The Arts - Visual Arts

A group of students modelling on stage with different designs for the fashion show 2022.

The Arts - Visual Arts

The visual arts were a popular mode of artistic expression among the College’s students, encompassing painting, drawing and sculpture, film and photography, installation and performance art, fashion and more.

They had access to two art studios: The Georgette Chen Arts Studio was dedicated to the visual arts, and was used for classes, events and as a gallery space; the Flexible Studio (Studio 3) could also be also used for various visual art activities, and as an art gallery and exhibition space.

Student organisations such as the Visual Arts Society and the Yale-NUS Photography Club provided opportunities to form like-minded networks and collaborate with fellow students. There were also options for students to hone their skills and expand their knowledge through workshops and talks given by their peers, faculty and visiting artists.

Visual Arts Society

The Visual Arts Society (VAS) was a platform for Yale-NUS students to explore and engage with the visual arts, whether by promoting an appreciation for art, honing individual artistic skills or providing a support network for practicing artists.

Members organised and participated in visual art-related activities, including art jams (where art materials were provided for students to experiment with), workshops, exhibitions, artist talks and more. VAS welcomed anyone interested in art, regardless of skill or experience level.

Founded by a few arts enthusiasts from the College’s inaugural cohort in 2013, VAS grew to become a major contributor to the Yale-NUS arts scene.

Students sit and talk around the poster they prepare on the ground during the Student Activities Fair.

At the Student Fair, two female students show their drawings with a smile on their face.

As part of the ‘YNC Arts Fest 2015: Before We Leave’, VAS presented ‘Canvas’, an exhibition featuring works from migrant workers, the ‘Drawing Methods’ class and VAS members. The migrant workers were from the Humanitarian Organization for Migrant Economics (HOME) Women’s Shelter and worked with VAS members to create their artworks.

Book cover of "Literary Burma" by Yale-NUS College, featuring a captivating design that reflects Burmese literature and culture.

The ‘YNC Arts Fest 2015’ was a student-run arts festival that took place in March 2015, bringing together practitioners of visual arts (including VAS), theatre, performance and music for performances, exhibitions, talks, workshops and more. The theme ‘Before We Leave’ reflected the College’s move from its temporary home at RC4 to its newly-built campus.

‍Also as part of the ‘YNC Arts Fest 2015’, VAS organised a ‘Life-Drawing and Painting Workshop’ where students could practice figure drawing and painting techniques.

‘One Night Stand’ was an annual event where participants were asked to respond to a theme by conceptualising, creating and exhibiting a work of art within 24 hours. The process also involved group critiques of the other students’ artworks, so giving an insight into many aspects of the process of art creation.

Participants drawing and painting with brushes during the YNC Arts Festival.

The poster of the YNC Art Festival features a large tree drawing with buildings around the tree, a paper plane flying over the tree. At the bottom of the poster reads “Before We Leave”.

Bunch of students are sitting around a white table and working on their projects.

At the event of the Visual Arts Society, participants work on their drawings on easels.

A poster for the Visual Arts Society’s exhibition called Artober. It features a painting of a human body in many colours.

Every October, the VAS held ‘ARTober’, a month-long series of visual art activities and workshops. To encourage participation in the arts, even students with no art background could try their hand at a range of artistic mediums and, at the end of the month, see their work mounted in an exhibition.

A group of people in the “Artober” exhibition hall examine the works around them.

This exhibition showcased artworks from the 2016 ‘ARTober’ events and ‘Drawing Methods’ classes.

Two people examine the works of the "Artober" exhibition on the wall.

During 2019’s ‘ARTober’, VAS held watercolour and pottery workshops open to all student who wanted to try their hand at a new artform.

Pottery made at Artober Pottery Workshop.

Two female students who attended the Artober Pottery Workshop were making their own pottery.

At the Artober Watercolour Workshop, students are painting watercolours.

