Kimberley Moulton

Senior Curator South Eastern Aboriginal Collections

About me

Contact me: Contact me through our enquiries team

I am a proud Yorta Yorta woman, curator and writer and Senior Curator South Eastern Aboriginal Collections at Museums Victoria. I have worked in curatorial roles at Melbourne Museum for over ten years (Bunjilaka Project Officer and Curator 2008-2015) and have curated over sixteen exhibitions with the Victorian Koorie Community at Museums Victoria. I was an assistant curator for the permanent First Peoples Exhibition at Melbourne Museum from 2009-2013. In 2018 I was the lead curator for the exhibition Mandela: My Life at Melbourne Museum, in partnership with the Nelson Mandela Foundation and International Exhibition & Conference Group Pty Ltd (IEC Group Pty Ltd).

In my practice I work with knowledges, histories and futures at the intersection of historical collections and contemporary art and making. I am also interested in anti-colonial curatorial methodology and First Nations representation and access in museums and galleries. In my work at Museums Victoria I am the curator of and care for the South Eastern Australian First Peoples Collections (New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and Victoria), which holds over 4,000 historical and contemporary objects from communities. I also work closely with the Ethnohistory Collection, which includes photographs and archives. I am focused on continuing to build community access and relationships with the collections and connecting contemporary First Peoples artists and makers with the collections across multidisciplinary areas to reframe collections and create new dialogues with object and community. I am interested in extending the paradigm of what a museum can and should be from a First Peoples perspective, with an acquisition focus on addressing the gaps in the First Peoples Collections through contemporary collecting and living makers, and also continuing various research projects on the existing nineteenth and early twentieth century material held in the custodianship of Museums Victoria.

In my work at Museums Victoria and independently I am passionate about supporting First Peoples cultures from Australia and the world, and their agency within cultural institutions. As part of my research over the last ten years I have critically engaged with collections, archives and contemporary art spaces across Australia, Europe, North America and the United Kingdom. My research and area of interest also considers what it means historically and for the future of cultural materials in institutions, connecting people to collections, and the role contemporary art and artists have in and out of museums and galleries.

I have written extensively for art and museum publications nationally and internationally and held research, curatorial and writing fellowships across Europe, North America, South Asia and the United Kingdom. Alongside my museum practice I have independently curated shows in various art museums across Australia and the United States of America.

Qualifications

Bachelor of Arts, Monash University, 2004-2007

Key publications

Moulton K, with McFadzean. M, Dale-Hallett. L, Mauri. T Inside out/outside in: Museums and communities activating change. Museum Activism, Edited by Robert R. Janes, Richard Sandell, Routledge Publishing. 2019.

Moulton. K. I Can Still Hear Them Calling, Echoes of My Ancestors’ Sovereign Words. Indigenous Art, Curation and Criticism 2018. Office for Contemporary Art, Norway.

Moulton, K and Garneau, D. Transits and Returns. Published Vancouver Art Gallery, Canada. 2019.

Moulton, K. Mother Tongue. Becoming Our Future Global Indigenous Curatorial Practice. By Julie Nagam (Author, Editor), Carly Lane (Editor), Megan Tamati-Quennell (Editor), ARP Books (26 May 2020).

Projects and events

I have participated in various leadership programs and curatorial and writing residencies through National Gallery of Australia, Australia Council for the Arts and Office for the Contemporary Arts Norway. In 2010 I was selected as one of ten for the inaugural Wesfarmers Indigenous Leadership Award, an intensive leadership program for Indigenous people within the arts with National Gallery of Australia. In 2011 I was invited back as mentor for the program.

In 2013 I was the Victorian recipient of the ACCELERATE Award, which was a British Council award for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people working in the creative industries. ACCELERATE awarded outstanding arts workers and artists a professional development trip to the UK and specialist leadership training. During this program I spent time at Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Oxford University Pitt-Rivers Museum, British Museum, Tate Liverpool, Museum of Transatlantic Slavery, Serpentine Gallery London and Saffron Walden Museum researching the role of contemporary art and artists within these institutions and the collections. I also researched South Eastern Australian Aboriginal Cultural Material, and curatorial and collection manager relationships with collections.

In 2015 I was selected as the inaugural National Gallery of Australia Wesfarmers Indigenous International Curatorial Fellow and held a two month residency at the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Museum in Charlottesville, VA where I curated an exhibition on the work of Djambawa Marawili titled where the water moves, where it rests.

In 2016 I was invited as part of the Australia Council for the Arts Indigenous Curatorial Delegation to the United States of America for an intensive at Harvard University and a networking tour of major galleries and museums across Washington D.C. and Kluge-Ruhe Art Museum. Following this, I conducted a research trip in NYC on nineteenth century cultural material at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Natural History Museum and Brooklyn Art Museum.

In 2017 I was selected as a Victorian representative, First Nations Curator Program for Tracey Moffatt, at the Venice Biennale. Following on from the curatorial program I conducted a three-week research field study on South Eastern Aboriginal Cultural Material at Pigornini Museum Rome, National Museum of Scotland, Kelvingrove Museum Scotland, British Museum and Museum of Ethnography Berlin.

In November 2017 I was invited as a delegate of the Australia Council for the Arts International Arts Strategy First Nations Curatorial Exchange Program in Canada, which connected First Nations curators from Canada, New Zealand, Norway and Australia and supported a collections and museums and galleries tour in Winnipeg, Vancouver and Whistler.

In 2018 I was invited to participate in the Indigenous Critical Writing Ensemble for Australia to the Dhaka Arts Summit, Bangladesh in which curators and artists presented their work with the outcome being a chapter in the book Sovereign Words: Indigenous Art, Curation and Criticism, with the Office for Contemporary Art Norway, Art Space Sydney and the Australia Council for the Arts. I was invited to Norway in 2018 to launch the book with several co-writers, which included a research and networking trip across Sapmi country, meeting artists and scholars.

Current research

Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery Jane Wilson Bursary Research Fellow: Analysis of Tasmanian Historical Material at Museums Victoria and Victorian Material at Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery – for Collections Online and community access.
Contemporary acquisitions and ongoing research for MV collections.
De-colonising collections – reframing the way we interpret historic collections across disciplines.
Museums and access – developing methodology for First Peoples access to collections.
Co-Editor for Artlink edition 40.2 Indigenous, 2020.

Recent awards

2019 Power Institute and Copyright Limited Indigenous Art Writing Award

Past judging roles

2015 Art Gallery of Western Australia National Indigenous Art Awards
2016 Telstra National Indigenous Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards
2016 National Indigenous Ceramic Art Awards, Shepparton Art Museum

Committees

Australian Museum and Art Gallery Association, Indigenous Advisory Board
Barphirdila Foundation, Member of the Board
Shepparton Art Museum, Deputy Chair, Company Directors