OzAsia Festival’s 2024 Artistic Producer shares career insights and what to look out for in this year’s program

What took Joon-Yee Kwok from a young POC actor dreaming of becoming the next Nicole Kidman to producing OzAsia Festival? ArtsHub finds out.
L: OzAsia Festival 2024 Artistic Director Joon-Yee Kwok. A portrait photo of a middle-age Chinese Australian woman with chest-length black hair wearing black rimmed glasses and a spotty top. R: OzAsia Festival 2024 cover art by Jessie Hui. An illusrtation featuring cratoon cats and dumplings.

Brisbane-born Joon-Yee Kwok is the new Artistic and Executive Producer of OzAsia Festival, taking over from Annette Shun Wah who was in the position from 2020-2023.

Kwok is a second generation Chinese Australian who grew up in the 1980s, attended a multicultural school and once had the dream of pursuing acting as a professional career.

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Celina Lei is the Diversity and Inclusion Editor at ArtsHub. She acquired her M.A in Art, Law and Business in New York with a B.A. in Art History and Philosophy from the University of Melbourne. She has previously worked across global art hubs in Beijing, Hong Kong and New York in both the commercial art sector and art criticism. She took part in drafting NAVA’s revised Code of Practice - Art Fairs and was the project manager of ArtsHub’s diverse writers initiative, Amplify Collective. Most recently, Celina was one of three Australian participants in DFAT’s the Future of Leadership program. Celina is based in Naarm/Melbourne. Instagram @lleizy_