About Tammy / 黄雪慧

Dr Tammy Wong Hulbert (née Tammy Wong / Wong Suet Wai) is an artist, curator and academic based in Melbourne/Naarm, Victoria, Australia. Born on Sydney, on Cammeraygal Country, to Cantonese, Chinese parents, from a young age she developed a dedication to art making as a way of expressing her outlook. Her art and curatorial practices focuses on the complicated, multi-layered and fragmented 'hyphenated' space between cultures and is influenced by her families intergenerational and fractured migration from southern China to Australia, since 1884, over five generations. Tammy has a Bachelor of Applied Arts (majoring in ceramics, Honours 1st class, 1997) and a Graduate Certificate in Arts Administration, College of Fine Art, University of New South Wales, Sydney (2006) and a Doctor of Philosophy, RMIT University, Melbourne (2012). 

Tammy’s artistic, curatorial and socially engaged projects aim to interrogate and transform ordinary experiences of objects, places and communities to become metaphorically meaningful, transcend the ordinary and represent our higher poetic selves. Tammy lived and worked in Beijing, China working with the underground contemporary art community ‘Chinese-art.com’ at 798 Arts District (2000-2) an experience which had a profound impact on her own outlook towards contemporary art practices, encouraging an interest in art practices that are more open ended, expressive of social concerns and connected her to a greater experience of Chinese culture, languages, society and the global Chinese diaspora. This experience inspired her desire to increase the visibility of contemporary Chinese and Asian art practices in Australia. She is currently one of the academic co-ordinators of the Australasian Network for Asian Art (AN4AA).

Her artistic projects have often involved site-specific and socially engaged art practices, working with various urban and marginalised communities, such as new immigrants and climate affected communities. These projects address issues of identity, migration, belonging, place and our changing relationship to the environment. In particular, how collaborative art practices can ‘curate’ (to care for) our diverse and globalised urban communities, through the study of locally specific conditions. 

As a curator, she has worked with a wide range of Australian, Chinese and Asian contemporary artists in Sydney, Melbourne, Beijing, Shanghai, Suzhou and Hong Kong in galleries, museums and urban public spaces. Tammy was also the Gallery Manager at Newcontemporaries Gallery, Sydney (2002-4) and Exhibitions Coordinator at Customs House, City of Sydney, Sydney (2005-8). In her curatorial projects, she sees curating as a platform to bring a community of practitioners together in dialogue and also to support bridging cross-cultural and educational dialogue between Australian and Asian communities. 

In 2011, she completed her PhD researching The City as a Curated Space at RMIT University, investigating how the urban condition has an impact on the way artists and urban communities are able to engage with these environments, offering an alternative model of exhibition to the traditional museology. Her research focuses on the broader framework of 'Curating Inclusive Cities' where she collaborates with marginalised urban communities to workshop, understand and represent their perspectives in globalising cities. These collaborations aim to care for their collective voice through collaborative social art practices and curation. These socially orientated projects result in a public art or exhibition outcomes, encouraging their 'right to the city' to be represented.

Tammy’s research interests include contemporary art and craft practices and histories, including  Asian/Chinese art, curating contemporary art, museums and galleries, public, site-specific and socially engaged art and arts management. In 2021, she won an Australian Council of University Art and Design (ACUADS) Innovative Research Award. She is also currently working on an ARC Linkage Project Vital Arts: Skilling Young people for their futures (2021+) focused on working with the youth arts sector to develop micro credentials to recognise the 21st Century soft skills (creativity, critical thinking, social and cultural awareness and collaboration) needed for the future life and work landscape.

Tammy is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Art at RMIT University, Masters of Arts (Arts Management) teaching courses Curating Contemporary Art and Expanded Curating. She has also taught courses in Art History, Art in Global Cities, Arts Management in Asia and Studio Critique, in Melbourne and at the Hong Kong Art School, Hong Kong. She is also currently Deputy Chair of the Board of NETS Victoria and one of the Academic Co-ordinators of the Australasian Network for Asian Art and was the International Coordinator, School of Art (2019-2024).

I’d like to acknowledge the Wurrundjeri people of the Kulin Nations as the traditional owners of the land and
waterways where I work and live. I respectfully acknowledge their Ancestors and Elders both past, present and future and recognise their unbroken connection to Country and culture from which we benefit from today.