Photo: Elliott Lauren

Simona Castricum is an architecture worker, musician, and broadcaster from Naarm—Melbourne on Wurundjeri country, KUlin Nation.

Her practice in music and architecture reimagines the tactile, virtual, and affective conditions within the realms of bodies, space, and politics.

Simona leads D4T—Design for Trans, SHE IS a solo musician and a broadcaster on NAARM’S 3RRR FM.

Music—

Simona Castricum’s music blends influences from queer and trans archives of new wave, post-punk, dream-pop, techno, and electro, exploring queer relationships in dystopian urban landscapes. She’s earned multiple award nominations, including Best Electronic Work and Best Solo Artist at the 2020 and 2024 Music Victoria Awards. Her albums Panic/Desire and SINK were long-listed for the Australian Music Prize, with SINK also nominated for Best Dance or Electronic Release at the 2024 AIR Awards. Simona performs live with guitarist Em Gayfer and Anetta Nevin.

Golden Plains 2020 / Photo: Suzanne Phoenix

Simona has performed at major festivals Golden Plains, Dark Mofo, VIVID, Sydney World Pride and Melbourne Music Week, supporting Lydia Lunch, Drab Majesty, and Peaches. Her music has been remixed by Aérea Negrot, Chiara Kickdrum, and Various Asses, and she has also produced and remixed for Courtney Barnett, Cong Josie and Vincey. A former DJ in Naarm/Melbourne’s underground queer and BDSM club scenes, Simona launched The Shock of the New in the late 2000s, a club night focused on trans dance music. Her DJ sets, an energetic mix of new beat, techno, and house, have featured at HugsNKisses, Confide and Fantastic and at festivals Strawberry Fields and Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.

In 2017, she formed the duo SaD with the late Daphne Camf. Their debut album Saturn Rules the Material World earned a Music Victoria Award nomination for Best Electronic Act in 2021.


SaD / Photo: Billie

Architecture—

Simona Castricum is a design consultant and strategic researcher in gendered spatial design, leading D4T—Design for Trans. She works in contemporary transfeminist creative and professional methodologies. Her interdisciplinary work in architecture and music explores the intersections of bodies, space, and politics, focusing on gender, queerness, and urban conditions. Central to her work is the exploration of queer and trans awakenings and how cognitive maps shape gender-diverse worlds through what she calls “trans urban morphologies” and the interrogation of “cisnormative paradigms.” By engaging with tactile, affective, and virtual conditions, Simona reimagines urban and architectural spaces through alternative renderings.

Simply Irresistible by StudioBird / SIMONA (2023)


Collaboration is a core part of Simona’s creative and intellectual process, leading to numerous exhibitions, installations, and performances that showcase her vision. With over 25 years in architectural design, Simona has extensive experience in competitions and speculative projects, contributing to prominent civic and cultural spaces. She has also held project and design roles in major architectural studios, working on key projects across Australia's urban and cultural spaces.

Her academic research informs effective practice in understanding trans and gender-diverse experiences in the built environment and administrative systems. Simona operates within a design justice practice to collaborate on policy advocating for trans and gender-diverse rights across community, industry and institutional levels. In 2024, Simona was awarded the inaugural Gender Equity and Diversity Prize by the Victorian Chapter of the Australian Institute of Architects.

Simona holds a PhD from the University of Melbourne, where she was awarded the Chancellor’s Prize and the John Grice Award for her thesis What If Safety Becomes Permanent? Architecture and Music as a Site of Transing. Her research investigates how trans-inclusive spaces are produced through architecture and music in opposition to administrative violence and cisnormative urban environments. She continues her academic work at the Melbourne School of Design, focusing on disability research and guest lecturing in urban planning and trans studies.

Installation—

Simona’s creative and conceptual work has led to notable collaborative exhibitions, installations, and performances, including SINK (with Carla Zimbler, Arts House, 2022), WAYFINDING (with George Goodnow, Science Gallery, University of Melbourne, 2023), VERS: On Pleasures, Embodiment, Kinships, Fugitivity and Re/Organising (MUMA, 2022), Who’s Afraid of Public Space? (with SIBLING, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, 2022), WORKAROUND (with RMIT Design Hub, Melbourne, 2018), and When Program Is the Enemy of Function (Architecture Feminisms, KTH Sweden, 2016).


SINK w Carla Zimbler 2021 / Photo: Briony Jackson