Sophia Cai

Never Mind the Nepo Babies—Here Come the Crony Pals

The art world is an enterprise famously built on personal networks—but, as Sophia Cai writes, that doesn’t mean your best friends should also be your curators, collectors, profilers, show essayists, reviewers, installers and co-exhibiters.

Can a cultural critic actually be ‘neutral’? And should they be?

With current debates in the Australian media landscape on who should review a work of art, Sophia Cai questions the myth of critical neutrality.

Picass-No: Why are we so obsessed with male masters?

The art world may be becoming a more diverse place, but are we really revolutionising who we consider ‘masters’?

If you’re no longer making art, are you still an artist? Who decides?

The arts industry is full of gatekeepers, but what happens when you become your own gatekeeper? Sophia Cai speaks with four artists who have stopped making work, or have slowed down in recent years, to ask whether they still consider themselves artists.

When Should You Work For Free?

When the arts sector relies upon free labour from artists and arts workers, how do we have conversations about real job equity and sustainability? Sophia Cai unpacks this question.

Goodbye 2021: A year of loss and optimism

“Dear 2022, I don’t want to write any more essays about the pandemic. Signed, Sophia Cai.” As we push ourselves to the finish line of 2021, Sophia Cai looks back on the last 12 months, reflecting on a year defined by the swiftness of loss and the struggle for optimism.

On the Ordinariness and Extraordinariness of This Thing We Call Art

Burnt Out Culture

Sophia Cai discusses the hidden costs of doing what you love.

On Loving Bad Artists

Is it possible to separate the art from the artist?

Arts Writing in the Meme Age (and Other Complications)

Writing about the act of writing – or more specifically, to write about the field of what we commonly call ‘arts writing’ and to ponder what this might mean – is perhaps setting a thorny task for myself here.