Art in Action: A Professional Development Workshop for Emerging Artists
”Dismantle / Assemble”
Friday 17 April, 11am-1pm
Verge Gallery
Register interest here

Join artists Phuong Ngo, Marikit Santiago, Jayanto Tan and Cindy Yuen Zhe Chen for an engaging panel discussion exploring the possibilities and challenges of practicing art as members of migrant communities.

The artists will share personal insights from their journeys through art school into professional practice, reflecting on diverse experiences of studying in tertiary institutions and working as artists of colour. This program offers an open and honest conversation about navigating identity, community and creative practice.

A Q&A will follow, with time for informal mingling and individual chats, giving students the opportunity to connect directly with the panel.

After the panel discussion, one-on-one sessions with the artists will be offered. These sessions are not mandatory, and you are more than welcome to attend the workshop only. You will be paired with one of the panellist artists: Marikit Santiago, Jayanto Tan or Cindy Yuen Zhe Chen.

Food and drink provided.

11:00-11:45am: Panel discussion
12:00-1:15pm: One-on-one sessions (15 min slots)

Please note that places for this workshop are strictly limited. If you are no longer able to attend, please contact vergeassistant@usu.edu.au, so that your spot can be given to someone else.

Auslan services available by request. If you have accessibility requirements that you would like to notify us of, please email vergeassistant@usu.edu.au.

Learn more about the exhibition and related public programs here.

About the artists

Phuong Ngo
Phuong Ngo is a Vietnamese-Australian artist and curator living and working in Naarm (Melbourne). He is co-director of Hyphenated Projects, based in Sunshine West with Nikki Lam. His practice is concerned with the interpretation of history, memory and place, and how it impacts individual and collective identity of the Vietnamese diaspora. Through an archival process rooted in a conceptual practice, he seeks to find linkages between culture, politics and oral histories and historic events.

Marikit Santiago
Marikit Santiago (b. Melbourne, 1985) lives and works in Parramatta, Sydney, Australia. She won the prestigious Sir John Sulman Prize at the Art Gallery New South Wales in 2020 and is a three-time finalist for the institution’s Archibald Prize (2016, 2021, 2023). In 2024, she was announced as the recipient of the La Prairie Art Award, in which her work A Seat at the Table (Magulang) and A Seat at the Table (Kapatid) (2023) was acquired by the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Her work has been the subject of numerous solo institutional exhibitions including Proclaim your death! Campbelltown Arts Centre (2025), The kingdom, the power, Bendigo Art Gallery (2023), We Eat This Bread, Fairfield City Museum and Gallery, Fairfield (2022 - 2023), and For Us Sinners, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Haymarket (2022).

Jayanto Tan
Jayanto Tan is a Gadigal Wangal/Sydney-based visual artist originally from North Sumatra, Indonesia. He blends mythology, personal narrative, and cultural tradition to create works that engage with themes of identity, queer perspective, hierarchy, colonialism, and belonging. His practice spans ceramics, installation, and performance, often reflecting on his experience as a “minority within a minority” as an immigrant artist. Through his distinctive creative language, Jayanto seeks to amplify voices from communities that are often marginalised within mainstream society, positioning his work as both personal expression and cultural advocacy. He has earned significant recognition within Australia’s contemporary art landscape. Represented by Art Atrium Gallery, Sydney, Jayanto continues to exhibit extensively throughout Australia.

Cindy Yuen-Zhe Chen
Cindy Yuen-Zhe Chen practices in Sydney on unceded Darramuragal and Gadigal lands. Her drawing, sound and video works examine Southeast Asian Chinese diasporic identity as a generative and emplaced process. Chen has held solo exhibitions nationally and internationally with 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art at the Australian National Maritime Museum in 2022, Willoughby City Council in 2021 and the Ningbo Museum of Art in China in 2018. Chen was selected as a finalist for the 2025 Fisher’s Ghost Award Open and Contemporary categories and the 2021/22 NSW Visual Arts Emerging Fellowship. She curated Lunar New Year public programs for the Art Gallery of NSW in 2023. As a recipient of the University Postgraduate Award, she completed a PhD at the UNSW Art and Design in 2020.

Venue Access

Wheelchair access - there are two lifts available: one on City Rd and one on Maze Crescent.

Accessible and all-gender bathrooms are located about 90 metres from Verge. They are equipped with a handrail. A baby-change table is available.
Guide Dogs and support animals are welcome at Verge.

For detailed access information to the venue, please visit the Access page on our website.

If you have any further questions, suggestions, or would like any information in another format, please don't hesitate to get in touch with us at vergeassistant@usu.edu.au, or via phone at (02) 9563 6218.