Melina Payne is a curator and arts manager living in Naarm, Australia.

Her career has focused on supporting early-career contemporary artists, including her roles as Co-Chair and Managing Director at MEANWHILE, Executive Director at Inverlochy Art School, and Curator at Homestead Galleries, located at Corban Estate Arts Centre.

Deeply engaged in community-driven and post-representational curatorial practice, Melina’s work centres on co-producing conceptually driven exhibitions that position art as a site for experimentation, critique, communication, playfulness, and hope. Melina strives to balance urgency with thoughtful care while exploring how galleries can function as public platforms for transversal learning, fostering collective futures, and celebrating diverse ways of living together.

Committed to expanding alternative knowledge systems and interdisciplinary thought, Melina collaborates with artists, scholars, activists, and community groups to interrogate the social and cultural dimensions of art. By foregrounding overlooked histories, she aims to inspire audiences to engage with art’s ability to reflect, interpret, and reimagine the world around us.