Jeffrey Say

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LASALLE MA Asian Art Histories Programme Leader Jeffrey Say

MA (Art History), The Open University, UK
BA Honours, University of Queensland, Australia

Jeffrey Say is an art historian specialising in Singapore and Southeast Asian art history who has undertaken pioneering research and study of sculpture in pre- and post-war Singapore.

In 2009, he designed the world’s first MA focusing on Asian modern and contemporary art histories at LASALLE College of the Arts, for which he is the Programme Leader.

A public advocate for the importance of art history in Singapore, Jeffrey is a frequent speaker at museums, universities and galleries, and conducts short courses that remain hugely popular among various audiences.

Jeffrey is the co-editor of Histories, Practices, Interventions: A Reader in Singapore Contemporary Art (Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore, 2016. Reprinted World Scientific 2023) and Intersections, Institutions, Innovations: A Reader in Singapore Modern Art (World Scientific, 2023), which remain critical anthologies for researchers, curators and students on Singapore art to date. He is also the co-author of the Exploring Southeast Asia With… series of books (Penguin Random House, 2022). He is currently working on an anthology on the history of Singapore sculpture (co-edited with Joleen Loh)

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Institutions, Intersections, Innovations: A Reader in Singapore Modern Art (co-edited with Seng Yu Jin) (2022)
Some Critical Reflections on Designing and Teaching an Asian Modern and Contemporary Art Histories Programme, Southeast of Now: Directions in Contemporary and Modern Art in Asia, Volume 4, Number 1 (2020)
Groundbreaking: The Origins of Contemporary Art in Singapore, BiblioAsia, Vol 15 Issue 2 (2019)
Histories, Practices, Interventions: A Reader in Singapore Contemporary Art (co-edited with Seng Yu Jin), Institute of Contemporary Art Singapore; Singapore (2016)
‘Battleship Grey, Old Gold and Billiard Chalks: The Genius of the Changi Murals’ in catalogue of The Big Picture Show exhibition, Singapore Art Museum; Singapore (2007)
‘Fascination with the East: Singapore (1939–1940)’ in catalogue of Karl Duldig, Sculptures/Drawings, Jewish Museum; Vienna (2003)

Delivered a paper ‘Visual Reimaginations of the Raffles Sculpture’ at the Association for Art History conference in London (2023)
Moderated the forum The Spice Route: Connected Histories in South and Southeast Asia (online) organised by the London School of Economics (2022)
Panel speaker at Sotheby’s Institute of Art’s ‘Asian Art in the 21st Century – Narratives of History and Curating’ organised as part of Singapore Art Week (2021)
Recipient of the Goldsmiths-LASALLE Partnership Innovation Fund to facilitate and conduct workshops using phenomenology as a pedagogical tool. Workshops were conducted at LASALLE (2018) and at Goldsmiths, University of London (2019)
Presented a paper ‘The Role of Practice among Artist-Teachers and its Impact on the Learning of Students’, The Asian Conference on Education; Tokyo, Japan (2018)
Convened and organised the Art and Action Contemporary Art and Discourse Conference, LASALLE College of the Arts; Singapore (2018)
Delivered a public lecture “State of the Arts in Singapore: Where is the Periphery?” at The Courtauld Institute of Art (2017)

Modern and contemporary art histories in Singapore
Sculpture in Singapore
Prisoners-of-war art in Singapore
Exhibition histories in Singapore
Southeast Asian modern art histories
Role of artist-teachers in art education

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Jeffrey Say

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