About

Madeleine Collie curates public moments, exhibitions and exchanges, with a commitment to curatorial encounters in the public realm. Her recent research explores the social worlds that emerge in relations with plants.

She founded the Food Art Research Network in 2020, she is co-editor of the anthology Earth Ethics: Art Institutions and Regenerative Practices with  Megan Cope, Charlotte Day  and Melissa Ratliff (MUMA and Monash University Publishing, 2025). She is guest curator at Kin Museum, Sápmi with Maria Lind. With recently awarded Creative Australia funding and support from Bioart Society she established a multi-year research correspondence Follow the Plants, in a dialogue with curator Yvonne Billimore and eighteen artists which explores how plants make worlds.

Previously she led The Ash Project (2016-2019) a transdisciplinary public art collaboration to memorialise the death of a species of tree, with Kent Downs, Whitstable Biennale, Forest Research and Turner Contemporary. Other exhibitions include only ever almost there at Royal Pump House Museum and Gallery (2018), Daylighting, Welcome Collection, (2018), The Ash Archive, galleries across regional UK (2017-18), Exercises in Happiness at Arts House & Melbourne International Art Festival, Melbourne, Substation Gallery Singapore, Priory Meadows, UK, (2006-08), Strangers and Intimacy at Centre for Contemporary Art, Glasgow, and West Space, Melbourne (2004-5).  She has produced expanded curatorial projects with Liquid Architecture & CAST (Aus), Whitworth Museum, Common Ground, Custom Food Lab, Centre for Biocultural Diversity, Live Art Development Agency (UK), Connexiones Improbables (Spain), Anti Festival (Finland), and South Projects (Indonesia). She is part of the international curatorial collective Study Pattern, she cofounded Custom Food Lab (2018-21), Panther (2004-10), and Mimic Mass with Nigel Brown (2002-08).

She has worked at Monash as a Guest Lecturer and Teaching Associate since 2020 and has held academic research and teaching positions at RMIT, Melbourne, UNSW, Sydney and NTU, Singapore. She was recently awarded her PhD in Art History and Theory / Curatorial Practice at Monash University. She holds a Masters in Curatorial / Knowledge from Goldsmiths College London. She regularly lectures, mentors and leads workshops on contemporary art, politics and curatorial practice in international contexts. Madeleine is currently living and working between the unceded lands of the Kulin Nations in Melbourne, and Folkestone in the UK.