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1st Reflective Statement: My Practice *

My practice is centred on my work as a visual artist, an interdisciplinary practice incorporating craft, sculpture, installation, site-specific art, social practice and performance work. From this position, my practice has also expanded into visual arts curating in industry and as an academic lecturing in studio practice, art history, curating and arts management at the RMIT School of Art. My research work is both practice-led in visual arts and curating and investigates the social role of the arts in broader society.

My visual arts practice is about making invisible human experiences become more visible as a way of stimulating a dialogue issue which affects many people. My experience of being an Australian born Chinese female artist has informed my desire to express these experiences. During my formative years, I often saw a lack of or stereotypical representations of people of Chinese backgrounds in Australia. I was motivated to make expressions that demonstrated a more human and individual perspective to break down these stereotypes and open up representations of being Chinese/Asian-Australian, to shift perceptions to become more nuanced in Australian society.
Working as a curator allowed me to transfer and apply my creative problem solving skills into a curatorial space working with other artists, galleries, audiences, industry partners and various communities. As a curator, I gained a great understanding of the social life of an artwork through the development of exhibitions and public programs. Working as a curator on the programming for Customs House, City of Sydney (2005-8) gave me an opportunity to research, develop and implement programs which demonstrated the cultural value that artists bring to urban life, leading me to my PhD research on ‘The city as a curated space’ (2008-12) researching the impact and value of art in public space practices and programs in global cities to build the public sphere for the common good. 

In my art academic career, I have continued my work on ‘curating inclusive cities’ which is practice-led research focused on socially engaged public art projects with marginalised urban community groups. This has included working with culturally diverse and new immigrant communities, women, children and elderly, peri-urban communities and those affected by climate change to develop a creative platform that allows various community voices to be heard. Projects have included ‘Becoming Home’ (2022) an exhibition that explored contemporary and historical voices of the Chinese-Australian community Maroondah, Melbourne and ‘To the fallen trees’ (2022) a performative and sound based work which explored the emotional landscape after  the Victorian Windstorm (2021)  which affected communities of Mt Corhanwarrabul (aka Mt Dandenong) and was presented as part of The Big Anxiety Festival, Australia’s preeminent arts festival focused on art and mental health. 

More recently my research projects are focused on recognising the social value of arts and cultural activities. This has been achieved through the ‘Vital Arts: Skilling young people for their future’ ARC Linkage Research Project (2021-6) and the ‘Amuseo: Digitising Museum’ project (2020-2026). The Vital Arts project has focused on designing and building micro-credentials that recognises the 21st Century skills of collaboration, problem solving and being a supportive colleague in young people who participate in the arts. By recognising these skills, we hope to support young people in valuing the skills developed through informal learning through practice, which may lead to further future pathways. The ‘Amuseo: Digitising Museums’ project aims to support under-resourced museum professionals through the development of an on-line toolkit that focuses on gaining digital skills for museums to transition their collections to digital formats and therefore potentially widen participation in cultural heritage knowledge.

TYPE OR PASTE LINK TO YOUR REFLECTION HERE. IF YOU UPLOADED A DOCUMENT BELOW AS AN ALTERNATIVE, TYPE "See upload"...... A critical review of your status as a specialist and consider your strengths and any further development needs of your own practice. This review should be referenced to each of the required skills sets and acknowledge any personal or professional limits.

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2nd Reflective Statement: My Values *

The sector my practice is centered around is contemporary visual arts studio practice, curating contemporary art, collaborating on socially engaged visual arts projects, teaching, examining, researching, writing and consulting about these practices. In the sector, I value innovation in practice which challenges audiences to think about a diversity of subjects that they may be unfamiliar with. 

The arts can support audiences in reimagining subjects they may have overlooked or perceived differently, an inspiration to becoming more open-minded. This process can be transformative. As an artist, I value the contribution that I can make to a society through informal public pedagogy processes, which can stimulate dialogue and nurture critical thinking more widely. I see myself as a co-learner in the community, taking each experience as an opportunity to learn something new. This attitude of ongoing learning keeps me curious and motivates me in my work. 

My studio art training expanded into curating quite early on in my career, because I recognised the transferable skills of thinking creatively, seeing opportunities, initiating projects, developing concepts and working collaboratively with industry partners to realise a project, which could also be applied to a career in curating, public galleries, public spaces and diverse communities. I also strongly believe that access to arts and culture is a human right. This drives my desire to take part in the arts from many different contexts - as an artist, a curator who can bring together a community of professional artists, to a socially engaged practitioner working with community members with an interest in art, as an academic and as an advisor on arts and cultural policies to arts agencies including Creative Victoria, Local Government Art & Cultural panels and arts organisations and International Art academics and industry partners.

