In February Project Art Works were invited to Singapore to take part in a series of activities led by cultural organisations in the country. Joining a programme of workshops and events coordinated by ART:DIS, a not-for-profit based in Singapore that offers education and professional development in the arts for people with disabilities, and Singapore Art Museum (SAM), Project Art Works shared our practice.
For Art Dose, a new art and well being programme set up by the SAM, Katie Taylor and Tim Corrigan, along with a team of volunteers, ran solar printing workshops and joined a panel discussion. The panel included the Head of Access and Inclusion at SAM, Lim Chye Hong, and the Executive Director of ART:DIS, Angela Tang.
On Sunday, Katie and Tim were invited to visit one of the ART:DIS centres, where they toured the facilities and met Frances, one of the skilled and sensitive tutors on the ART:DIS team, and four students. Students were generous in sharing their work with visitors and were supported to do this on their own terms. One young man was particularly playful and invited both Tim and Katie into drawing games in his sketchbook.
On Monday, Katie and Tim began a two-day workshop with artist facilitators, professionals from museums and galleries, volunteers and ART:DIS students. The workshops included discussions, practical working and screening films of Project Art Works’ practice made in our own studio in Hastings and in the course of recent national and international collaborations. The group worked collaboratively on a series of sculptures, installations, drawing and paintings to support shared learning. Students led much of this work and the workshop gained much of its meaning through their participation.
The final day of the visit was the Art and Disability Forum, hosted by ART:DIS. The rich programme included keynote talks from international contributors (big-i in Japan and Studio A in Australia), panel discussions and performances from emerging artists who are part of ART:DIS’s professional development and mentoring programmes. The Project Art Works team were joined for their keynote by Trevor Lee, an ART:DIS student we met in the course of the workshop, who spoke to the delegates about his approach to art making and showed one of his paintings.
See the full programme here: https://www.adf2023.sg/programme/
Download Katie Taylor reflections here.