Meet our next Artistic Director

The Performance Space Board is delighted to announce the appointment of our next Artistic Director, Kate Britton.

Kate will commence in the role from January 2024, at the end of the one year guest artistic directorship by Daniel Mudie Cunningham and Rosie Dennis in 2023. Kate comes to this role after an extensive career in the Arts and a longstanding relationship with Performance Space as an audience member, colleague, festival producer and currently working as the Acting Head of Programming. As Artistic Director, Kate will lead Performance Space in the delivery of an expanded annual artistic development program, including The Queer Development Program and the Experimental Choreographic Residency, and their well known Liveworks Festival.

Janine Collins, Chair of Performance Space says “Kate’s appointment marks the next stage of our evolution as Australia’s leading experimental arts organisation in this, our 40th year. We’re looking forward to supporting and sharing Kate’s fresh artistic vision for the benefit of creatives and audiences in 2024."

Kate is a curator and arts manager with more than 10 years experience in festivals, experimental and interdisciplinary performance, and visual and public art. Before returning to Performance Space, she developed, curated and produced Newcastle’s inaugural city-wide arts festival New Annual, which launched in early 2021 to sold-out crowds and local acclaim. She has held Artistic and Festival Director positions with Art Month Sydney and This is Not Art Festival, and curatorial, programming, and producing roles with Sydney Opera House, Campbelltown Arts Centre, FBi Radio, Underbelly Arts, UNSW, and Kaldor Public Art Projects. Kate is a widely published arts writer, consultant, and has curated exhibitions and public artworks around Australia. From 2014 - 15 she was a director at Firstdraft Gallery, working with her co-directors to move the gallery to its new premises in Woolloomooloo and launching a revitalised program. She has a PhD in aesthetics and participatory art, drawing on her work alongside a team of researchers on a major community filmmaking project with UTS and the University of Goroka in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. She lives and works on unceded Gadigal land.

Performance Space is using 2023 to reflect on the 40 years that have passed and our incredible legacy with an exciting anniversary program. We look forward to the future of PSpace programming with Kate’s brilliant creative eye at the helm.

Vanessa Lloyd, CEO notes “It is with much joy that I welcome my new co-pilot, Kate Britton as Artistic Director of Performance Space from 2024”.