Modules
The MFA Fine Art programme is for practitioners who wish to focus on interdisciplinary art practice, critical inquiry, and cultural research in Southeast Asia. The programme is rooted in the NAFA heritage of connecting and impacting cultures and communities through art, focusing on the role of artists today and tomorrow and how their ideas are understood and grounded in various sociocultural contexts. It is proposal-driven and structured around thematic areas of investigation, situating students within certain research interests and fields of practice. It challenges students to respond to the region's sociocultural issues with courage, focusing on historical narratives, preservation of artistic practices, and urgent research in cultural economy, wellness, and sustainability relevant to Singapore's art and cultural visions.
The programme encourages experimentation and critical focus within studio practice, encompassing a diversity of disciplines including drawing, painting, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, performance, installation, video, sound, digital media, and other expanded forms of art. Students are encouraged to test, disrupt, and deep dive into their practice, extending their research beyond the studio environment into areas of curatorial thinking, intercultural dialogue, and socially engaged art practices.
| Code | Title | Credits |
|---|
| NMFA1101 | Reflexive Practice This studio-based module directly engages with the evergreen key questions of “What is the role of the artist today/tomorrow?” and “Beyond the studio environment, how are an artist’s ideas understood and grounded in various sociocultural contexts?”
Learning is facilitated through tutorials, seminars, presentations, and robust discussions with peers, to holistically approach practice in a contemplation of the pluralistic/multiple/diverging roles of the artists (artists as curators, artists for social change, etc).
You will be assigned supervisors to oversee your creative development as you employ the studio environment as a flexible space for self-directed artistic production and practice. You are encouraged to critically unpack and understand your work contextually and to discuss it in relation to contemporary, social, cultural and historical discourse. At the end of the module, you will develop and/or reframe the hypothesis from your initial proposal for presentation at a public showcase.
During this module, you are expected to self-initiate connections and collaborations and have access to industry lectures and seminars in affiliated programmes and across the University. The University’s specialised workshops and libraries are open to all NAFA students, as are activities generated by the schools. NAFA offers a wide range of cultural engagements, including with the Institute of Southeast Asian Arts, Asian Civilisations Museum, Indian Heritage Centre, Malay Heritage Centre, National Gallery Singapore National Heritage Board, Singapore Art Museum and Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre.
| 60 |
| Code | Title | Credits |
|---|
| NMFA1202 | Expanded Practice This module is designed to foster an intensive period of practice development, and to expand your ideas and articulate them to different audiences. Responding to the changing nature of the artistic field, you are expected to disrupt and delineate existing models, and focus on an expanded approach to practice throughout this module.
Given the diverse backgrounds and experiences of creative practitioners on this course, the studio environment is shaped by the cohort’s fields of study and research. You will continue to interrogate and test the diversified roles of the artist and work with your peers to develop interdisciplinary thinking and making, to reframe, situate, position and align your practice in expanded contexts. Alongside both faculty and visiting experts, you will (re)appropriate, (re)adapt and (re)adopt tools, techniques, media, and methods to move beyond discipline-specific approaches to artmaking.
| 60 |
| Code | Title | Credits |
|---|
| NMFA2103 | Transdisciplinary Practice This module is about positioning your studio inquiry and will take place partially off campus. In taking an artist-centred approach, you will use the collected information from the regional study trip/placement and off-campus engagement in Module 2, and establish a transdisciplinary position, forging an intentional social collaboration, engagement or partnership (of your choice) to test your studio inquiry and hypothesis, by making use of the University's links with external organisations. Through collective investigation and imagination, you will undertake a self-designed, self-led study trip in the Southeast Asia and the Asian region where you will interact directly with communities, expand your inquiry/practice with a transdisciplinary intent and develop a deeper understanding of the role of artists in heritage preservation in the region.
Working collaboratively with creative practitioners, independent organisations and established institutions will bolster your individual practice and professional experience. This collaborative engagement serves as an incubator and creative disruption, leading to work that is potentially experimental, relevant and ambitious. You will document your artistic thinking and process, uncovering and curating narratives, expanding forms and unexpected approaches to artmaking in Singapore or abroad.
You will initiate student-led collaborative seminars, supported by faculty and peers, in discussion of topics and research areas of mutual interests. You will engage and collaborate with other institutions and/or independent practitioners, culminating in an open event or publication.
| 60 |
| Code | Title | Credits |
|---|
| NMFA2204 | Independent Practice This module is a culmination and realisation of your self-directed and independent artistic practice. You will use the semester to strengthen and ascertain your key motivations, concerns and ideas. You will refine your artistic manifesto and articulate an independent practice that is progressive but also thoughtful, critical, and situated within the complex realities of the world.
As future thought leaders and agents of change, motivated by a conceptually-driven and technically-grounded Fine Art practice, your work during this module will define your practice in relation to others – your peers, your communities, your collaborators, your readers and audiences. The module will prompt you to reflect on your professional development and position yourself in context to your chosen fields, communities and networks of practice at the highest level.
| 60 |
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