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3 days to NAFA Symposium 2011 
  • Plan your schedule at the Symposium, check out the programme in advance
  • Learn more about our invited speakers and network with them at the event
  • Read about the concepts behind the exciting line-up of Opening Performances
  • Find out where the Symposium is located at NAFA Campus 3 and how to get around it.
 
There are four sub-themes of New Asian Imaginations: (Re)searching the arts in Southeast Asia – State of Arts Research, Artists as Researchers, Arts in Society, Politics and Culture and Arts in Education.

In this issue we spotlight on the remaining sub-themes of Artists as Researchers and Arts in Society, Politics and Culture and the topics that will be presented under these themes.
 
ARTIST AS RESEARCHER
 
Art Patronage: Some Case Studies of Relationships Between Singapore Artists and Their Patrons
Mr Low Sze Wee 
Deputy Director (Heritage), Arts and Heritage Division, Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts, Singapore

Whilst there has been considerable research on Singapore artists and groups, not much has been written on the impact of patronage on artists’ practice and our understanding thereof. This paper examines some case studies of relationships between artists and their patrons (or lack thereof) in Singapore. By outlining such ties, some answers may be found to questions such as how the artists first met their patrons, what support artists received and what type of works were admired and collected by patrons. Hopefully, future research will throw greater light on the roles played by private and public patrons in the development of artistic practice in Singapore.
 
 
Whose Practice is it? (Observe. Hypothesis. Experiment. Conclusion.) OHEC of Collaboration Art Practice
Ms Ong Xiao Yun and Ms Joey P. L. Soh
Artists Caravan, Independent Artist Collective, Singapore

This paper explores ways in which the artist collective, named Artists Caravan (AC), operates to achieve collaborative empowerment, expand shared knowledge and create social responsibility and awareness of communities. Employing AC’s past projects as case studies, by dissecting their methodology, the artists examine their working paradigm of people, connection, place, without burdens of a structural process.
 
The Collapse of Categories: Tintin Wulia
Professor Tony Godfrey
Head of Research, Sotheby’s Institute Asia, UK

Tintin Wulia is an Indonesian artist of Chinese descent who was brought up in Bali and has spent several years in America, Europe and Australia. Currently she works in Jakarta. Given her curious educational background - educated variously as a musician and an architect in Bandung and Boston, then working in a multimedia office, then taking a course on documentary film in Australia – it is not surprising that her work or the exploration that precedes her work is cross-disciplinary. The artists’ first research topic is always themselves: so with Wulia – or more properly Maria Clementine Wulia (Liao) – a concern with her own position, as someone from a minority, as someone who moved from one continent to another on a regular basis, led to a research into notions of nomadism – and the discipline of social geography (itself a highly cross-disciplinary discipline!) As we will see it is this ability to connect across disciplines (history, geography, architecture, self-awareness) and media (installation, video) that make her such a paradigmatic example of artist as researcher.
 
>  Find out more about the presenters in Artist As Researcher
 
ARTS IN SOCIETY, POLITICS AND CULTURE
 
Multi-Culturalism in Dance: the Singapore Experience
Dr Chua Soo Pong
Founding Director, Chinese Opera Institute, Singapore

This paper explores that concept and practice of multi-culturalism in dance in Singapore and how it became an identifiable figure in the dance scene. Dance history is influenced by prominent artistes and their major works, and the political culture of the time. This paper will examine examples of major works in the last decades to understand the logic of multi-culturalism, as it is understood in Singapore.
 
The Interplay of Chinese and Western Compositional Elements in Wang Jian Min’s “Erhu Rhapsody No.1”
Ms Yick Jue Ru
Postgraduate, National Institute of Education, National Technological University, Singapore

Dr Eddy K. M. Chong
Associate Professor, Visual and Performing Arts Group (Music), National Institute of Education, National Technological University, Singapore

In view of the musical syncretism that has been taking place among “New Wave” Chinese composers in the latter half of the twentieth century and its growing influence in Singapore, this paper presents aspects of this East-West fusion as found in the 1st Erhu Rhapsody by mainland Chinese composer Wang Jian Min. The paper examines how the work’s structural design and thematic ideas draw from both Western and Chinese sources. In the process, we demonstrate how Wang assimilated and combined two otherwise disparate musical thinking. It is hoped that the analytical perspectives offered will in turn contribute to understanding of cross-cultural compositions more generally on the one hand, and offer insights for local and Southeast Asian composers in their quest for a unique Asian voice on the other.
 
Artists in Hospital: Roles, Imagination, Possibilities
Mr Michael Tan
Assistant Professor, School of Art, Design and Media, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
 

This paper invites its audience to an imagining of possibilities for artists in hospitals. Arts in Healthcare is an emerging field that in recent time have garnered interest and significance internationally. As critical discourse on the field picks up in Singapore, this paper endeavours to:

  • Identify and consider the range of influences that contribute to the emergence of the arts in healthcare as a field.
  • Highlight the state of the arts in healthcare development in Singapore.
  • Identify past and present works in the local field.
  • Consider the role of the artist as ‘researcher’ in a healthcare setting and imagine possibilities in the field.
> Find out more about the presenters in Arts in Society, Politics and Culture
 
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