MPavilion  

Kate Rhodes is curator at RMIT Design Hub Gallery which exists to ask questions about design’s role in the world today. Through exhibitions, conversations, performances and publications, we explore the process of design—making space to imagine, test and risk new ideas together.

Kate has worked on art, craft, design and architecture exhibitions, workshops and creative activities both in Australia and internationally. She is the co-creator of several craft and design audio projects including the Audio Design Museum, the Sound of Buildings and Melbourne Unbuilt. Kate was creative director of the State of Design Festival, and curator of its Design for Everyone program. She has held the position of curator at the Australian Centre for Design, Sydney; Craft Victoria and the National Design Centre in Melbourne and was assistant curator of photography and contemporary art at the National Gallery of Victoria for five years.

As editor of architecture and design magazine Artichoke, Kate founded Artichoke Night School—a forum for taking design ideas in print into a live discussion. She completed a Masters of Art Curatorship at the University of Melbourne in 2002, and a Masters of Design Research in RMIT’s Faculty of Architecture and Urban Design in 2010, where she has also taught. Kate has been recognised as part of the Design Honours Program at the Australian Centre for Design. In 2019 she co-edited the book An Unreliable Guide to Jewellery by Lisa Walker with Nella Themelios.

Kate is also currently undertaking a PhD with the MADA Critical Practices Research Laboratory, Monash University.