Public Programming and Audience Engagement
Kate has managed and curated public facing programs for the museum and cultural sector for a decade. As Development Director in Vancouver she managed public programs for sponsored projects, including exhibition launches and curated talks or workshops, and as Head of Audience Engagement for the Victorian Archives Centre she introduced a co-curatorial collaborative model to increase visibility of public programs and engage with community networks.
Public Programming Events: Kate has been responsible for developing a sustainable public programming model for the Victorian Archives Centre since 2016 which engages the public in stories of their archival history while also promoting collections use. The team work with a co-collaboration model, as well as stand alone events. The Centre is an official partner of city wide festivals such as Open House, Melbourne Writer's Festival, International Women's Day, Design Week and Rare Book Week etc. Each program is curated by her or her staff and promotes collection items which complement the event's theme. The model draws attention to the relevance and value of the collection to contemporary discourse, while attracting a more diverse audience. In addition she encourages engagement with the collection through creative writing workshops and music performances inspired by the collection. She is co-designing an artist-in- residency program to begin in 2023.
Co-Curation VAC Gallery Street Photography Gallery: Once a year the VAC Gallery collaborates with the Melbourne street photographic network to produce an exhibition which responds to different narrative themes. The exhibition themes range from a celebration of Melbourne sub cultures, to street fashion or the pandemic. One wall exhibits a display of selected archival photographs offering historic examples, carefully curated to exemplify their context, and the opposite wall exhibits a series of street photographs of contemporary Melbourne people and places. The curation model allows for the past and present to be exhibited at the same time triggering conversations on social change and demographic shifts. All exhibitions are then placed online.
University Outreach Program: In efforts to increase use of Victoria's archival collection Kate completed a market research study of the university market and designed an outreach strategy in 2018 to engage university students in primary records research. The result has led to a number of disciplines (history, design, archaeology and architecture) developing partnerships with the centre. The students receive on-site training specific to their studies, a tour of the collection and ongoing support. In addition internal strategies factor in the needs of the tertiary sector, while teachers utilize training videos and incorporate archival research into assignment work. The program continues to attract new student and academic partnerships.
The Road: is a 15 minute video art work which offers the visitor an immersive (projected) experience. The piece explores visually and musically the mental unraveling one experiences moving from urban landscapes into the expansiveness of ancient Australian deserts. It was exhibited in Darwin at the Untitled Gallery and showcased at the 2022 Desert Arts Festival. The project was produced during the first year of the COVID-19 Pandemic lockdown. This is a collaborative work using footage shot by Shez Cairney, edited by Trevor Almeida, curated by Shez Cairney & Kate Follington, Original Music by Jody Galvin, Mung Balding and Rob McPherson (Garagee)
Creative In Residency Program. Kate designed the first Creative in Residency Program for Public Record Office Victoria in 2023 and 2024. The program collaborates with artists who look critically at public collections and produce works inspired by collection items. The inaugural exhibition in the VAC Gallery supported Tahlia Palmer, a multi media artist, to produce sound and projected imagery to hold a mirror to the impact of colonisation on Victorian waterways and Country. The program design considered copyright, record digitisation, payment, installation and artist research support. (Image of artist Tahlia Palmer sound recording Lake Hume)