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Starting an art space: What for? So what? Is it worth it?

The thought of starting an art space has been something that I’ve kept in my mind for a while now. Upon reflecting on the various experiences that I have had prior to joining a BA programme at Lasalle, I found that it was an appropriate time for me to think about experimental forms of learning whilst pushing myself to think about engaging with a community, rather than focusing purely on increasing my career experience. Borrowing from the experience I had, first as an artist assistant in 2015, to a full-time employee at a local independent art space called DECK, I found that I now have the knowledge and capacity for self-organisation. I also felt that I had bottled up enough angst and restlessness to embark on an independent venture that would allow me to negotiate with certain issues and reservations I have over the art education I am receiving in Lasalle, as well as the overall arts landscape in Singapore.

What I am proposing is for a new art space on campus that would be completely student-run. The aims are as follows:

  • Activate the art school as a liberal space for communal action
    • The art school in other countries (more so in Scotland and places in the US) is often a ground for the freedom of speech, for liberal thoughts to be voiced, and a safe space for communal gathering.
    • The Lasalle Winstedt campus is a huge an often unactivated space, with large open spaces that is practically as big as Hong Lim Park.
    • Within our land-scarce and highly surveillant country, can we activate the grounds of our campus to be an added venue for things to happen?


  • Promote the spirit of self-organisation (for students to recognise their capacity to do so, and for the institution to recognise its benefits and to encourage such efforts)
    • A big problem that I have with the education in Singapore is how heavily structured it is, where a student never has time for independent learning.
    • It is strange that even the art school may appear to be like so.
    • I am hoping to push for the space for students to explore self-organisation, expanding their boundaries of knowledge beyond the confines of a curriculum.

Thomas Hirschhorn, Bataille monument


  • Allow the space to be a productive manifestation of students voicing out their needs and negotiating with the institution to jointly create a the kind of education that they want, an environment that they want to learn in.
    • Self-organised exhibitions and happenings initiated by students would also be a productive way of negotiating with the educational institution.
    • Instead of complaining about what we feel is missing from this learning environment, perhaps the most effective solution is to find ways to introduce these missing elements ourselves.


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