Ekphrastic Writing with Melina Payne
Description
Want to develop skills in art analysis, explore a new form of writing, or simply just want a relaxed creative day out?
For our final workshop of 2026, we’ll be heading to the Art Gallery of Western Australia (AGWA) for an ekphrastic writing workshop!
Taking AGWA's Attachment Styles: Modes of Belonging in Modern and Contemporary Art exhibition as a starting point, this ekphrastic writing workshop will invite you to explore the connections that emerge between artworks and your own life.
Facilitated by curator and researcher Melina Payne, you will spend time with an artwork and consider what it reminds you of, as well as where those associations take you. This might mean writing about someone you know, a place you feel attached to, or a memory, feeling or relationship that comes up while looking.
Through slow looking and a series of writing prompts, you will be encouraged to follow these connections into the development of a piece that will have the opportunity to be published on the PCWC website, if you wish.
No previous experience with ekphrastic writing is required.
We welcome participants to join us at the AGWA Cafe after the workshop to chat about their pieces and the exhibition, as well as to celebrate another great year for PCWC!
Please bring a notebook and pens/pencils. No laptops are permitted in the gallery space. Arrive at least 10 minutes prior to the start time to check your belongings in at reception.
Facilitator Bio
Melina Payne
Melina Payne is a curator, researcher and arts worker currently living and working on the unceded Country of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung people in Naarm (Melbourne). She is completing a Master of Arts Management at RMIT University. Her research examines her paternal family’s historical relationship to water on Wardandi Noongar Country and the responsibilities of critically interpreting a settler-family archive from within the family. Melina is currently Associate Co-Curator at RMIT Creative and the 2026 Student Representative on the RMIT University Art Collection Advisory Panel. Her previous roles include Board Member of Australian Walking Artists, Curator and Exhibitions Manager at Corban Estate Arts Centre, Executive Director at Inverlochy Art School, and Managing Director and Co-Chair of the artist-run initiative MEANWHILE. Melina comes to writing through curatorial practice, having spent more than seven years working closely with artists and artworks across Aotearoa and Australia. Her writing often begins with an encounter with an artwork and the personal connections that emerge from it. She is particularly interested in how art can connect us with memories and our relationships to people and place.
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