POLLY DANCE is a curator, arts writer and artist based in Adelaide, Australia on the unceded land of the Kaurna people. Her practice is concerned with modes of communication, curation and materiality. She has an ongoing curiosity in archival and local history research, and has undertaken a number of creative ventures to retell the stories of our past. In 2012 she graduated from the University of Adelaide with Masters in Curatorial and Museum Studies. Prior to this, she completed a Bachelor of Visual Art (Honours), specialising in History and Theory at UniSA. Major curatorial pursuits include PAINTFACE presented by Constance ARI, The Writing Project at FELTspace and CACSA@70 Archives: Gathered Histories at the former Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia (CACSA) to celebrate the centre’s 70th anniversary. Dance has been published in Real Time, Artlink, dB Magazine as an arts review writer, Vitamin – The Redux, PLATFORM: Youth Arts & Culture Magazine and Point Blank as Editor. In 2015 she had her first solo exhibition called What is in a name? at Archive_ ARI, Sydney. In 2017, she joined forces with Adelaide artist Heidi Kenyon to create the Fight for Self Collective, facilitating public forums and artwork together. She has worked in numerous gallery environments, as Education Officer of CACSA, Co-Director at FELTspace (2011-13), Director of Constance ARI (2013-14), Youth Arts Officer at City of Hobart (2013-14), 2015 Emerging Curator at City of Adelaide and then from 2018-23 Curator at City of Adelaide. A career highlight was seeing history made when prominent Ngarrindjeri/ Boandik Elder, Aunty Shirley Peisley AM was honoured as the first First Nations person represented in the portraiture on the walls of the Council Chamber as part of Honouring Women in Leadership project. Since April 2023, Dance has had the joy of curating the Children’s Artspace at the Adelaide Festival Centre where she works with South Australian artists to make art with, for and by young people.