I acknowledge and pay my respects to the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people on whose land I live and work on. I pay my respects to their Ancestors and Elders, past and present, and to the places of community, of learning, of knowledge exchange, that First Nations people have fostered, cared for and shared across generations, and continue to do so. Sovereignty was never ceded. Always was, always will be, Aboriginal land.
Dr Jacina Leong 梁玉明 is an artist-curator, educator and researcher engaged in critical processes of community engagement, arts leadership and post-representational curatorial practice. This includes interrogating the co-option of community care, its language and ideas, within the arts sector. She lives and practises on the unceded Country of the Wurundjeri people in Narrm/Melbourne, and is of mixed racial background.
From 2023 to 2024, Jacina was Acting CEO/Director for Next Wave, a leading not-for-profit arts organisation that, since 1984, has played a pivotal role in supporting early-career practitioners working across multiple art forms. Jacina was instrumental in securing Next Wave’s ongoing tenancy at Brunswick Mechanics Institute (2025–34), establishing partnerships with A Climate for Art, CAST (Contemporary Art and Social Transformation) and Composite, and shaping Next Wave’s Strategic Plan 2025–28.
She is the former Co-Director of Bus Projects (2021–2022), Public Programs Curator at The Cube (2012–2017) and Ipswich Art Gallery (2009–2011), Gallery Manager at Jan Murphy Gallery (2011–2012), Creative Producer for the Creative Industries Precinct (2008), Sessional Academic and HDR supervisor at RMIT University and La Trobe University (2020–2023), mentor for the ACMI CEO digital mentoring program (2022), and co-founding member of the Guerrilla Knowledge Unit (2017).
Jacina is currently Co-Chair of Bus Projects, one of the longest-running artist-run initiatives (ARIs) in Narrm/ Melbourne. She is also Chair of the RMIT University School of Art Industry Advisory Committee, a member of the Darebin Council Art and Heritage Advisory Panel, and a guest curator for La Trobe Art Institute.
Her writing has been published in Dystopian and Utopian Impulses in Art Making; Eyeline: Contemporary Visual Arts; The Routledge Companion to Mobile Media Art; Art, Design & Communication in Higher Education; Co-Publishing; and the Journal of Public Pedagogies.
Jacina has facilitated workshops and presented lectures at RMIT University, University of Melbourne, ACU, Aarhus University, Monash University, University of Tasmania, State Library of Queensland, Education Queensland, UNSW, University of Queensland, QUT, Ritsumeikan University, ACUADS Conference, AANZCA24, InSEA World Congress, CONASTA, Ars Electronica, West Space, Liquid Architecture, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art and BLEED Echo.
She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Visual Arts) and Master of Arts (Research) from the Queensland University of Technology, and a PhD from RMIT University. Her PhD explores the conceptual and practical tensions of care, and the real-world implications and challenges of practising care within (pandemic-impacted, colonial capitalist) arts organisations.
The major creative output of her PhD was caring in and through our practices. This is an online resource developed to facilitate practitioner reflexivity, through questions that consider not only the complexities of care, but also the purposes, values, and ethics of practice.
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Interested in working together? Say hello through LinkedIn.
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View CV here.
From 2023 to 2024, Jacina was Acting CEO/Director for Next Wave, a leading not-for-profit arts organisation that, since 1984, has played a pivotal role in supporting early-career practitioners working across multiple art forms. Jacina was instrumental in securing Next Wave’s ongoing tenancy at Brunswick Mechanics Institute (2025–34), establishing partnerships with A Climate for Art, CAST (Contemporary Art and Social Transformation) and Composite, and shaping Next Wave’s Strategic Plan 2025–28.
She is the former Co-Director of Bus Projects (2021–2022), Public Programs Curator at The Cube (2012–2017) and Ipswich Art Gallery (2009–2011), Gallery Manager at Jan Murphy Gallery (2011–2012), Creative Producer for the Creative Industries Precinct (2008), Sessional Academic and HDR supervisor at RMIT University and La Trobe University (2020–2023), mentor for the ACMI CEO digital mentoring program (2022), and co-founding member of the Guerrilla Knowledge Unit (2017).
Jacina is currently Co-Chair of Bus Projects, one of the longest-running artist-run initiatives (ARIs) in Narrm/ Melbourne. She is also Chair of the RMIT University School of Art Industry Advisory Committee, a member of the Darebin Council Art and Heritage Advisory Panel, and a guest curator for La Trobe Art Institute.
Her writing has been published in Dystopian and Utopian Impulses in Art Making; Eyeline: Contemporary Visual Arts; The Routledge Companion to Mobile Media Art; Art, Design & Communication in Higher Education; Co-Publishing; and the Journal of Public Pedagogies.
Jacina has facilitated workshops and presented lectures at RMIT University, University of Melbourne, ACU, Aarhus University, Monash University, University of Tasmania, State Library of Queensland, Education Queensland, UNSW, University of Queensland, QUT, Ritsumeikan University, ACUADS Conference, AANZCA24, InSEA World Congress, CONASTA, Ars Electronica, West Space, Liquid Architecture, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art and BLEED Echo.
She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Visual Arts) and Master of Arts (Research) from the Queensland University of Technology, and a PhD from RMIT University. Her PhD explores the conceptual and practical tensions of care, and the real-world implications and challenges of practising care within (pandemic-impacted, colonial capitalist) arts organisations.
The major creative output of her PhD was caring in and through our practices. This is an online resource developed to facilitate practitioner reflexivity, through questions that consider not only the complexities of care, but also the purposes, values, and ethics of practice.
〰
Interested in working together? Say hello through LinkedIn.
〰
View CV here.