CREATIVE TEAM
ALECIA NEO | FOUNDER & ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
Alecia Neo develops long-term projects that involve collaborations with individuals and communities. Her socially engaged practice unfolds primarily through photography, video, and participatory workshops that address modes of mobility, reciprocity, caregiving, and wellbeing 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); leading research for the Touch Collection, Singapore Art Museum and Between Earth and Sky for Personally Speaking, Objectifs (both Singapore, 2018-ongoing).
In 2012, she has completed an art residency at Cittadellarte’s Universita delle Idee (Italy) set up by Arte Povera artist Micheangelo Pistoletto, which operates with the agenda of art for social transformation.
She is also co-founder and artist lead at Brack, an arts platform for socially-engaged art. Alecia was the recipient of the Young Artist Award in 2016 and the Singapore Youth Award in 2019.
JESSLYN LIM | PROJECT MANAGER
Jesslyn works primarily with children and youths. A Psychology and Arts & Cultural Management graduate from the Singapore Management University, Jesslyn has had working experience with The Esplanade, where she was involved in PLAYtime!, an interactive theatre series for pre-schoolers and Feed Your Imagination, a performing arts series for primary and secondary school students. She has also worked as a Marketing Communications & Events assistant with The Red Pencil and as a Festival Assistant with The Artground for their 100 and 100 More Festival for Young Audiences. Through her various roles, Jesslyn has amassed diverse experiences in arts programming, publicity and marketing, outreach and partnership development.
She currently works as a researcher with the National Institute of Education’s Visual and Performing Arts department, examining the engagement and learning of children in and through the arts.
As a Project Manager with Unseen, she is keen to discover and learn more about socially engaged art practices.
JASMINE KAMSUL | PROJECT ASSOCIATE
Jasmine Kamsul is a an Arts Management graduate who enjoys working within a socially engaged or community-based practice. Outside of art, her passion lies with nature and nurturing children. Jasmine was passionately involved in our platform's project Move For?ward (Unseen: Inside Out), by artists Claire Teo, Kira Lim, Clarence Chung and Samuel Woo, in collaboration with 12 visually-impaired co-creators.
As a Project Associate with Unseen, Jasmine co-facilitates and initiates our public programmes alongside artists and communities.
OUR PROJECT CONTRIBUTORS
Kira Lim, 22, is a contemporary classical soprano under the tutelage of Ms Khor Ai Ming. She placed first for all categories (Classical/Folk/Opera) in the American Protege Vocal Competition 2018 and was later invited to perform at Carnegie Hall, New York City. She has also sung as a soloist in the Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles. In 2019, Kira graduated from Lasalle College of The Arts with a Diploma in Performance. In 2016, she attained a Distinction in the Trinity College London Advanced Performance Certificate. Kira was involved in the 2019’s SIFA production of Oreste by Ifigenia directed by Tan Shou Chen. In 2020, Kira was accepted into the prestigious Manhattan School of Music in New York City to pursue her Bachelors in Music (Classical Voice). She has performed several times with many established conductors including - Joshua Tan, Alice Farnham, Tsung Yeh and Justin Freer on a range of large works for chorus and orchestra, including Berstein’s Chichester Psalms, John Rutter’s Mass of the Children, Howard Shore’s music for Lord of the Rings and Liu San Jie - Musical Film Concert. Kira has a love of sharing and teaching the arts. Kira started teaching singing in 2017 at Ms Khor’s Studio and has worked with people of all ages and backgrounds. In 2019, she also taught singing and piano in SOMA and Joy Music Studio. In late 2020, she was invited to be a voice coach in the arts camp “我爱秀 I SHOW” with Singapore Raffles Music College for children and teenagers. Kira served as an assistant instructor to The Lighthouse School Choir which performs regularly with The Purple Symphony led by Mr Quek Ling Kiong. Kira is the main storyteller in PlayINC’s The Classics Retold, telling fairy tales but also bringing up issues that children may face today. She wants to continue inspiring young children to be imaginative, creative and chase their dreams. Kira has participated in some notable performances including: The Magic Flute (2014) as 'First Lady', Hansel and Gretel (2016) as 'Gretel', Mass of The Children and New York Sounds of Summer, Carnegie Hall (Soloist, 2016), Vocal Associates Songbirds Recital: Tsubasa (Soloist, 2017), You are the Music (Soloist, 2017), Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No.2 & Mass of the Children (Soloist, 2018), Los Angeles International Music Festival (Soloist, 2018), Carmina Burana (Soloist, 2019), StoryFest - Wings Of Love (Storyteller, 2019), Der Zwerg with the Opera People directed by Edith Podesta (2019) as ‘First Maiden’. In November 2019, Kira did a solo debut recital at the Esplanade Recital Studio, and she hopes to continue performing annually as she grows artistically.
