Research & Resource

RESEARCH

Our academics play a prominent role in the region’s creative culture. They conduct research that enhances public understanding of major issues and benefits the creative and cultural industries. Practice and theory-based research at NAFA demonstrates our teaching and learning in the arts, design, and media sectors.

NAFA boasts an increasingly robust and dynamic research culture. Our research enhances cultural life and a diverse range of communities.

NAFA focuses on three key pillars for research:

Arts Education Research

As Singapore’s pioneering arts school with over 80 years of history in the teaching of the arts, NAFA possesses deep expertise and a vibrant culture in arts education research. Our researchers-educators conduct rigorous and innovative research into emerging technologies, theories and strategies in arts pedagogy. They have published on a wide range of subjects in dance, music, theatre and fine arts education. In recent years, considerable efforts have been devoted to researching on technology-enhanced pedagogical practices in arts education. These efforts culminated in the publication of the book Teaching and Learning the Arts in Higher Education with Technology: Vignettes from Practice in 2021.

Practice Research

NAFA boasts a rich tradition of research through creative practice. Our award-winning, international team of practice researchers-educators creates change-making impact in industry, culture and the community both locally and internationally. At NAFA, we recognise that each person’s unique experience is crucial in finding answers to the issues of our time. Our faculty and students generate creative solutions to important questions and express them in written, embodied, digital and material outcomes. We are committed to academic excellence, interdisciplinary exploration, and sustainable futures.

Arts & Design Practice Research Exchange (ADPRex)
On the threshold of change for NAFA, the inaugural Arts & Design Practice Research Exchange (ADPRex) invites NAFA’s faculty to come together in an act of collective imagining. As we exchange insights into new ideas uncovered through our arts and design practices, we also take time to envision the future. ADPRex is Southeast Asia’s first annual conference dedicated to practice research. It positions NAFA as the leading centre of arts and design practice research in this region, where artists and thinkers come together to share ideas and insights at the apex of arts and design practice and innovative thinking.

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Southeast Asian Arts Research

NAFA is dedicated to the study of Southeast Asian artistic practices. Since 2010, the Institute of Southeast Asian Arts (ISEAA) has incorporated rigorous discussions of art from the region into our bachelor and diploma curricula by facilitating workshops, hosting annual forums, spearheading art exhibitions and producing publications. In this process, ISEAA has formed an expansive network of external partners to represent the diverse spectrum of visual and performing arts in Southeast Asia. ISEAA emphasises the importance of multidisciplinary approaches within NAFA’s educational pedagogy and continues to contextualise practice-based learning for our students, whose participation and outputs have expanded the conventions of what we perceive art within this region to be.

Southeast Asian Arts Alliance – Respond, Collaborate, Harmonise (SEArch)

In approaching new frontiers as a founding member of the University of the Arts Singapore, NAFA partners with regional institutions to form the Southeast Asian Arts Alliance – Respond, Collaborate, Harmonise (SEArch).

SEArch is an expansive alliance consisting educational institutions with its focus on respond, collaborate, and harmonise in the region of Southeast Asia. Engaging in topics and issues within the changing landscape of contemporary Southeast Asia, the alliance discusses its impacts on contemporary art practices and arts education. Through institutional and cultural group collaborations, this association serves as a platform to articulate strategic institutional programming and research engagement pertaining to Southeast Asia to navigate the sphere of artistic development and cultural embodiments in the region.

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Helmed by the annual Southeast Asian Arts Forum in NAFA, the Forum includes livestreamed presentations, performances, and dialogue to inspire an exploration of Southeast Asian arts and its discourses; facilitating an exchange of knowledge from the community to the classroom and vice versa.

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RESOURCE

Institute of Southeast Asian Arts
Since 2010, the Institute of Southeast Asian Arts (ISEAA) has facilitated in-curricula assimilation of Southeast Asian arts with contemporary arts training at NAFA. ISEAA has promoted the study and research of Southeast Asian arts, influencing the multidisciplinary nature of art studies at the Academy and accumulating a growing resource of innovations from students in our bachelor and diploma programmes. Through spearheading masterclasses, forums, workshops, artists-in-resident programmes, performances and exhibitions, ISEAA nurtures NAFA’s creative courage.

Art Galleries
Inaugurated in 2004, the Art Galleries (AG) at NAFA strives to cultivate excellent aesthetic standards in exhibition presentation and leads the materialisation of artistic projects with both conventional and new media. The programmes feature academy‐wide and departmental projects, commissioned or curated international programmes, as well as displays of artists and artworks closely tied to the histories of the Academy and art in Singapore.

ISEAA & AG’s microsite compiles an extensive pool of resources to support the learning and development of Southeast Asian arts. Visit the ISEAA & AG microsite at https://iseaa.nafa.edu.sg/.

Buy our Publications at https://shop.nafa.edu.sg/.

Living Archive of Contemporary Asian Art (LACAA)
The new Living Archive of Contemporary Asian Art (LACAA) is a student-led resource centre and online repository committed to artistic knowledge production in Southeast Asia. Through documentation, interviews and critical analysis, students from the Bachelor of Arts (Honours) Fine Art programme capture and engage with the practices of artists from the Singapore and Southeast Asian region. LACAA therefore functions as a nexus of teaching and learning, where students embark on artistic research methodologies as they investigate the roles and contributions of the artists they identify, while simultaneously disseminating regional theory and contemporary art praxis to a broader public.

Visit the LACCA microsite at https://www.lacaa-fa.org.

NAFA Studios @ Cité internationale des arts Residency Programme (CRP)
NAFA first established its two artist studios at the Cité internationale des arts in 1998 and 1999. For over 25 years, the studios have housed more than 70 NAFA-affiliated artists, including numerous Cultural Medallion recipients such as Han Sai Por, Lim Yew Kuan, Tan Choh Tee, Chng Seok Tin, and Lim Tze Peng, and younger artists such as Tay Bak Chiang and Quek Kiat Sing. The CRP invites Singaporean and Southeast Asian artists who are passionate about their craft to cultivate their artistic practices and foster connections with international artists and creatives through the residency.

Visit https://www.nafa.edu.sg/crp to learn more.