Greater Melbourne Area
Fleur Watson (PhD) is an Associate Professor, School of Architecture & Design, RMIT University and the founding director of collaborative curatorial practice Something Together. Fleur's practice is focused on research, exhibitions and programs that ask questions of architecture and design’s role in the world today and its agency in responding to the issues that shape contemporary life. She is the author of The New Curator: Exhibiting Architecture & Design (Routledge) and the series editor of Editions: Australian Architectural Monographs (Thames & Hudson). Fleur is a Board member for the not-for-profit organisation Open House Melbourne and was formerly OHM's Executive Director and Chief Curator from 2020-2022. From 2012–2020, Fleur was Curator and Industry Fellow at RMIT Design Hub Gallery where she co-directed an ambitious exhibition program centred on design experimentation, process and research. Fleur has held senior curatorial roles in Australia and internationally including as founding executive curator for the Lyon Housemuseum Galleries (2018/2019); architecture curator for the National Gallery of Victoria’s Melbourne Now (2013/2014) and curator (architecture) for the European Capital of Culture (Maribor, Slovenia, 2012). Fleur has curated design festival programs including Unlimited: Design for the Asia Pacific (2010) and State of Design Festival (2007–2009) and co-founded independent gallery Pin-up Project Space (2010–2014). She is also a former editor of Monument magazine (2001–2007).
Fleur Watson (PhD) was formerly the Executive Director and Chief Curator for Open House Melbourne (2020-2022) before joining the OHM Board in 2023. Open House Melbourne is an independent architecture organisation that fosters public appreciation for good design within the built environment and public engagement in the future of our cities. Open House Melbourne is committed to exploring the pressing issues in making better cities and regional centres in which all Australians can live, work and gather together.
Fleur Watson (PhD) is an Associate Professor, School of Architecture & Design, RMIT University and the founding director of collaborative curatorial practice Something Together. Fleur's practice is focused on research, exhibitions and programs that ask questions of architecture and design’s role in the world today and its agency in responding to the issues that shape contemporary life. She is the author of The New Curator: Exhibiting Architecture & Design (Routledge, 2021) and the series editor of Editions: Australian Architecture Monographs (Thames & Hudson, 2021 – ongoing).
Fleur Watson was formerly Curator at RMIT Design Hub – a gallery space dedicated to cross-disciplinary design research and experimentation. Additionally, she was an Industry Fellow in the School of Architecture & Design, RMIT University. For Design Hub, Fleur co-curated a diverse range of exhibitions for Design Hub including Workaround: Design, Women, Action; Occupied; David Thomas: Colouring Impermanence; High Risk Dressing: Critical Practice; Las Vegas Studio, Brook Andrew : De Anima, The Future Is Here (in collaboration with London's Design Museum), 100 Chairs in 100 Days: Martino Gamper. In 2013, Fleur was an invited architecture and design curator for the National Gallery of Victoria's Melbourne Now exhibition and co-produced the installation Sampling The City. Fleur is the editor of the Edmond & Corrigan monograph Cities of Hope: Remembered/Rehearsed and, most recently, co-edited an issue of Architectural Design UK (May/June 2015) with RMIT University's Innovation Professor of Architecture Leon van Schaik AO. In 2015, Fleur completed a practice-based PhD at RMIT University entitled "The Agency of Encounter: Performative curatorial practice for architecture and design".
As the founding Executive Curator for the Housemuseum Galleries – a new public space for contemporary art and design in Melbourne – Fleur worked closely with the Lyon Foundation and the advisory group to conceptualise and manage the launch strategy for the new Galleries including the co-curation of the inaugural exhibition ENTER featuring sixteen new creative commissions. Additionally, Fleur provided consultancy curatorial services during the pre-launch period for the new Foundation.
Pin-up Project Space (2010-2014) was an independent curatorial initiative and experimental project space in Collingwood which provided a cultural space for making, testing and demonstrating how architecture, design and cultural knowledge might contribute to our ability to respond to the problems of our collective future. The temporal ‘gallery’ was sited within a collective warehouse shared with other creative practitioners and, as a result, the nature of the space drove an imperative for flexible, temporal, performative curated content including a series of intensive 'residencies' with practitioners including John Tarry, Studio Bird with BalletLab and Lucy McRae amongst others.