YEArYEAR IN REVIEW IN re view LASALLe2017/18 colleGE OF THE ARTS CONTENTS2 4 17 President’s Message At The Cutting Edge Awards 29 41 52 Highlights Industry Community 61 73 89 Alumni The LASALLE Convocation 2017 Show 2018 96 106 108 ICA Singapore Benefactors of the College LASALLE Board and Management 2 3 Year in Review 2017/18 President’s Message Enhancements to our Career NAC Golden Point Award and with Zurich University of the incorporated live performance Services, including new Career Olivier Casteignède publishing his Arts Switzerland); and the annual and the construction of a large Skills workshops and our largest- debut novel. Students from the VASTA (Voice and Speech Teachers tree sculpture using three ever Career Festival helped to School of Spatial & Product Design Association) theatre conference. tonnes of unfired clay. For me, improve students’ readiness for won Gold and Silver Awards at the most powerful and dramatic In an event-packed year, other employment. Our local Graduate the Nippon Asia Young Designer of all was Tremble Tremble, by highlights include mesmerising Employment rate also saw an Awards, and also hit national renowned Irish artist Jesse Jones, Public Lectures by performance increase to 84% (those employed headlines by being awarded a a breathtaking installation of large poet Murray Lachlan Young and six months after graduation), contract with Singapore Airlines video screens, moving curtains, interactive art pioneer Matt an excellent result given the (SIA) to conceive the design and scratched walls and physical Adams from Blast Theory; and our freelance nature of many jobs collaborate on the building of their artifacts, developed in partnership students and alumni organizing within the arts. Two recent alumni new Digital Innovation Lab. This with the Pavilion of Ireland at the the fourth annual mural and working in the freelance world is a remarkable coup for LASALLE, 57th Venice Biennale. performance festival, ARTWALK of theatre, Thomas Pang and which speaks volumes about our Little India, seen by over 400,000 Tremble Tremble’s physical Benjamin Chow won Best Actor students’ maturity and vision. people. ARTWALK is a major artifacts included a configuration and Best Supporting Actor awards The international profile of the collaboration with Singapore of the sculpting tools of the respectively at the Straits Times College has grown from strength Tourism Board, and there were College’s late founder, Brother Life Theatre Awards, the latter to strength, and as one of the important first-time collaborations Joseph McNally (1923-2003), co-starring with our distinguished six Board Members of the Asian with esteemed names such as whose sculptures Jesse Jones music alumna, Kit Chan, in the League of Institutes of the Arts Leica, Museum at the Fashion had studied and been enthralled most talked-about musical theatre (ALIA), we were proud to host Institute of Technology (FIT), by during her two-month artist’s event of the year, Dick Lee’s its annual Board meeting and and our first TEDxLASALLE talk. residency here. Brother Joe’s Forbidden City at the Esplanade. associated events for the first abiding memory and inspiration With five galleries presenting an Other alumni hitting the headlines time in Singapore. There were lives on forever at LASALLE, The Academic Year 2017/18 was annual programme of cutting-edge included Zai Kuning, whose awe- major project collaborations with and next academic year we truly momentous and saw LASALLE exhibitions, LASALLE has inspiring 17-metre-long sculpture two of the world’s top art schools: will be premiering a specially reach new heights of achievement. established itself as one of the of a skeleton-like ship suspended in the School of Art Institute of commissioned documentary on It is testament to the College’s nation’s leading contemporary midair was Singapore’s contribution Chicago, internationally ranked his life. This has been a truly growing reputation that despite arts venues. Curated by our to, and one of the highlights of, number seven, and the Royal memorable and exceptional a national demographic decline Institute of Contemporary Arts, the Venice Biennale. Two alumni College of Art in London, ranked year, and Brother Joe would be in the number of young people this academic year saw some of won prestigious NAC Young Artists number one; and an MOU was justifiably very proud of all the entering tertiary education, both the most arresting and unique Awards: Yarra Ileto (Dance) and signed with Parsons The New wonderful achievements you will our application figures and student exhibitions ever staged at the Kray Chen (Fine Arts); while Design School of Design (New York), see detailed in this Year in Review, enrolment numbers soared to College, from vibrant student alumni Karan Dang and Ang Sheng ranked number three. As part and of just how far the College new records. Alongside this came shows and superb exhibitions by Jin won Cannes Lions Awards. of the College’s increasingly has come in the 33 years since significant enhancements to the staff such as Zaki Razak’s This is