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Sukhjit Kaur Khalsa OAM: Australia Day Honours 2025

The WA based artist has received an OAM for her service to the performing arts

Reading Time: 4 minutes

 

Sukhjit Kaur Khalsa OAM still remembers the pivotal moment she stood on the Australia’s Got Talent stage to perform her poetry almost ten years ago. Now, having just turned 30, and receiving an OAM for her services to the performing arts, she feels the same anticipation.

“It’s such an honour – I didn’t ever think that would be something on the cards for me,” she says. “Going on Australia’s Got Talent, that’s maybe the last time something like this happened, where you just get exposure”.

“I think being exposed to a bigger crowd or new audiences that don’t know about your work, that’s exciting. So maybe the OAM might bring out some new collaborations, some new supporters that I would have never had access to.”

With her first autobiographical book Fully Sikh on the way next month, a culmination of sorts of the last 12 years of her career spanning spoken word poetry, theatre, arts management and music, Khalsa is in a reflective mood.

Sukhjit is on stage for her show Fully Sikh and wears black shorts and a gold and black jacket, she is doing a cool hand sign.
Sukhjit Kaur Khalsa OAM in her debut play ‘Fully Sikh’ at Black Swan State Theatre. (Source: Supplied)

“I’ve had a lot of amazing, successful moments and they’ve reached millions, and I’ve had financial gain, but I think this book is something I’m proud of because it was scary. I hated the feeling of writing something and for it to feel permanent – I prefer it when you just put it out there to an audience [like live performance].”

“Maybe people hate it, maybe it’ll be a flop, but I think I like it. It takes a while as an artist for you to actually go: ‘What do I like?’ And if [I] enjoy reading it, then hopefully others will as well,” she says.

Of course, a decade in the arts as a Woman of Colour advocating for greater diversity is not without its challenges.

“I don’t know when I’ll be taken seriously…it sounds like such a whiny millennial thing to say, but I think I’m craving that, and I don’t know if in Australia I will,” Khalsa says. “I think that early on in my career, racism and sexism bothered me; because I was putting such political stuff out there, I knew what I was in for.”

“But now I’m not asking for big things. I’m not saying anything radical. I think I’m just trying to bring more people on the journey and I’m feeling a bit tired. That doesn’t mean I’ll stop. But this is a good moment to reset and go ‘ok, what strategies can I use to have a sustainable arts career so I don’t destroy myself?’”

Nonetheless, she’s gleaned insights that are only possible with time, and from coming to her current role as the Executive Director of Perth’s Blue Room Theatre at a young age.

“When I was younger, the challenge was trying to convince my family and my community that I wanted to follow this path – that’s not a challenge anymore. Every couple of years you have new things to overcome, and lately I think because I’ve said yes to such a big role at a young age without maybe going through some of the other steps, I’m now kind of going, ‘how do I make this work?’”

What hasn’t waned with time, however, is Sukhjit Kaur Khalsa OAM’s deep passion for the arts.

“I want to stay in the arts forever, whether that’s in arts organisations or being an artist. I can’t see myself doing anything else,” she says.

“You forget this stuff means a lot, whether it is escapism or entertainment or whether it’s saying something and making change, all those stories and art experiences are important and will continue to have value in everyone’s everyday life. I think we just keep moving to the next goal [as artists], but we forget that [we] provide a space for people to reflect on life.”

Khalsa hopes to use the momentum from her OAM to continue to elevate the arts.

“I know that for some the OAM title doesn’t really mean much, but maybe for others it holds a lot of value, so I’m hoping that this elevates the arts even more and contributes to that cause,” she says.

“I think that maybe I’ve grown up in a house where [an award’s] not really the end goal…your actions speak louder. But that doesn’t mean that awards still don’t hold weight. I think that they’re a great way to elevate people’s careers and gain new opportunities and maybe that might happen for me as well. But I also think that my actions also need to contribute to that. There’s still a lot of work I need to do.”

Though being an artist of colour in Australia is a wearying profession, Sukhjit Kaur Khalsa OAM feels inspired to keep advocating for multicultural spaces.

“I would love to run an Australian Asian Arts Festival; [in Perth] everyone lives so far [away] and is so isolated…the thing people keep sharing with me is that they haven’t found their community,” she says.

“I think I’m gonna be focusing on building that community over the next five years and kind of creating a space for people, wherever they’re at, to remind them we’re not alone and we can achieve more when we’re together.”

SEE ALSO: Scientia Prof. Veena Sahajwalla ao: Australia Day Honours 2025

Lakshmi Ganapathy
Lakshmi Ganapathy
Lakshmi is Melbourne Content Creator for Indian Link and the winner of the VMC's 2024 Multicultural Award for Excellence in Media. Best known for her monthly youth segment 'Cutting Chai' and her historical video series 'Linking History' which won the 2024 NSW PMCA Award for 'Best Audio-Visual Report', she is also a highly proficient arts journalist, selected for ArtsHub's Amplify Collective in 2023.

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