Kickstart
We are thrilled to introduce our 2026–27 Kickstart Cohort
Working across music, performance, sound, photography, moving image, public art and dance, the cohort are:
Ari Angkasa, Kyle Archie Knight, Tanya Cubric, Thang Do, Jag, Jingwen Jina He, Justin Enrico Legaspi, Ming Liew, Kerith Manderson-Galvin and Carmen Yih.
Over 18 months, the artists will receive mentorship, production and curatorial support, alongside opportunities for feedback, peer exchange and professional development as they develop new work and extend their practices.
These artists were selected for the 2026–27 Kickstart program from 136 applications from artists across Victoria.
About the artists
Ari Angkasa
Ari Angkasa is an artist working across screen, performance, and music. Ari holds a Bachelor of Fine Art (Honours) from Monash University and her graduating exegesis titled To douse the occipital lobe in bleach was awarded the Les Kossatz Memorial Award. Since completing her studies in 2022, Ari has exhibited work widely with institutions such as Seventh Gallery, Gertrude Contemporary, Institute of Modern Art (Meanjin/Brisbane), Bangkok Kunsthalle (Thailand), Rare Sea (Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam), and Queer East Film Festival (London, UK).
@ari___angkasa
Photo: Thomas McCammon
Kyle Archie Knight
Kyle Archie Knight is an Indigenous and queer photographic artist and writer. Knight’s keen interest in the mundane and humdrum suburbia of Naarm resulted in his highly commended long-form and ongoing project, Cruising for a Bruising. With this project, he was a finalist in the Ballarat International Foto Biennale 2022 GradFoto exhibition and subsequently a core program artist in the 10th Ballarat International Foto Biennale (2023) with a solo exhibition.
kylearchieknight.com
Photo: Meg De Young
Tanya Cubric
Tanya Cubric is a Balkan-British multidisciplinary artist born in Tiohtià:ke/Montréal. Working across performance, video, and installation, her practice explores everyday power dynamics and social stereotypes through satire, fantasy, and lo-fi character-based scenarios. Since completing her MFA at RMIT in 2024, she’s held solo exhibitions at Firstdraft and RMIT First Site Gallery alongside previous group shows at ICA Singapore and SET Studios London. In 2025 she was an RMIT–ACMI X Graduate Resident, where she continues to host and curate the Experimental Forum.
tanyacubric.com
Thang Do
Thang Do is a Vietnam-born spectacle-ist now based in Naarm but aspiring for the world. His spiritual vessels and spatial activations explore the human obsession with spectacle as both an escape and a catalyst for hope. Rooted in childhood fantasies of standing on stage, master of the moment and winner in life, his practice considers how these imagined futures become vital survival mechanisms for migrant and marginalised communities.
@thangdo_thangdo
Photo: Bhavin Win
Justin Enrico Legaspi
Justin Enrico Legaspi is an interdisciplinary artist, writer and youth advocate. Currently an artist-in-residence at The Substation, Legaspi explores the persistence of retro internet and consumer cultures. His work with youth is concerned with access and visibility in arts education. He is also an associate journalist with Good News West by Ylab, developing positive stories on life in Melbourne’s western suburbs.
justinenricolegaspi.cargo.site
Jingwen (Jina) He
Jina He is a multidisciplinary artist and designer. She works in public art, placemaking, installations, light, sound, projection, spatial practice, and community projects. Her work explores how people find belonging in public spaces and how built environments can support storytelling, participation, and care. With a background in architecture, Jina uses thresholds, surfaces, shadows, movement, and materials to create thoughtful, responsive works.
missstingray.com
Photo: James Henry
Jag
Jag is a style-bending, interdisciplinary artist, specialising in music, poetry and performance. She has performed at Vivid Sydney, the Human Rights Arts & Film Festival, Spicks and Specks and many more stages and spaces. Jag’s current practice incorporates elements of music, performance and poetry to reach her intended demographic: other African-Australians.
@trilljag
Ming Liew
Ming Liew is an artist-researcher who’s practice spans moving image, experimental film and archival research, examining Chinese diasporic identity across cultures, ideologies, and histories. His work has been exhibited at NGV Melbourne Design Week, Melbourne Fringe Festival, Footscray Community Arts, Blindside ARI, and MARS Gallery. Ming has been an Artistic Director at Blindside ARI since 2024. He is currently a creative resident at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image.
mingliew.com
Kerith Manderson-Galvin
Kerith Manderson-Galvin is a Queer Femme non-binary artist who dreams with time, reality and feelings to create softcore performances that know Queer femininity as an unruly invitation. They perform to walk-outs and repeat audiences: their work is gentle, fragile, anarchic, intimate, explicit and relentless.
unofficialkerithfanclub.com
Carmen Yih
Carmen Yih is an emerging Chinese diasporic artist graduating from the Victorian College of the Arts’ Bachelor of Fine Arts (Dance). Carmen’s practice skates along the boundaries of hybrid dance-theatre, telling urgent stories that draw on forgotten histories and marginalised voices. In her theatrical work, Carmen uses movement scores and structures influenced by non-Western narrative world-building, immersive theatre, and street and club dance forms.
hitahhchi.cargo.site
Photo: Mark Gambino
Announcing: Micro Wave
For the first time since 2018, Kickstart will culminate in a major public platform: Micro Wave, a new biennial festival launching in November 2027 that will invite audiences into the process of artistic experimentation and discovery.
Part festival, part laboratory, Micro Wave will give Kickstart artists an ambitious platform to test ideas, share works in development and connect with audiences at a pivotal moment in their careers.
Building on Next Wave’s 40-year history of supporting new artistic voices, the festival will be a destination for adventurous audiences to encounter artists and ideas at their earliest and most exciting stage.
Across three–four days, the inaugural Micro Wave festival will transform Brunswick Mechanics Institute and its surrounding neighbourhood into a site for experimentation, exchange and encounter, connecting artists with audiences, industry, neighbours and creative communities.
25 years of Kickstart
Since its establishment in 2001, Kickstart has supported hundreds of artists, producers and arts leaders at the beginning of their careers.
The program’s alumni include Katie West, Abdul Abdullah, Shireen Taweel, Megan Cope, James Nguyen, Zoë Coombs Marr, Loren Kronemyer, Kartanya Maynard, Pip Wallis and Ryan Presley, among many others.
The 2026–27 cohort continues this legacy while responding to the realities facing artists today, providing sustained support over 18 months rather than focusing solely on a single presentation or project.
Formerly a national program, the 2026–27 iteration of Kickstart is grounded in Victoria – creating urgently needed development opportunities for local artists at a time when pathways for early-career artists, curators and producers are rapidly disappearing across the state.
Supported by
We’re currently seeking support for our Kickstart program.
As a Kickstart Supporter, you’ll be among the first to see new ideas take shape and the first to meet the artists shaping the next decade of Australian culture.
Your investment will help Next Wave support artists at all stages – from the seed of an idea through to development and presentation.
Donate to support Kickstart
All donations over $2 are tax deductible.
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Kickstart 2026–27 cohort. Left to right (from top): Carmen Yih, Tanya Cubric, Kerith Manderson-Galvin, Thang Do, Jag, Kyle Archie Knight, Ari Angkasa, Jina He, Justin Enrico Legaspi (absent: Ming Liew).