Claire Teo has never stopped working towards excellence in her pursuit of the performing arts. She is the first visually impaired person to have graduated from a professional theatre course in Singapore in 2019, (LASALLE College of the Arts’ Diploma in Performance) and is closely mentored by Artist-Educator and Disability Arts Specialist, Peter Sau in her artistic endeavors. Since then, she saw the need for more communities to have access to arts education and has been developing and teaching drama curriculums for persons with diverse abilities. She is now the Academic Director of Talent Academy (a division of Singapore Raffles Music College) which aims "Towards Unwavering Artistic Excellence for all". As part of PLAYInc Pte Ltd, she is the scriptwriter and director of several assembly school show programmes, an episodic sitcom and a children's storytelling series called "The Classics Retold". In the long run, she wishes to work closely with her fellow disabled artists to break new artistic ground and champion the disability arts scene towards true inclusive practice; creating art with different communities that would empower and encourage awareness and social change.
Clarence is a Singaporean graduate of History from the National University of Singapore who has been a music composer and sound designer for art installations, film and advertising media for 10 years since 2011. His works span across Singapore, Malaysia, Korea, Italy and New York and Rotterdam. A key highlight in his arts/media production career is creating the English dub for a popular Korean children's animation as Voice Director. The episode of Arpo’s ‘Run For Your Life’ has gathered more than 200 million views on YouTube to date. Clarence’s passion for playing the guitar also led him from playing in small nightclubs locally to representing Singapore in Chengdu in 2015 as Musical Director of a 5-piece pop band. There he performed on mega stages (>3000 pax each) across Chengdu with Singapore pop starlet Tay Kewei. Today, though he no longer performs professionally, he is happy to share the magic and secrets of the guitar with other passionate strummers.
To overcome his tendency for paranoia, Samuel Woo (b. 1983) turns to imagination to create stories, often through photography, illustration and writing. The need to dispel his fears has transformed into creative skills and thought processes he now practises on a daily basis, mostly evident from his Instagram @moonoloco. On earth, he is human and holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography from Nanyang Technological University, two certificates in Product and Graphic Design, and an impossible addiction to making things pretty in strange, unusual ways. All because he believes #yolo.
Mintio is a visual artist born in Singapore. Trained as a photographer at the School of Art Design and Media in Nanyang Technological University, Mintio has been actively creating works and participating in exhibitions both locally and abroad. She is the founder of Ketemu Project Space in Bali.
Kok Choon Choo (Choon) is a painter based in Johor Bahru, Malaysia. His works are inspired by the German Expressionism and Japanese Pop Culture - creating vivid characters that bring his ideas of the society across. His workshop allows participants to explore drawing their facial features through different means - sight and touch. Choon has been given awards for his paintings. He also works as an arts educator in Malaysia, regularly conducting workshops. He is a member of National Art Gallery Malaysia, PPM (Malaysia Artists Society) and Persatuan Senilukis Rekacipta Negeri Johor (SERUPA). He graduated from University of Tasmania (UTAS @ Hobart Campus) and has a BFA (Bachelor of Fine Art) Painting 2001-CAA Academy of Art (Johor Bahru Campus).
Zaidi Sabtu-Ramli enjoys an active career as a conductor, performer, and educator. Zaidi writes an average of 4 commission pieces a year and his recent highly acclaimed World Premiered rearrangement of ‘Munnaeru Vaalibaa’, a familiar local Indian Folk tune with a fresh twist, was commissioned by the Singapore Wind Symphony. He has also conducted numerous public performances of his commissioned pieces and premiered concerts throughout Europe. Zaidi’s annual calendar includes several conducting and performing engagements each year in several European destinations: Spain, France, Germany and The Netherlands, as well as at major European Conservatoires in Maastricht, Madrid, Valencia, Berlin and Paris.
