Ben Kolaitis (he/him)

Benjamin Kolaitis has spent much of his life and career developing community spaces and community-led programs that support connection, creativity, learning, and participation. His early work focused on fostering collaborative practice between artists, designers, scientists, technologists, and local communities, alongside establishing publicly accessible makerspaces and community labs that provide free access to creative technologies including 3D printers, laser cutters, recording studios, and electronics workshops.

Currently working at City of Melbourne Libraries, Benjamin supports teams to design and deliver community-led programs that strengthen belonging, literacy, and civic participation. He is a strong advocate for public libraries as essential civic infrastructure for digital inclusion, equitable access to information, creative learning, and meaningful public engagement. His broader interests include posthumanism, new materialism, agential realism, systems thinking, and strategic planning, which inform his approach to civic, cultural, and community development.

Benjamin has presented talks, participated in residencies, created installations, performed and delivered workshops for Next Wave Festival; ACMI; International Symposium of Electronic Art, SXSW Sydney, Experimenta Biennial Festival, NGV Melbourne and International; Bendigo Art Gallery; Bendigo International Festival of Exploratory Music; Ars Electronica; Asia Link; This Is Not Art Festival; Melbourne Writers Festival; MCA; What is Music? Festival; FabLab Berlin; Judith Wright Centre; House Of Natural Fibers (Indonesia) and Liquid Architecture. He also co-curated and co-directed the Handmade Music Festival in 2011, and co-directed Media Lab Melbourne, an artist run community that promotes and educates artists and creative thinkers about the role of technology in creative practice