Artist Manifesto

My manifesto was actually inspired by recent experiences interacting with exchange students from the UK. I realized how easily I fit in with them as compared to singapore local students because of the way I was raised. Being an international school kid has always been hard on me because we’re seen as hybrids. We don’t belong to the Asians, we don’t completely belong with the Westerners as well. So when I first came to singapore and studied in NTU especially (which was full of goody two shoes no offense) I had a huge culture shock on how Singaporeans are actually really gpa oriented. Even at an art school, teachers will say no to your ideas because those ideas don’t abide to social norms and students follow whatever they’re told to do. They create their works based on their teachers’ preferences and whenever I see this, I ask myself, why are they doing art then? Are they doing art for themselves or for their grades? If it is for the grades, then that is a humiliation to art and I don’t approve of that kind of mindset at all. The culture crash is real, and I often felt pressured to abide to social norms so I don’t fall out of place. But eventually I decided to screw all that and do art like how I mean to do art. Screw the gpa if I don’t get straight A’s what not. At the end of the day, art is liberal and art is free. I will not let anybody’s ideas or opinions confine how or why I’m doing art.

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