28 - 30 july 2021

Nanyang academy of fine arts

We seek knowledge and history;
but we also desire what is new and inspirational

Following on from the inaugural Southeast Asian Arts Forum, the School of Art conceptually challenged: In contemporary times, what happens to an art graduate after they leave school? Where do they go and how do they evolve their practice assimilating what they learnt, and how they may apply it to their ‘career’ and place in their society? The forum illuminated renewed perspectives on the teaching and learning of the arts, addressed and demonstrated through cultural difference, contentious rubrics, infrastructural limitations, (political) policy realities and intense self-reflections.

Modern Southeast Asia inhabits a fractal domain. We toggle between the necessities of professions, the economic loads of trades and industries, and what we deem culture and art. Our regional world is still about the natural landscape and environmental preservation as it relates to communities, as much as it is about tall buildings, networked roads and the internet. Time and again, we have leveraged information, knowledge and paradigms from the West, to enhance our growth engines and professional education. The formal enterprise of learning and evolving in human societies follow a predictable path: the establishment of basic training, thinking processes at university levels, the formation of associations and bodies, recommendations of guidelines, standards and behaviours, and finally it follows, legally binding terms and licensing to affirm and authorise.

Yet, the arts appear to lie on the invisible margins, occupying the persistent state of transition, homing to find a place amongst the living and the thriving.

Schoolhouse
Mavericks

Inspiration

The concept of the schoolhouse is a premodern one, referring to a central building serving a small community such as a village or a town. The schoolhouse building in premodern communities were sometimes multifunctional, alternatively used as a village hall or church when school was not in session. Mavericks are named for the Texas businessman and lawyer, Samuel A. Maverick, who refused to brand his cattle like others did as a sign of their ownership. The name in contemporary times denotes an unconventional thinker, a person who goes their own way: referring both to the free roam of the cattle as well as the thinking of the owner.

Although many Southeast Asian countries are led by urban societies with the establishment of built-up cities and modern infrastructures, there are still large areas populated by small, rural communities, some civilised with modest oversight from a central authority, others still operating as tribes and communes. The ‘schoolhouse’ remains a viable concept mentally and physically, as a model for artistic learning and production beyond hard and fast rubrics and infrastructural dependency. But for the maverick, the freedom to roam and associate is key, even if there are possible forms of anarchy within and beyond the corral. Even as we are prescribed convention, there is always the alternative that presents a return to a space before the one with all the rules.

Theme of discussion

The recent pandemic and its related developments have brought scrutiny on how we teach and learn, in a space that no longer favours physical proximities and interactions. Teaching and learning the arts are beyond the scope of books and words. During this time of imposed isolation, physical training and practice as well as interactive collaborations across borders and cultures have diminished greatly.

Schoolhouse Mavericks offers us ways of thinking back to smaller hothousing, finding new ways to both communicate and consume ideas through art and the limiting accesses for conventional arts such as technology. Are tangible cultural and artistic products still relevant in this day and age? What roles do tangible experiences play in heritage, identity formation and contemporary discourses for the arts? Does the method of transmission affect how we find meaning and meaningfulness in the new version of virtual cultural and artistic products? What is a true space in which art teaching and learning can continue to remain relevant beyond the internet?

Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts

80 Bencoolen Street Singapore 189655