I am driven to advocate for access to arts and culture for all people as a way of breaking down the elitism in the arts by creating more opportunities for all people to be engaged in creative activity as a creator or appreciator. In particular, my desire to work with non-artists in socially engaged public art projects was developed with the aim of widening participation in the creative process and also engaging wider audiences in public spaces. I believe this process of engaging local communities into creative processes can lead to further personal insight, but also greater awareness of one’s community in  the local and global context and therefore build engaged global citizens.

TYPE OR PASTE LINK TO YOUR REFLECTION HERE. IF YOU UPLOADED A DOCUMENT BELOW AS AN ALTERNATIVE, TYPE "See upload"...... A critical review of the impact that your values have had on your practice. This should also consider how your own values fit with those of your sector, including those of specific employers, contractors, or host organisations, as relevant. Then, to clearly articulate how your values have influenced, informed, and impacted your own practice, professional development, and career and how your values have impacted different participants in different contexts.

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3rd Reflective Statement: My Influencers *

My influences in my art practice and curating come from a wide range of sources. I have always been influenced by artists that work in a multidisciplinary way with materials and forms and are driven by expressing concerns about wider social issues in innovative ways. Through my education in the crafts, I have always held  great respect for crafted objects that express a narrative or commentary. Early in my career, explorations of female Chinese-Australian identity, led to great interest in the work of feminist artists such as Cindy Sherman, who expressed ideas of the fluid female identity in her conceptual photography self portraits series of work and Nikki De Saint Phalle, who made playful large scaled sculptural work which drew our attention to and compared a female oversized body to a cathedral in the work ‘She - A Cathedral’ (1966). Both these artists shared how the female experience could be captured through creative visual forms and make a point about how a female identity can be empowering. 

Seeking contemporary representations of artists' works from a Chinese perspective, as a young adult of the Chinese diaspora, I lived and worked in Beijing, China in the underground contemporary art scene in the early 2000s, seeking a connection with Chinese contemporary art. Growing up in a Cantonese speaking household, I was exposed to Hong Kong popular culture, traditional Chinese culture and at the time there was less contemporary art activity. In Beijing, China, I had the most amazing experience, as I was employed by New Art Media, the publisher of the on-line journal ‘Chinese-art.com’ in a marketing capacity. Working for Chinese-art.com exposed me to the amazing world of Chinese artists and the arts industry, that were emerging on to the international art scene. I worked closely with performance artist Cang Xin, who I can say informally mentored me in developing a dedicated life to being an artist. His performance work, also opened up my ideas of what could be art, it encouraged me to develop ideas and think of diverse strategies for expression. I also met amazing female artists such as Yin Xiuzhen, who inspired me with their installation works that dealt with issues of migration and globalisation and introduced me to ideas of collaborative socially engaged art practices, which later became a key strategy in my art research projects when working with community groups. Later in my career my interest in public, site-specific and socially engaged art practices emerged and this development happened through my increasing interest in ways of engaging a wider audiences in creative practices. These ideas were also  influenced by a history of art practices in this space by leading feminist artists such as Suzanne Lacy. 

From a historical perspective, I am also influenced by my experience of growing up in a Chinese (Cantonese)-Australian family and as I have matured, I have come to appreciate the unique experience of having a Chinese-Australian family in Australia for over 5 generations, since 1884. In my youth, in trying to establish an individual sense of identity, I often focused on the feeling of being displaced in the Australian culture, but as I age and settle into myself, I feel a sense of comfort from the traditional cultural artefacts that surrounded me in my childhood home. A deeper connection with my position and history through my artistic career has certainly influenced me creatively and continues to be a source of inspiration for interrogating the position of the diaspora and the ongoing impact of migration. As time moves ahead, I find myself looking more towards the traditional crafts that I grew up with, in particular the Chinese (ceramic) deities, which represent particular values and folk stories relating to the philosophies of Taoism, Buddhism and Confucianism. Today, understanding, interpreting and connecting to this body of knowledge, has been a new passion for me, I am challenged by the desire to interpret this knowledge through my creative practice and to represent how I relate to this ancient knowledge as a contemporary Chinese-Australian female artist. This was particularly explored through my project ‘Wong Mobile Ancestral Hall’ where I researched the Chinese ancestral worship practices and interpreted these ideas as a sculptural, performative and photographic work.

TYPE OR PASTE LINK TO YOUR REFLECTION HERE. IF YOU UPLOADED A DOCUMENT BELOW AS AN ALTERNATIVE, TYPE "See upload"...... A critical review of the key individuals or organisations, texts, experiences, or moments in your own professional journey that have inspired, influenced, or challenged you and have been instrumental in shaping your own practice within and across the required skills sets.

ALTERNATIVE: Uploaded 3rd Reflective Statement

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Applicant attestation *

Double-check that nothing is missing and confirm that this application represents a true statement about you.