Examining approaches to socially engaged work

Application Deadline: 7 February 2020
Apply here

Objectifs invites proposals from persons who are currently working on or keen on developing art projects, curatorial proposals and community initiatives concerning issues of Care with and within different communities. This 4-session workshop is aimed at refining artistic and curatorial approaches and strategies to works-in-progress or new works/projects in lens based-mediums.

Projects that would fall under the purview of this workshop includes those keen on critiquing existing structures of work and labor; creating strategies of care for marginalized communities; looking at digital infrastructures and its impact on issues of care, and many more.

Participants can expect sharing sessions, exercises and critique sessions that will include strategies in producing socially engaged work, understanding beneficiaries, stakeholders and partners, identifying needs and gaps, addressing blind spots, undertaking funding applications, and working with partners.

Who should attend: Visual artists, arts producers and community organisers

This workshop is organised in conjunction with Objectifs’ annual documentary programme, Stories That Matter: Who Cares.


Submission deadline: Friday 7 February 2020
Selection results: Friday 14 February 2020
Apply online
here

Workshop dates:
#1 – 7 March 2020, Saturday, 2pm to 4.30pm
#2 – 14 March 2020,Saturday, 2pm to 4.30pm
#3 – 21 March 2020, Saturday, 2pm to 4.30pm
#4 – 28 March 2020,Saturday, 2pm to 4.30pm – Final presentations

 


Workshop facilitators

Nurul Huda is a researcher-writer, and photographer currently pursuing her PhD in Cultural Studies. She is interested in the study of narratives as medium, the spatial and bodily (gendered and other) as visual and sentient manifestations, and articulates them through written and visual projects. She has exhibited in group exhibitions, published in anthologies featuring women’s stories, and is currently working on a project entitled “Women in War”.

Chelsea Chua is Programme Director at Objectifs, where she curates and manages projects and exhibitions. She is the curator for Stories That Matter, Objectifs’ annual documentary programme, and runs the Objectifs Documentary Awards, Curator Open Call and its artist residency programme. Chelsea is interested in the possibilities of non-fiction visual storytelling and the intersections of film and photography with visual art.

Guest facilitators

Alecia Neo develops long-term projects that involve collaborative partnerships with individuals and communities. Her socially engaged practice unfolds primarily through photography, video, and participatory workshops that address modes of mobility, reciprocity, caregiving, and well-being to explores issues of identity and the search for self. Her recent projects include a collaboration with the community engagement platform Both Sides, Now, Singapore (2019-2017); Touch Collection, Singapore Art Museum, and Personally Speaking, Objectifs (both Singapore, 2018-ongoing). She is the co-founder of Brack, a platform for socially engaged art. Neo was the recipient of the Young Artist Award in 2016.

Sharmeen/Sifar’s latest endeavours include organising a long-term community engagement program with Freedom Film Festival Singapore, and a collaborative video project with Tan Biyun about the last street vendors of Singapore. She puts her camera and editing skills towards collaborating with any interested community in Singapore, in hopes of visually presenting lesser-known truths. She is motivated by urgent social issues such as natural history and societal lived experiences that have been overlooked. Her previous projects include an anti-rape video campaign for Slutwalk SG and a collaboration with upcoming director, Vishal Daryanomel, called Between Pudukkottai & Singapore – Poems by N Rengarajan, that featured a Tamil poet, who works in the construction sector and is an economic migrant.

 

Header image from Present.Perfect by Shengzhe Wu.
Screening at Stories That Matter: Who Cares