Note: Programme is open to NUS Student and Staff only. Do register for the programmes using your NUS email!

With the upcoming launch of the Visual Cultures Minor co-developed by the Department of Communications and New Media and the NUS Museum, a series of three programmes, workshopped collaboratively amongst the Department of Communication and New Media, NUS Libraries and the NUS Museum is set to take place for prospective students.

With a focus on collections being mobilised in different modes, the programmes feature exhibition displays, suggests ways of categorising and analysing materials for research, and experiential modes of learning such as collections handling and access at the Museum. Collections therefore, are presented in a plurality of manners for the prospective students who wish to apply for the Visual Cultures Minor and the multidisciplinary courses that make the Minor.

For more information on Minor in Visual Cultures, click here.

To register for any of the pre-launch events listed below, click here.

Pre-launch events:

Encounters @ NUS Central Library
9th October (Week 8)
NUS Central Library @ Seminar Room
3 – 5pm

The exhibition display, Encounters, brings together repositories of knowledge on the region through the University’s collections of material culture, textual and archival materials. Through the collaboration between NUS Libraries and NUS Museum, the display samples a resource list of topics such as landscapes, material culture and crafts presented through selected objects and bibliographies. The mobilisation and use of the collections showcase various lines of enquiry posed by the Museum, locating artefacts as materials of visual culture for research and learning, which are complemented by textual resources from the Library. This display presents the engagement of collections through exhibition and research projects.

The programme on the 9th of October highlights the exhibition display at the Central Library and feature NUS Museum’s Ahmad Osman (Assistant Manager, Collections Development) and NUS Libraries’ Tan Li-Jen (Assistant Librarian, Digital Strategy & Innovation) in a dialogue about the process of putting together Encounters, a display taking from the Prospectus project that engenders museum-based assignments and co-teaching with the NUS Museum collections. Following the dialogue, there will be a discussion alongside a tour of the curated sections that are situated in different locations within the library.

Through this programme, partnership and collaboration with NUS Libraries, it is hoped to demonstrate modes of teaching done at and with the Museum, such as guest lectures, co-teaching and tours. The Encounters display can also be regarded as one mode of mobilising, engaging and working with collections, such as those from the Museum, for assignments and capstone projects for students of the Visual Cultures Minor.

The Museum as Classroom
23rd October (Week 10)
NUS Museum
4 – 6 PM

This session provides students with learning experiences in the Museum, through Object Study and Collections Access as modes of engagement. Research trajectories take place alongside exhibitions and collections for their assignments and capstone projects, highlighting object-based and exhibition-based pedagogies.

The Collections Access session highlights how students work with thematic modalities and curatorial research within the NUS Museum by accessing collections and interfacing with museology for their learning and capstone projects. Some of the themes explored through this taster session would be the curatorial enquiries in exhibitions, a peek into the Museum stores, and focused presentations on themes such as modes of memory making through visual mediums such as paintings and motifs, techniques used in art making, decolonisation, and temporalities in artefact production and collection. With stations situated across the three levels of the Museum, students would get a chance to also see displays that courses often work with to have Museum-based assignments and mobilisation of objects and archives through installations by interns, creatives working on projects, or student researchers of the Museum, such as Paper Trails: Navigating the T.K. Sabapathy Archives.

Minor in Visual Cultures Clinic @ NUS Museum

6th November (Week 12)
NUS Museum @ ST Lee Atrium
3 – 4.30 PM

The Clinic presents a roundtable presentation on the concept and processes of applying to the Visual Cultures Minor. This session demonstrates curriculum design and planning as a form of academic engagement and partnership undertaken by the Museum.

The panel includes the NUS Museum’s Academic Director and VCU Minor convenor, A/P Lilian Chee, CNM personnel, representatives from and collaborators of the NUS Museum. The function and practices of Visual Cultures as a discipline is presented in this Clinic, with further clarification on the administrative process of applying into the Minor.

The NUS Museum would highlight object-centred and exhibition-based pedagogies aligning with the teaching and training of students of the Minor, along with the mobilisation of collections and the Prospectus’ initiative in developing the collections.

This Clinic endeavours to exemplify scope of subjects under the Minor, the multidisciplinary framework of VCU, learning outcomes, opportunities and skills upon graduation. Participants of this session will have a chance to engage with the Department of Communication and New Media and the NUS Museum.