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.
What can you do after graduating from art school?
A panel with recent graduates (< 5 years out) who have followed unconventional paths
What do you actually do with an arts degree? It’s the question every artist, designer, curator, and theorist hears (again and again) from well-meaning family and friends.
This is the panel that answers it.
No senior leaders of industry who graduated decades ago. This panel brings together artists and arts workers who graduated roughly 5 years ago to discuss the first steps they took after graduating.
Do you go on a residency, join an artist-run initiative, or try to get signed to a commercial gallery? Do you work a regular job and make art on the side? How do you land that coveted job in the arts? What are the steps you can take during study that set you up for a fruitful career after graduating? Hear from artists, arts workers, and curators who have carved out unconventional paths and made them work!
Lisa Myeong-Joo is a Korean-Australian artist whose practice invites encounters, often mediated through performance and installation. She has exhibited at The Kitchen Studios, Firstdraft, Sydenham International, Sydney; POP Gallery, Adelaide; Counihan Gallery, Melbourne; and PICA, Perth. She completed a BFA (Honours) in 2020 and is currently undertaking an MFA (Research) at UNSW.
Nicole Zhang’s practice centres on genre painting and its potential to respond to the complexities of everyday life and document encounters between the mundane and the sacred. Zhang’s work references the pictorial vernacular of modern and contemporary figurative painting and acknowledges the duality of quotidian tasks as at once prosaic and spiritual. Zhang was selected to exhibit in HATCHED, PICA, 2023, she was a finalist in the Fisher’s Ghost Prize, Campbelltown Arts Centre and the Blake Art Prize, Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, both in 2024. She presented work internationally with CHALK HORSE at Art SG, 2025 and held a solo exhibition at CBD Gallery Sydney in 2024.
Geirthana N. is a second-generation Sri Lankan Tamil migrant-settler, who stumbled into working within the arts and culture sector without a linear plan. Since graduating from UNSW in 2020, she has worked (paid and unpaid) as a photographic artist, retail assistant, digitisation assistant, co-director, and gallery minder. Currently, she works at Creative Australia as the Multi Year Investment Officer.
Michael Pham is an emerging curator and producer specialising in contemporary exhibitions and large-scale festivals. Recent works include, SXSW Sydney 2025 & 2024, Bankstown Biennale 2024 and Sydney Science Festival 2022 & 2023. He has held curatorial and producing roles/engagement across institutions and organisations such as SXSW Sydney, UNSW Art & Design and SIGGRAPH Asia and Bankstown Arts Centre and is currently the Assistant Program Curator, Festivals & Major Events at Powerhouse.
Natalie Quan Yau Tso’s practice strives to re-cultivate a connection to place as a migrant settler through sculptures, installations and performances. Her latest body of work Sea-Ghosts uses choreography to let spiritual conduits emerge from ancestral coastlines, drawing upon familial grief to process colonial grief. Natalie is connected to Hong Kong and currently resides on stolen Dharug, Wangal, Cammeraygal and Gadigal country.
This track is an audio recording of a panel hosted by Kudos supported by Arc Creative on unceded Gadigal and Bidjigal Land. This panel was held on 31 February 2026.