Page 21 - NAFA Annual Report 2016/2017

INSTITUTE OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN ARTS

Teaching Southeast Asia Workshop Series

This workshop was designed to establish a common set of terminology and
context in thinking and educating on Southeast Asia. It was specially organised
for NAFA faculty members to empower them to deliver a more Southeast Asia
focused teaching environment. Director of the Institute of Southeast Asian Arts,
Dr Bridget Tracy Tan, conducted the workshop and engaged selected academic
staff in exercises and discussions using history, geography and heritage of
art and craft of the region. The purpose was to generate dynamic discourse
on the contemporary implications of Southeast Asia as content and as identity,
specific to the arts landscape. In May 2017, a second master workshop
took place, as a continuation of the series.

Exploring Film Making Approaches:
A Southeast Asian Film Workshop

Organised for Year 3 students of the Screen Media, Design & Media programme,
this workshop sought to provide background and context for the thought processes
in conceptualising film. Four filmmakers from the film collective, 13 Little Pictures,
Liao Jiekai, Looi Wan Ping, Sherman Ong and Azharr Rudin, were invited to present
explorations in black and white cinema, using examples from their own work and
seminal films in Southeast Asia including Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia
and the Philippines. In the workshop, students were required to make a series of
short digital films taking on different roles such as directing, cinematography,
editing and producing, which facilitated experiential learning in team production.

evolving spaces:
explorations on ageing-in-place
solutions in Southeast Asia

In this academic collaboration between the Institute of Southeast
Asian Arts (ISEAA) and NAFA’s 3D Design (3DD) programme,
ISEAA invited renowned local architect Tay Kheng Soon to
jointly design a year-long programme for 3DD students and staff.
The three-part project began with a lecture delivered by Tay,
in February 2016, on Aesthetics as Meta-grammar. Speaking
to 140 3DD students, he elaborated on aesthetics as a formal
language fundamental to every designer. Between March and
May, three teaching workshops were conducted for 3DD lecturers,
in which presuppositions on logic were unpacked and thinking
processes on design and aesthetics were ‘rebooted.’ The collaboration
culminated in an Industry Project module, where 22 Year 2 and 3
students selected from the Landscape and Architecture; and Interior and
Exhibition courses worked closely with Tay in a two-day workshop.
This was followed by a series of progress checks, site visits and research activities to
create design-based, ageing-in-place solutions for Southeast Asian societies that complemented existing
social, cultural and infrastructural settings. The exhibition showcased the outcomes of the workshop using
models, storyboards and sketches as visual aids.

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