FUTURE PROOF : Cultural Leadership in the Creative Industries

FUTURE PROOF utilises the concept of designing something to withstand future obsolescence as an entry point into thinking about the future of cultural leadership in the creative industries. At the same time, it plays with the double meaning of “proof” in the context of obtaining a higher education qualification.

This distinguished panel featuring leading academic voices in arts and cultural leadership, will explore the evolving landscape of arts education and leadership within Southeast Asia, with a focus on the cultural specificity of the creative industries in Brunei, Singapore, and the broader region. Key topics include the role of higher education in nurturing future cultural leaders, innovative approaches to arts and cultural entrepreneurship, and value creation in the arts. Attendees will gain insights into how these institutions are shaping the next generation of cultural leaders and the strategies they employ to foster a vibrant, sustainable arts ecosystem.

FUTURE PROOF is part of The Idea of North – a 4-day festival commemorating the 40th anniversary of bilateral relations between Brunei and Singapore.

Speakers:

Dr. Kathrina Mohd Daud

Kathrina Mohd Daud is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Universiti Brunei Darussalam. Her research focuses on the intersections of popular fiction, Bruneian fiction, and representations of religion in literature. She co-edited The Southeast Asian Woman Writes Back: Gender, Identity and Nation in the Literatures of Brunei Darussalam, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines (Springer, 2017) with Grace V.S. Chin, and her work has appeared in several edited volumes published by Routledge and Springer, as well as in the Journal of Commonwealth Literature and World Englishes. She was the inaugural Festival Director for the Bruneian Tiny Lit Fest in 2019 and 2020, and her first novel, The Fisherman King, was shortlisted for the Epigram Books Fiction Prize in 2020.

Audrey Wong

Audrey Wong is Programme Leader of the MA Arts and Cultural Leadership course at LASALLE College of the Arts, University of the Arts Singapore. She was Singapore’s first ‘arts’ Nominated Member of Parliament (2009 – 2011) where she raised awareness about the precarity of freelance arts and creative workers. Before she joined LASALLE in 2010, she was Artistic Co-director of independent arts space The Substation. Her expertise in arts management crosses disciplinary boundaries. She served on the boards of the Singapore Art Museum and Nine Years Theatre and was a Council member of the National Arts Council. She writes on arts management and cultural policy issues and has contributed a chapter to The Routledge Companion to Arts Management and co-authored a report for UNESCO Bangkok, Backstage: Managing Creativity and the Arts in Southeast Asia (2021).

Dr. Rimi Parvin Khan

Dr Rimi Khan is a Senior Lecturer and Deputy Graduate Director in the Department of Communications and New Media at National University of Singapore. She is the Convenor of the Master of Arts (Arts and Cultural Entrepreneurship) and has published extensively on diversity and sustainability politics in the creative industries. Her book, ‘Art in community: the provisional citizen’ (2016, Palgrave), explores the institutional and aesthetic agendas that produce ideas of ‘community’. Her most recent work focuses on sustainable fashion and she has a book forthcoming with Manchester University Press titled, ‘Fashion for other worlds’.

Moderated by Nicholas Tee

Nicholas Tee is a performance artist & creative producer based in Singapore who collages action, image, sound and material through body-based performance, pain and endurance; their performance work is often politically charged, angry and messy.

Nicholas’ work has been presented internationally, notably at Haus der Kunst (DE), Kettle’s Yard (UK), Manchester Art Gallery (UK), ICA London (UK) and Point Centre for Contemporary Art (CY). In 2019, their work was featured in the British Art Studies journal published by the Paul Mellon Centre.

As a creative producer, Nicholas has worked multi-disciplinarily on festivals, concerts, shows and exhibitions in Singapore and abroad. Nicholas curated Diaspora Disco – a club night that platformed East and Southeast Asian artists in London – from 2019-2020. Nicholas is currently the Head of Artistic Development at Global Cultural Alliance, a Singapore-based arts organisation.