The Lyon Foundation has announced the appointment of former editor of Monument magazine and curator at RMIT Design Hub, Fleur Watson, as the executive curator of its new public museum, the Lyon Housemuseum Galleries.

Offering a new platform for works of contemporary art, architecture and design, the new Housemuseum Galleries, due to open early 2019, will provide a series of spaces for international and local exhibitions and events, where new ways of presenting and experiencing art will be explored.

In announcing the appointment, Corbett Lyon, chair of the Foundation says: “Fleur Watson will bring an enormous depth of creative experience to our new enterprise. She is one of Australia’s most respected curators with an outlook that is multidisciplinary, collaborative and is shaped by an engagement with contemporary culture. Her background as a design editor and author further underwrites her valuable contribution to Australia’s creative culture”.

Watson has co-curated a diverse range of exhibitions for Design Hub and has also curated the cultural programs for the State of Design Festival (2008/2009), Unlimited: Designing for the Asia Pacific (2010) and is a co-founder of Pin-up Architecture & Design Project Space (2011-2014).

Fleur adds: “The Foundation’s new building – the Housemuseum Galleries – is an ambitious cultural contribution for Melbourne and will build on the success of the original Lyon Housemuseum. The Galleries will be a place to encounter progressive ideas as an open and generous platform for active exchange. We are committed to commissioning and presenting new creative works across contemporary art, architecture and design, drawing on the Foundation’s extensive collection and collaborating with like-minded partners, both locally and internationally.”

Fleur is currently completing a new publication on curating architecture and design for London-based publisher Routledge, due for release in early 2019.

Photography by Tobias Titz