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Michael

"I really appreciated the nurturing and intellectually stimulating environment the faculty creates for students, which helps promote open exchanges and fosters the spirit of critical thinking, reflexivity, imagination and friendship."

Main details

Department Sociology
Occupation Artist & part-time lecturer at Nanyang Technological University
Country Singapore

"I was an artist looking to articulate the sociological underpinning of my work when I applied for the MA in Photography and Urban Cultures at Goldsmiths. It felt like I had jumped in at the deep end but I emerged feeling fulfilled and enriched. The rigour of the course gave me more than knowledge. I really appreciated the nurturing and intellectually stimulating environment the faculty creates for students, which helps promote open exchanges and fosters the spirit of critical thinking, reflexivity, imagination and friendship. This experience allowed me to realise the intimate relation and synergy between art and social science, which I have continued to explore in my work today as an artist, educator and researcher. 

Since graduating from the Masters, I have returned to Singapore to continue my art practice and worked as a part-time lecturer at various arts colleges before joining the School of Art, Design and Media at Nanyang Technological University in 2007, where I currently teach. I continue my relation with Goldsmiths by working with Professor Caroline Knowles on a collaborative art-sociology research project, “Invisible Life”, which investigates the complex social fabric embedded in mundane ‘flip-flops’. 

In recent years, my work has taken another sociological turn, to examine the place of the visual and artistic practices in the context of health. The training I received from the MA gave me the confidence to imagine connections between the arts and the social world. Moving forward, my aim now is to pursue a PhD to further explore relations between the arts, health and society."

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