Curator
Benjamin Sebastian (b. 1980, AUS/GB) is a transdisciplinary artist-curator based between London (UK) and Gimuy/Cairns (AUS). Their practice is shaped through an embodied, intersectional approach informed by their lived experience as a British settler-Australian, neurodivergent/disabled, and nonbinary/queer person.
Sebastian approaches curating and art-making as interconnected forms of practice-based research, treating both as sites for knowledge production, cultural intervention, and social transformation. Their curatorial work operates not simply as exhibition-making, but as a critical extension of their studio practice: framing discourse, amplifying underrepresented voices (including their own), and building alternative infrastructures of care, visibility, and resistance. Their curatorial projects centre artists whose work challenges dominant cultural narratives, with a particular focus on neurodivergent, queer, global majority, and womxn practitioners.
Artistically, Sebastian works within the material histories of performance, installation, textiles, collage, new media, and ritual practice, employing processes of speculative world-building and reworlding as methods for reimagining embodiment, memory, and cultural futurity. Situated within contemporary British and Australian art, alongside international performance art, their research-led practice is underpinned by a commitment to intersectionality as both a critical framework and a lived reality.
Sebastian has exhibited and performed extensively across international contexts, with presentations at institutions and festivals including the Institute of Contemporary Arts (UK), Venice International Performance Art Week (IT), Grace Exhibition Space (USA), Turner Contemporary (UK), Hayward Gallery (UK), Herbert Read Gallery (UK), Spider Festival (SI), Meno Parkas Galerija (LT), Freud Museum (UK), Body and Freedom Festival (CH), FUTURERITUAL (UK), and CT20 (UK).
Their work is held in public and private collections and has been supported through grants and awards from Arts Council England, the British Council, Creative Folkestone, and the Roger De Haan Charitable Trust. Previously, Sebastian co-founded and directed the artist-led initiatives ]performance s p a c e [ (2011–2026) and VSSL Studio (2020–2026), both of which became significant platforms for experimental performance and queer artistic practices in the UK.
They hold a BA (Hons) Fine Art (First Class) from the University of Lincoln and an MA Curating Art and Public Programmes (Distinction) from London South Bank University in partnership with Whitechapel Gallery. Their work bridges embodied praxis and critical inquiry, positioning visual art as a sovereign site for emancipatory knowledge production and curating as a method for shaping new cultural imaginaries.