A male student at the Artober Watercolour Workshop is painting watercolour.

Yale-NUS
Photography Club

A man with black hair, dressed in a light blue shirt, hangs a concert event photo on a wall adorned with pictures from various events.

The Yale-NUS Photography Club was formed with the aim of promoting photography as an artform that conveys social messages and to increase exposure to thoughtful and meaningful photography.

The Club’s members were present to document many significant College events such as sports competitions, theatre productions, music concerts, guest speakers and campus life in general.

They also conducted photo shoots for student organisations, hosted talks and workshops by professional photographers and mounted exhibitions of students’ photography.

The camerawoman shoots behind the camera while controlling and making sure that everything goes smoothly.

A poster from the YNC Art Festival. It invites students to take a photo from the festival. The Arts Committee will decide the best one and the winners will get attractive prizes.

At the “Take Photo 4 What” event, the speakers make their speeches in the hall and the audience listens to them.

A poster for an exhibition called "To Be Continued",it features information of time, place and a collage of photographs.

A black themed poster of the Installation (III) To Be Continued Yale-NUS Photography Exhibition Series.

Arts Fest Photography Challenge

The Arts Fest Photography Challenge was part of the ‘YNC Arts Fest 2015: Before We Leave’. Students took photographs during the festival, with prizes being awarded for those that best captured the theme ‘Before We Leave’, a reference to the College leaving its first home in the RC4 building.

Take Foto 4 What?

In October 2015, the Club and the College's Arts Department hosted a discussion on modern photography with Singapore and Malaysia-based photographers Bernice Wong, Geraldine Kang, Ian Teh, and Vignes Balasingam, moderated by the College photography instructor Tom White and the Club co-founder Chng Yi Kai (Class of 2018).

To Be Continued: Installation II

The Photography Club organised a series of photography exhibitions under the title ‘To Be Continued’. The second part, ‘Installation II’, was held in Studio 3 in November 2015.

To Be Continued: Installation (III): Human Stories

‘Installation (III): Human Stories’ was the third part of the 'To Be Continued' exhibition series, and featured projects from student photographers and photographs from events the Club had covered. The accompanying booklet introduces the exhibition and the student photographers featured.

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Film Societies

‍The Yale-NUS Film Society aimed to build a vibrant film culture in Yale-NUS by providing a platform for film appreciation and for budding filmmakers to make their own films. They organised film festivals and screenings, short film and music video productions and group outings to the cinema, creating a friendly space within the school community for fellow film lovers to talk all things cinema.

Yale-NUS Filmmakers was a group of students interested in producing and editing their own films. In addition to organising talks by filmmakers, outings to film festivals and workshops and training labs, they also screened the films they produced, including works-in-progress and newly-completed films.

During the 'YNC Arts Fest 2015: Before We Leave', the Yale-NUS Filmmakers organised a series of workshops focusing on three aspects of filmmaking: camera, lighting and editing.

Participants could then put these skills in practice by making their own short films.

A group of students from YNC filmmakers gathered in the studio and took a group photo.

A YNC Filmmakers poster features five students and a large white projection screen in the background. One of them is behind the screen and only the lower legs are visible. The other four people are posing by jumping.

Five students are at the YNC Art Festival. One male student rides a bicycle while another captures the moment with a camera. The remaining students smile and watch the scene unfold.

A group of students who participated in the Yale-NUS Storytellers Welcome Tea event posed together smiling.

Three people are talking to each other about storytelling during the Cross Discipline Storytelling Panel.

Students in the “Creating Narratives Through Images and Space Masterclass” watching the teacher on a screen.

The book cover of “Halcyon Heavens The Yale-NUS guide to the universe” event with a space themed background.

Cover of With Open Eyes: A Zine About Diversity by Yale-NUS Storytellers, featuring minimalist illustrations of two eyes with radiating lines symbolising openness.