Sarah Ismail is a singer‐songwriter with the indie folk-pop band SEYRA. As the vocalist of the band, she has been compared to the likes of Feist, Rachael Yamagata and Regina Spektor by media and music reviewers. They have been featured in publications such as TimeOut, Nylon, Juice and hailed by Singapore’s TODAY Newspaper as “definitely one name to watch for”. Their songs are currently receiving radio airplay and in 2013, their song ‘Jauh’ was nominated for the “Best Singapore Song” at the Malay music industry awards, ‘Anugerah Planet Muzik’. SEYRA have performed and toured in festivals locally and in cities across Japan and Delhi. Sarah was invited by the Esplanade for their “Late Night Series” concert in collaboration with other female musicians in conjunction with International Women’s Day.
An ex-sportsman, Amal Alderoos is in charge of the Kids Inclusive Sports Programme where adaptive sports is introduced to persons with disabilities. Besides that, she also does outreach programmes for students in main stream school (MOE) to educate them on disability sports. She was appointed as a secretariat for team Singapore for the 7th ASEAN Para Games in Myanmar this year. She was also a team manager for the National Youth Development Squad of Handball Federation (Singapore) 2011- 2013 where she covered several events like Woman’s World Beach Handball Championship in Oman, SEA Thailand Beach Opens In Thailand.
PINK Gajah Theatre is an intercultural non-profit theatre company that provides a creative thinking platform for communities to take action through workshops and performances ‘MAN MADE GOD’ was Pink Gajah Theatre’s debut performance at the 2013 Lit Up indie arts festival by Word Forward. Pink Gajah Theatre works closely with schools creating drama and movement programs and believes that “transformation can only happen through performance.” Pink gajah theatre is a brother sister team of Sharda Harrison and Sean Harrison.
Loo Bin Hui volunteered for Unseen Art when he was an Officer in Training in OCS. He is really glad to have been offered the opportunity to help for Unseen where he can put his army knowledge and leadership training to good use. He hopes Unseen can bring to light the courage our VIs show in chasing their dreams, in keeping faith, in never letting their not seeing keep them from being unseen.
Victor Tan ’s sculptures are characterized by the sole use of wire. Coupled with his unique techniques, he investigates existential ideas about humanity, the isolation of the human emotions in the moment, and through the passage of time and life. Exploring the world of three dimensional art, participants will be introduced to various materials with Victor to create an artwork of their own. The vast majority of Victor’s sculptures have been centered on the human figure, with rare works of fishes, birds, horses etc. His earliest pieces seemed to express a language or voice which Victor uses to work through his anxieties and traumas. Or perhaps a therapy even to release his inner fears and thoughts, through a language that words cannot express. Creating sculpture at this point in his existence is about healing, about seeking happiness, about contemplation, about finding meanings in life.
Frederick Chu is the founder of My Special Corner. He is trained in early childhood and work as a teacher since 1997. Initially working with the mainstream, lower income & complex families, he has since ventured out to specialise in Mediated Learning Experiences (MLE) to work with students with special needs. He also has a Graduate Diploma in Training & Development where he runs training sessions for in-service teachers.
PINK Gajah Theatre is an intercultural non-profit theatre company that provides a creative thinking platform for communities to take action through workshops and performances ‘MAN MADE GOD’ was Pink Gajah Theatre’s debut performance at the 2013 Lit Up indie arts festival by Word Forward. Pink Gajah Theatre works closely with schools creating drama and movement programs and believes that “transformation can only happen through performance.” Pink gajah theatre is a brother sister team of Sharda Harrison and Sean Harrison.
Founder of ConversationCircles in Singapore, Allen Lim has been providing consulting capacity to diverse clients both corporate and not-for-profit organisations in Europe and Asia. In the past 14 years, he has worked with clients in areas of personal leadership, coaching and mentoring. Allen received his Post-Graduate Diploma in Training with University of Leicester, UK. He is married with three young children, and enjoys sports, photography and a good conversation.
Peter Lim has been part of the Prison Fellowship Singapore, an inter-denominational fellowship of Christians that ministers to men, women and their families in Singapore’s prison system for over 8 years. He completed his Masters of Christian studies from the Biblical Graduate School of Theology in 2006. Since then, he continues to be an inspiration not only for the sighted but for the community with visual impairment as well.
A forensic psychologist by training, Dr Majeed Khader is the Director of the Home Team Behavioural Sciences Centre under the Ministry of Home Affairs. Dr Majeed is also the Chief Psychologist of the Singapore Police Force. Also a trained hostage negotiator, his operational duties include being the Deputy Commander of the Crisis Negotiation Unit. He teaches part time as an Assistant Professor (Adjunct) at the Nanyang Technology University.
