Kudos acknowledges and pays respect to the Gadigal and Bidjigal people of the Eora nation. They are the traditional custodians of the land Kudos operates on. We create, design, share, and exchange our work and knowledge on this important meeting place. We pay our respects to elders past and present and extend that respect to any First Nations people who engage with Kudos. This is and always will be Aboriginal land.
| Michelle Wong is a Sydney-based photographer and creative director, and a Computer Engineering (Honours) student at UNSW. She directs conceptual studio projects from start to finish (original concepts, casting, directing models and bringing on co-photographers), working fortnightly out of the UNSW Art & Design Resource Centre and studios. Her work interrogates how women are looked at, and how they look back. She also performs as DJ Tonic, with two upcoming sets with UNSW Art & Design through Kudos. https://chellestudio.com.au @chelle_takes_photos |
| Monstrous
Monstrous (2026) is a studio editorial series that rejects the role of passive object women are so often cast in. Female power has long been coded as monstrous and punished for being too much. This work celebrates that danger. Fashion images ask women to be pleasing, still and easy to look at. Here the model refuses all three. Spikes grow from her chest, shoulders and spine, turning the body into armour, an extension of her sexuality rather than a denial of it. Light falls on her spikes and claws while her face stays in shadow, so the viewer is shown her defences, never her surrender. The installation extends this armour into the room. Five large lustre prints hang in a darkened space under hard spotlights, angled to catch the metal without glare. Their frames are overgrown: built up with clay, skinned in leather to form scales, pierced with spikes and dry-brushed in chrome, so the work repels anyone who leans in too close. The model's spikes were hand-glued one by one over three hours; the frames are made through the same slow labour of building a defence. A dark ambient soundscape of slowed breath, scraping metal and sub-bass drone, drawn from my DJ practice, plays low throughout. Visitors can take a print home of the consumable image the series refuses to be. On the back are assorted stories of women through history that were branded monsters for refusing to be passive. Medusa, cursed after her assault; Lilith, cast out for refusing to submit; the Sirens, made deadly for being desired; the witch, hunted for her knowledge. Each card ends with one line: Still looking? The viewer is caught in the act, having just chosen her image to keep. Now that they know why she was made a monster, are they still looking at her body, or at last being made to consider her story? In place of the passive muse, Monstrous presents a woman who controls how, and whether, she is seen |