher
EXPERIENCE
Christiane has worked in diverse areas of the arts and culture sectors across Australia, Central Asia and Europe. She has worked in artist-run spaces in Germany and the Netherlands, and commercial galleries in London's West End, has managed private art collections and contributed her organisational and management skills to festivals, performance art events and public art installations in Australia, England and Wales. She's also worked at London publishing house Thames & Hudson and the Arts Council of Mongolia in Ulaanbaatar, and with international artists including Jenny Holzer, Richard Wilson and Anne Bean.
She has a Bachelor of Art Theory from the College of Fine Arts at the University of New South Wales in Sydney and the Hogeschool voor de Kunsten in Utrecht, the Netherlands. She also has a Master of Curating and Cultural Leadership degree from the University of New South Wales, and is currently a PHD candidate at the Institute for Culture and Society at Western Sydney University. Her research focuses on the connections between environmental and cultural infrastructures.
She has curated exhibitions of sculpture, video, performance, sound, works on paper and photography. She was co-curator of SafARI 2014 in Sydney and curator of Sculpture in the Vineyards in the Hunter Valley 2014 and 2015. She also curated the GreenWay Art Prize in Sydney’s Inner West from 2014-2016.
In 2015, with the support of the Copyright Agency Career Fund, the Ian Potter Cultural Trust and NAVA, she undertook a residency with Acme in London. This residency grew from an ongoing independent research project into contemporary public art commissioning by museums and other organisations, and involved mentorships with curators at the Hayward Gallery, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Freud Museum and Artangel, along with the City Design Group at Bristol City Council. She undertook curatorial research for the Pop to Popism exhibition at the Art Gallery of NSW and managed events and installations at the 19th International Symposium on Electronic Art in Sydney.
In 2016, she managed a large public art project by Australian artists Jennifer Turpin and Michaelie Crawford called Operation Crayweed: Art-Work-Site - a cross-disciplinary art-science collaboration, highlighting seaweed restoration in Sydney's coastal waters. From 2016-2018, she worked with Futurecity, developing cultural and public art strategies for urban renewal projects across Australia and the UK.
In 2018, she co-founded with Jennifer Turpin and Michaelie Crawford a consultancy called Studio TCS, where she managed public art projects, researched and wrote cultural and public art strategies, and managed the studio’s day-to-day business operations. From 2020 - 2024, Christiane worked as the Public Art Coordinator at Northern Beaches Council, where she delivered four major public art commissions on the Northern Beaches Coast Walk, a 36km walkway between Manly and Palm Beach, and other public and street art projects around the LGA.