Artist Beatrice Glow joins Yale-NUS College Artist-in-Residence (AIR) programme
Yale-NUS marks new partnership with NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, Glow to be featured in NTU’s Residencies OPEN
Yale-NUS AIR is supported by the Tan Chin Tuan Chinese Culture and Civilisation Programme
Multimedia artist Beatrice Glow has joined the Yale-NUS College Artist-in-Residence (AIR) programme and will be in residence from January to May 2021.
Grounded in community practice, Ms Glow’s multimedia and multi-sensory work explores circulations of objects, people and cultures. During her residency at Yale-NUS, Ms Glow will collaborate with students and community members on a research-creation project that delves into Chinese, Singaporean, and greater Southeast Asian visual and olfactory culture in relation to trade histories that continue to impact our present and environmental futures. She will trace the pathways in which Chinese decorative arts as well as migration flows have influenced global cultural productions. Proposed sites of investigation include the collections at the Asian Civilisations Museum, NUS Museum, NUS BABA House, and the famed William Farquhar Collection of Natural History Drawings consisting of botanical watercolours by anonymous Chinese artists commissioned by William Farquhar at the dawn of Singapore’s colonial era under British rule.
In a new partnership with Nanyang Technological University Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore (NTU CCA), artists in the Yale-NUS AIR programme will now pursue their creative works in a studio at Gillman Barracks and collaborate in upcoming programmes. Ms Glow will be Yale-NUS’s first artist-in-residence participating in NTU CCA’s Residencies OPEN held on 22 and 23 January 2021, as part of the Singapore Art Week.
Yale-NUS Instructor of Humanities (Documentary, Photojournalism and Visual Communication) and AIR Coordinator Tom White said, “The AIR programme embodies the networked, collaborative ethos at the heart of the liberal arts and sciences. This is something needed, now more than ever in these challenging times, when our engagement with art and its intersection with various disciplines consistently reminds us of the essential role art must play in our society. Furthermore, the new partnership with NTU CCA is an opportunity to strengthen the College’s connections with the arts community in Singapore, and enables us to contribute more widely to their efforts.”
At Yale-NUS, Ms Glow will also be teaching an art practice studio course titled Media Arts for Just Futures. Through art theory, practice and students’ own creative output, the course will teach students how to use art to engage actively and meaningfully with the existential crisis of climate change. This will be informed by what they have learned about climate change through the College’s interdisciplinary curriculum, including our Common Curriculum.
On her artwork, Ms Glow said, “I leverage interactive multimedia experiences, olfactory and sculptural installations, paintings and drawings, and participatory workshops as storytelling tools to shift dominant narratives and highlight human interconnectivity. Through my residency at Yale-NUS, I hope to further my collaborations with the vibrant communities in Southeast Asia and anchor my work within the histories of the spice trade while uncovering new contemporary relevance.”
Ms Glow is part of the Yale-NUS AIR programme, following inaugural artists Andrew S Yang and Christa Donner, and Singaporean artist Chen Sai Hua Kuan who were in residence in 2020. Ms Glow completed a BFA in Studio Art at New York University and has received awards from Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship, Artist-in-Residence at the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at New York University, Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics Emerging Artist Fellow, and was a Fulbright Scholar for Performance Art. Her past works have referenced the forms and histories of decorative art objects that reveal colonialist histories such as porcelain and mantones de manila, embroidered Chinese silk shawls that became readapted as a Spanish traditional shawl.
As the first Artist-in-Residence programme positioned within a liberal arts and sciences college in Asia, the Yale-NUS AIR programme supports meaningful community engagements with artists to contribute towards nurturing a vibrant arts community in Singapore, hosting local and international artists engaging with a diverse artistic community within the College and beyond. Supported by the Tan Chin Tuan Foundation through the Tan Chin Tuan Chinese Culture and Civilisation Programme, residency artists each teach a course at the College and create new artworks that reflect upon Chinese culture and civilisation. The AIR programme will host additional artists each semester through 2022. Upcoming artists include those working in installation, theatre and photography.
Yale-NUS Dean of Faculty and Professor of Social Sciences (Public Health and Psychology) Jeannette Ickovics shared, “We are delighted to welcome Beatrice Glow to our College community, her work is beautiful and inspiring in its expression of multi-culturalism and use of multimedia. We also are grateful to the Tan Chin Tuan Foundation for their ongoing support.”
For past press releases, see “Yale-NUS College launches Artist-in-Residence programme” and “When going means staying“.
For media enquiries, please contact publicaffairs@yale-nus.edu.sg.
