The City of Melville engaged Artify as Public Art Consultant for its new Library and Cultural Centre, a landmark cultural infrastructure project set to become the civic and cultural heart of the Melville City Centre. Bringing together library, museum, exhibition and community spaces within an activated precinct and outdoor piazza, the Centre is a key catalyst within the wider Melville City Centre Structure Plan, sited near the Garden City precinct and the natural landscape of Yagan Mia Wireless Hill.

Artify prepared the Public Art Strategy that guides the commissioning and integration of artworks across the Centre and its surrounding public spaces. Our role spans the curatorial vision, artist procurement and engagement, and specialist advice through design and delivery, establishing a cohesive program that enhances the precinct's identity as a cultural destination and reflects the stories and diversity of the community.

At the heart of the work is a curatorial framework that imagines the Centre as a living cultural heart, a place where knowledge, stories and community life converge. Three themes hold the artworks together. Curiosity and Discovery celebrates the spark of learning and the many forms knowledge can take, from Whadjuk Noongar cultural knowledge to the everyday learning that happens when people gather. Convergence and Exchange draws on the long tradition of gathering on Country to share knowledge and story, welcoming the many communities the precinct brings together. Journeys and Connections responds to the site's place at a crossroads within the city centre, exploring the physical, cultural and ecological journeys that move through it.

The Strategy maps a layered program of opportunities across the precinct rather than relying on standalone sculpture alone. These range from a suspended sculptural work rising through the central stair void, envisioned for a Whadjuk Noongar artist, to integrated artworks embedded in the children's and youth spaces, a series of discovery-scale sculptures woven through the landscape, and an integrated ground-plane storytelling work inviting Western Australian writers and poets to unfold a narrative across the site. Each opportunity is matched to the procurement pathway best suited to it, from open Expression of Interest to limited competition and direct engagement, with the landscape commission delivered alongside an Artist-in-Residence program drawing on the City's residency support.

The Centre sits on Whadjuk Noongar boodja, part of the Beeliar landscape of the Swan Coastal Plain, and respectful engagement with Noongar people and knowledge runs through the Strategy, with cultural endorsement provided through the Aboriginal Reference Panel where Noongar themes are present.