significant research activities, its founding. student experience with new Not to be outdone by their not my solo exhibition, to shows we hosted thought-provoking facilities and spaces including a alumni peers, current students by world-leading artists. They international conferences Student Lounge, and levels of also picked up important awards include the visually dramatic including two interdisciplinary student satisfaction also reached and accolades, including students Big Towers, by three European Professor Steve Dixon symposia - Big Data: Is It A New all-time highs in the results of our in the first cohort of our new MA artists, and LASALLE alumnus President, Medium? and Travels in Trans- annual Student Satisfaction Survey Creative Writing programme, Jason Lim’s poignant and poetic LASALLE College of the Arts Sensoriality (in collaboration and Student Module Surveys. with Saleem Hadi winning an Encounter under the banyan, which 4 At The Cutting Edge 5 Participating Institutions: 01 10 Tropical Academy of Mongolian Media State University Arts Cologne of Arts and Culture 02 Lab 11 California 11 Institute Musashino citation: deja vu of the Arts Art University 19 JUL - 3 AUG 2017 03 12 Central Nagoya Tropical Lab is a one-of-a-kind Academy of University international art camp and Fine Arts in of the Arts Beijing and Sciences exhibition organised by LASALLE College of the Arts, spearheaded by Senior Fellow and Cultural 04 13 Medallion recipient Milenko Columbia Plymouth University University Prvacki. Postgraduate students in New York from major art schools and institutions gather in LASALLE 14 05 RMIT for two weeks to embark on FHNW University a collective journey that delves Academy of Australia into history, geography, Art and Design economics and aesthetics. in Basel 15 2017 marked the 11th edition RMIT of Tropical Lab, which explored 06 University the theme citation: déjà vu by Indonesia Art Hong Kong negotiating past, present, memory, Institute of Padang and the paradox of change and 16 Panjang return through workshops and Silpakorn seminars. Speakers included University 07 artists Jesse Jones, David Thomas Jakarta and Shubigi Rao, and art writer 17 Institute of Tony Godfrey. Städelschule Arts State College The 26 participants drew inspiration of Fine Arts from field trips around Singapore, 08 as well as one another’s practices, LASALLE 19 to create artworks based on the College University of theme. These were showcased of the Arts California Davis in a month-long exhibition at LASALLE’s Institute of 09 20 Contemporary Arts Singapore. Lucerne University of University Washington of Applied Sciences and Arts 6 At The Cutting Edge 7 Jesse Jones: Tremble Tremble LASALLE was honoured to bring a highlight of the 57th Venice Biennale to Singapore in November 2017. Credit: Maxwells Photography Maxwells Credit: As International Partner of the Irish Pavilion at Venice, LASALLE was a co-presenter of Tremble Tremble, an ambitious multimedia installation by Jesse Jones that re-imagines feminist history. Prior to a tour of Ireland in 2018, Tremble Tremble was exhibited for the first time outside Venice at LASALLE’s Institute of Contemporary “It was my first time engaging with Arts Singapore, where it was young artists in Singapore, and I was adapted to incorporate elements impressed by their thoughtfulness, inspired by Jones’ experience of maturity, and spirit of inquiry. Singapore’s history and culture. There is such a wonderful diversity of cultures and contemporary Jones was LASALLE’s Artist in influences here in Singapore that Residence in July and August 2017, students really have the best of all during which time she was drawn worlds, in terms of the art and ideas to the archive of LASALLE founder they are exposed to.” and fellow Irish artist Brother Joseph McNally, the mythologies behind Jesse Jones the Chinese Seventh Month, and other eclectic influences unique to Singapore. Jones’ residency at Tremble Tremble is part of LASALLE also included a two-day The McNally Legacy — Celebrating workshop with 19 BA(Hons) and MA Contemporary Arts, which Fine Arts students, which explored commemorates the artistic and ways of thinking about politics, educational contributions of subjectivity and art-making. LASALLE founder Brother Joseph McNally. It is co-produced with Project Arts Centre and supported by The Ireland Funds Singapore and the Cultural Matching Fund, Culture Ireland, the Arts Council of Ireland and Dublin Port Company. 8 At The Cutting Edge 9 Public Lecture Series: Murray Lachlan YounG Matt Adams The LASALLE Public Lecture Series is an initiative by President, Professor Steve Dixon, that provides a platform An Evening with Blast Theory’s Matt Adams for world-leading practitioners to engage with the arts community in Singapore. Previous Public Lectures include 27 March 2018 theatre visionary Robert Wilson, Academy Award-winning producer Lord David Puttnam, noted architect and Blast Theory co-founder Matt Adams is one of the most revolutionary pioneering designer Thomas Heatherwick, and Turner Prize-winning artists Gilbert & George.