Jeffrey Tan has been working as a theatre director, drama educator and arts producer for the last twenty-five years. He was Resident Director with The Theatre Practice (1997), Drama Lecturer with LASALLE SIA (1999), Associate Artistic Director with TheatreWorks (S) Ltd (2002), Assistant Director with the National Arts Council (2007) and Assistant Director, People’s Association (2012). Since 2016, Jeffrey works independently.
Mok Cui Yin is an independent creative producer. Since 2008, she has produced a wide range of projects in UK and in Singapore, including fringe theatre, live art projects, literary events, and multidisciplinary arts festivals and events such as Pop-Up Singapore House (2012-2014), SEA ArtsFest (2013 & 2014), and Singapore: Inside Out (2015). She likes exploring the intersection(s) between anthropology, art, and social action, and enjoys developing work that investigates space, memory, and sensorium. She is interested in ethnographic approaches to socially-engaged art practice, arts and cultural policy, and the conditions of production and art-making in Singapore.
Christopher Ling is the artistic director of Theatrethreesixty. Christopher’s most recent directing credits include: Ariff Kamil’s HOW I LEARNT TO ACCEPT REALITY BY SLEEPING THROUGH IT (KL 2015), Caryl Churchill’s LOVE AND INFORMATION (KL 2015), Edward Albee's AT HOME AT THE ZOO (KL and George Town Festival 2014), Nandang Abdul Rahman's POST TRAUMATIC SHOPPING + Desmond Sim's NOT EVEN THE NIGHT HAS SUCH GENTLE HANDS (KL and The Causeway Exchange Festival 2014 Singapore), LENTERASENI (Festival Belia Putrajaya), the Malaysian premiere of Tony Kushner's ANGELS IN AMERICA: PART 1 - MILLENNIUM APPROACHES and Donizetti's opera L'ELISIR D'AMORE presented by the Eat Sing and Travel People. He was awarded the Boh Cameronian Arts Award for Best Direction (Musical Theatre) in 2012. He also received the Anugerah Seni Negara (National Arts Awards) Young Talent Award for Theatre Directing in 2009. He trained in Drama and Theatre Arts at Middlesex University, UK and with the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain.
Ng Chor Guan, the co-founder of Toccata Studio, renowned Malaysian composer, sound designer, active thereminist, improviser, educator, and cyclist. A familiar face in many international arts festivals across the continents, Guan is a prolific artist whose diverse body of work is rooted in the contemporaneous currents of technology and yet proves to transcend categories in the performing arts. The arts collective Toccata Studio is his dedication to creating collaborative and multidisciplinary works: they are responsible for a new, progressive wave of contemporary arts in Malaysia that aims to reach and cross global boundaries of culture and tradition.
Wong Yunjie is a theatre artist, researcher and writer curious about the gaps to collective human flourishing in present-day capitalism. He practised community-based theatre with Makhampom, Chiangmai (2012-2014) and studied Noh, Wayang Wong, Beijing Opera, Taichi and Kuttiyattam alongside Western theatre traditions at the Intercultural Theatre Institute (2015-2017). As a student of politics, culture and play, Yunjie has written articles for ArtsWok Collective, Brack, Drama Box (forthcoming) and an honours thesis on Thailand’s democracy movement and cinema in the 1970s (National University of Singapore, 2007).
Athirah Annissa is a creative designer and she is currently pursuing a fine arts degree at Nanyang Technological University, School of Art Design and Media. With a strong passion for the arts, design, architecture and music she oftens explores and experiment with many different mediums all to better understand the relationship between the human spirit and the environment around us. She has had experiences leading a team for exhibitions and was one of the creative leads in her alma mater's first Art's Festival. On other days, she's probably with her guitar or a camera in hand.
Seet Yun Teng has completed a joint honors in Fine Art and Art History in Goldsmiths, University of London. She works across a variety of mediums and fields (sculpture, textiles, installation, photography), and has interests ranging from gallery curation, to street art, to theatre, to community-engaged art. She also enjoys writing and reading critically as a means of supplementing her artistic pursuits. In her free time, Yun Teng does crazy things like paint 50m long murals and dance hip-hop on London streets.
Alicia Chua is a BSc graduate in Marketing at the University of Southampton. Previously, a student from Republic Polytechnic's Diploma in Arts and Theatre management, specialising in Arts Production management. Alicia had led and assisted in multiple children events and visual arts projects.
