PROJECTS

CARRIAGEWORKS NIGHTS

Friends with Strangers curated and produced a series of up late programming spanning performance, music, film, and food.

Read more2023




BLUE WORLD - THE VALERIE TAYLOR ART PRIZE

Friends with Strangers Co Directed this invitational art prize. The Valerie Taylor Art prize is for Oceania's leading and most innovative artists who care about the degradation of our oceans. This art prize presents an opportunity for invited artists to promote a love of the ocean, awareness of the vastness of the problems, and practical solutions to fix them.

Read more2023



THE FRONT ROOM

Friends with Strangers curated and produced a series of 5 artist led events in the heritage bar at The Alex. Including Hannah Bronte, Emily Parsons- Lord, Samuel Hodge and Rosie Deacon
2023




SOUND OUT THE STREETS

Friends with Strangers was the Co- Artistic Director with Sēini 'SistaNative' Taumoepeau of Sound Out the Street. Sound Out the Street was a site-specific relational space activation in Erskineville Village which honoured the transient and itinerant nature of the local Art community of creatives. Sound Out the Street centered storytelling and the call’n’response of conversation as an intervention throughout Erskineville   

Read more2022
- 2023




HOME

In 2020, Sam Watson Wood  co- curated and co-produced 'HOME' a bushfire relief fundraiser with Rae Begley at the National Art School. HOME was a one night only exhibition and art auction event with 67 leading and emerging artist works including Mike Parr, Del Kathryn Barton and Ben Quilty raising almost $250, 000 for the Climate Council, Seed Mob and Firesticks  

Read more2020





LIVEWORKS

Sam Watson Wood  was Executive Producer and then Artistic Advisor at Performance Space from 2020 - 2022. Emerging 40 years ago in response to artists’ articulated desire to explore and investigate new forms of art, Performance Space has consistently identified, nurtured and presented new directions in contemporary practice championing risk, experimentation, and new modes of creative expression.  

Read more2020
- 2022




SYDNEY CONTEMPORARY

Sydney Contemporary - Sydney Contemporary is an international art fair’s with Australia ’s largest and most diverse gathering of local and international galleries. Sam Watson Wood was The Director of Programs and Partnerships and part of the launch team. In 2023 Friends with Strangers curated the performance and talks program of the Fair.


Read more2013
- 2021





ART MONTH

Art Month Sydney is an annual festival that encourages engagement with contemporary art and artists through a culture of gallery visitation, fostering pathways for the next generation of collectors and facilitating access to artists and their stories. Sam Watson Wood  was the Festival Director of Art Month in 2016 and 2017 

Read more2016 
- 2017




CLERKENWELL DESIGN WEEK

Clerkenwell Design Week - Clerkenwell Design Week is an award-winning international design festival that celebrates all disciplines of design in London’s creative hub. The festival houses 4 major exhibition spaces and over 60 design showrooms with an array of installations, workshops, seminars, performances and street activations. Sam Watson Wood was part of the launch team working across communications, audience development and commissions.

Read more2010
- 2012

We would like to acknowledge the Gadigal people, who are the traditional custodians of the land we meet, play and work on. We pay our respects to all Elders past and present. We acknowledge the ongoing and important practice of storytelling and art making from the Gadigal people who have been creating and dreaming since the first sunrise.