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 the past. In 2012, she completed her postgraduate Master of Curatorial and Museum Studies at Adelaide University. Prior to this, she graduated with a Bachelor of Visual Art (Honours), specialising in History and Theory at UniSA. Major curatorial pursuits include Living Memory at Floating Goose Studios Inc., 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 about the art and motherhood. 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, then Curator at City of Adelaide (2018-23), and since 2023 as Exhibitions & Collections Curator running Artspace at Adelaide Festival Centre. Career highlights include co-curating Black Women BACK in Focus with Jayda Wilson and 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.