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.

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.

Photo: Suzanne Phoenix

Simona has performed at major festivals such as Golden Plains, Dark Mofo, VIVID, and Melbourne Music Week, supporting artists like 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 artists like Courtney Barnett 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 and gender-diverse inclusivity. Her DJ sets, an energetic mix of new beat, techno, and house, have been featured at clubs like HugsNKisses and Fantastic and at festivals like Strawberry Fields and Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.

In 2017, she formed the duo SaD with the late Daphne Camf, their album Saturn Rules the Material World earning a Music Victoria Award nomination for Best Electronic Act.


SaD / Photo: Billie

Architecture—

Simona Castricum works in contemporary transfeminist creative and professional methodologies. Her interdisciplinary work in architecture and music explores the intersections of bodies, space, and politics, with a focus 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, she 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 design competitions and speculative projects, contributing to prominent civic and cultural spaces. She has also held project and design roles in major architectural studios, where she worked on key projects in urban and cultural spaces across Australia.

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.

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.