About

Sophia Cai 蔡晨昕 is a curator and writer based in Naarm/Melbourne, Australia. Sophia’s ongoing research interests include Asian art histories, the intersections between contemporary art and craft, and building communities of practice rooted in feminist and anti-racist work. Since 2020, Sophia has been researching the connection between fandom and curating as dual practices rooted in care.

From 2023 to 2024, Sophia was the Artistic Director of Bus Projects, one of Australia’s longest running artist-run organisations. During her time at Bus Projects, she helped regenerate the organisation into a period of recovery, which included reopening in a new standalone gallery space in Brunswick East and securing multi-year funding from Creative Australia for its future. Sophia taught as a lecturer at the Victorian College of Arts, University of Melbourne and Monash Art Design & Architecture, Monash University from 2020 to 2023, teaching across undergraduate and postgraduate art theory, art history and curatorship courses. During this time, she also worked for a number of arts organisations in curatorial roles, including Centre for Contemporary Photography as Project Curator, NETS Victoria as Exhibitions and Administration Coordinator, and La Trobe Art Institute as a Guest Curator. She is presently the Deputy Chair of NAVA, a peak advocacy body for Australia’s contemporary arts sector.

Sophia completed her Masters in History of Art at the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, specialising in contemporary Chinese art post 1979. Prior to this, she graduated from the Australian National University with a First-Class Undergraduate Honours degree in Art History and Curatorship, receiving the Janet Wilkie Art History Prize for her thesis on contemporary Chinese photography.

As an independent curator Sophia has worked on a number of exhibitions at artist-run spaces, public galleries, and independent organisations across Australia and online. Recent exhibitions include A Soft Touch at 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Sincerely Yours at West Space and Arts Project Australia, Personal Mythologies at La Trobe Art Institute, and The Four Letter Word at Artbank as part of its Emerging Curators Program. Her ongoing project Disobedient Daughters has been exhibited at Metro Arts (2018) and Counihan Gallery (2021), and was accompanied by a printed catalogue, supported by the Australian Government through Creative Australia (formely the Australia Council), with newly commissioned writing by 10 Asian-Australian writers.

Sophia’s writing on art and culture has been widely published in international and national publications including The Guardian, Hyperallergic, Artforum, Overland, Liminal, Runway Journal, Un Extended, Peril Magazine, Journal for Australian Ceramics, Art Almanac, Artist Profile, Art Guide Australia, and Art Collector Magazine. Her first book with Smith Street Books, Clayful, was published in September 2024, with a launch at Craft Victoria. She has delivered public programs, lectures and talks at National Gallery of Victoria, the Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney, ACCA, Craft Victoria, Monash Gallery of Art, RMIT and more. Her favourite program to date has been judging the “Doggy Fashion Parade” as part of the Immigration Museum’s Year of the Dog celebrations.

When not visiting galleries or museums, Sophia enjoys knitting and taking walks with her greyhound best friends (and half-siblings) Rosie and Rocket. She is also a #casualfan of the K-pop group BTS, and during 2020 curated an online exhibition that was inspired by their music and themes. In 2022, she travelled to Seoul, South Korea to present a conference paper on ‘Namjooning’ and the contemporary flâneur at the third BTS Global Interdisciplinary Conference.

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