Yale-NUS Storytellers Welcome Tea

This exhibition mixed literature and visual arts, with text labels, photographs, drawings and other materials combining to create visual poems on the theme of Lunar New Year.

Cross-Disciplinary Storytelling Panel

In April 2019, the Storytellers hosted a panel on cross-disciplinary storytelling and engaging with storytelling from multiple perspectives, featuring the College’s photography instructor Tom White, Manager of Intercultural Engagement Sahar Kazemini and future Assistant Professor of Humanities (History) Matthew Reeder.

Creating Narratives Through Images and Space

The Storytellers held a masterclass with artist Wei Leng Tay and curator Dr Olivier Krischer in 2020. This participatory workshop focused on image-making, storytelling and space. Participants created artwork based on their last photograph and curated their own photography exhibition.

Halcyon Heavens: The Yale-NUS Guide to the Universe

The society provided thought-provoking quotations for ‘Halcyon Heavens: The Yale-NUS Guide to the Universe’, a publication featuring student photographs of astronomical objects produced by the astronomical society Ashen Light, in collaboration with The Cosmoscience and The Octant.

With Open Eyes: A Zine About Diversity

In December 2019, the group published a zine that explored themes of diversity, connection and self through a collection of students’ prose, poetry and visual artworks.

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Yale-NUS Fashion Society

Fashion was another popular form of artistic expression at Yale-NUS, with regular fashion shows highlighting the work of student fashion designers.

Many of these shows were organised by the Yale-NUS Fashion Society, who also offered sewing and craft workshops, fashion-related outings and events and opportunities to network and collaborate.

Yale-NUS Fashion Society’s competition poster called “outfit of the day” Inside the rectangles of various sizes, white, red, blue and yellow, there is a nicely dressed man and inside another rectangle there is information about the event.

Held in the Black Box Theatre in February 2019, the Yale-NUS Fashion Society’s first fashion show explored the theme of its title, ‘Deception’. The costumes were created by the society’s student designers.

A fashion show scene features a woman with a black top, white skirt and sunglasses, and a man with a white shirt and a white pants, posing on the podium.

A scene from the fashion show “Deception” . The audience who came to watch the show looked at a mannequin in black costume. Behind the stage, the word "deception" is reflected with a picture of a woman in a hat.

A poster for Yale-NUS University Fashion Society’s show called “Deception”. It features a photo of two legs with a white tulle on them.

In the fashion show, a female model wearing a dress of white flowers under the black fabric posing on the podium.

The designers of the fashion show are answering questions on the stage and the question "Who is your style icon?”is reflected from the projection in the background.

March and April 2022 saw another showcase of the work of the College’s up-and-coming fashion designers, this time inspired by the title ‘Resurrection’. The designs were modelled by students in the Black Box Theatre.

A model walking in a black dress on the podium in the fashion show.

African and Afro fashion and culture was celebrated in November 2016 with the runway show ‘Tokelezea: African Fashion and Dance’. A Q&A panel highlighting African fashion was followed by an evening of music, food and dance. For this event, the Fashion Society collaborated with the Yale-NUS African, African-American and Afro-Caribbean Society (YAAAS).

A colourful ethnic outfit hanging on a yellow wall and a photo of a model posing with ethnic clothing.

A woman and a man dance in the clothes of their own culture.

Two women wearing black sports clothes making moves.

A bunch of women in African themed outfit sit and chat with each other about the event.

Artist-in-Residence Programme

The Yale-NUS Artist-in-Residence (AIR) programme invited professional artists to campus to create their art while interacting with students through workshops, talks and public events.

At the “Natural Questions Art for a Small Plane” event, speakers present and answer questions.

During the talk ‘Natural Questions: Art for a Small Planet’, the College’s inaugural artists-in-residence, Christa Donner and Andrew Yang, discussed their art practices, the complex relationship of human and ecological issues and their residency teaching the course ‘Culturing Nature: Ecological Art and the Garden’.