Cover Art: Critical reflection is at the core of how I purposefully consider and make sense of my various roles, responsibilities, and contributions as a professional and credentialed art therapist, educator, and artist within various contexts, both locally and abroad. As such, I often find myself working within fast-paced and complex situations, sometimes confronted by rigid constructs, systems, and perspectives.
The process of design explicates the procedural knowledge of design activities, shifting theoretical conceptions across practical dimensions. Design thinking, as a creative and innovative methodology, has been established as a designerly process for non-designers to address complex problems. This article reviews the implications of introducing the design thinking methodology as a pedagogical approach in design education at LASALLE College of the Arts in Singapore, generating new knowledge to inform the research spaces of design practice and theory.
Six art therapists belonging to the Asian Art Therapy Network give their personal reflections on the International Art Therapy Practice Research Conference, which took place in London, 2019. In common is the importance given to collaboration, cooperation and developing a sense of
Should a formal, traditional ‘western’ modern dance technique be a necessary component for dance education in the globalised twenty-first century? Can the specificity of boarders that codification embraces, be crossed and dissolve allowing the language to transform and continue to grow? As a teacher of the Martha Graham technique for over 30 years, I question its relevance daily, especially working now in Asia, noticing the dancers needs within the landscape of the art field.
Bodily folding, which includes enfolding and unfolding as points of entrance and departure or pathways that change spatial navigation through and with a particular material, matter or substance, could be seen as the baseline state of being within the continuum of action. Biologically, enfolding nurtures the self. It is a form of nest building, a fractal development of an internal structure, a deepening with the self. Unfolding, on the other hand, opens to the world. Unfolding is readiness, structural stability and creative mobility. It’s movement beyond the self.
Notwithstanding a materializing Singapore cinema, research attention has not been paid to how animated cultural products can make an impact on the construction of a local identity. This can be considered detrimental to the cultural promotion of a local but heterogeneous mediascape. This practice-based research attempts to outline a practical framework of cultural specifics capable of producing an animated film that is identifiably ‘Singaporean’ to a global audience.
The Australian, New Zealand and Asian Creative Arts Therapies Association (ANZACATA) is uniquely positioned, geographically and philosophically, in terms of art therapy practice, training, and the ongoing development of this discipline in the Asia Pacific region. Acknowledgement of, respective for, and an embracing of culture, cultural traditions, and practices that are culturally relevant are some of the fundamentals at the core of this art therapy membership organization.
Interdisciplinarity has allowed design education to expand beyond its traditional practises to integrate methodologies for understanding and addressing complexities, structuring and organising critical perspectives, externalising through visual representations, and reflecting on propositions and intended outcomes. Design establishes itself as a social process when situated within real-world contexts, thereby repositioning collectivity as an inevitable condition of design research and practice.
Motivating students in creative media courses can be a challenge due to the demand for creativity which is hard to be taught. Hence, motivation needs to be re-identified and re-addressed for the creative disciplines. Conventionally, creative media courses adopt the studio-based learning, and with this unique dynamic teaching approach, students are required to have face-to-face tutorial sessions with their tutors on a regular basis, as well as participate in group projects and produce creative artefacts of industry standard quality.
Fashion education has evolved to meet the changing needs of the industry and train creative individuals to become effective storytellers, image-makers, curators and producers. The role of fashion is becoming an increasingly important medium to communicate unique narratives, develop ways of portraying, reimagine museum and retail spaces, and explore innovative ideas, processes and business solutions.
