Audrey Wong

Audrey Wong is a cultural policy expert, civil society advocate, arts and cultural scholar and the first Nominated Member of Parliament for the Arts in Singapore. She holds a Master of Arts (Research) in English Literature from the National University of Singapore and a Master in Arts Administration and Cultural Policy from Goldsmiths, University of London.

Prior to joining LASALLE in 2010, Audrey was the artistic co-director of The Substation, an independent art space, from 2000 till early 2010. She was the first woman to be appointed to this role in the arts centre. With co-director Lee Weng Choy, she launched The Substation’s Associate Artists programme in 2003 to support local artists in sustaining their practice and refocused the arts centre as an arts incubation space. She curated and organised festivals, exhibitions, conferences and artists’ exchanges, connecting with Southeast Asia, Europe and Australia. Prior to her appointment as artistic co-director, Audrey had conceptualised and launched Moving Images - the first year-round film programme in Singapore focused on supporting and giving a platform to homegrown filmmakers. 

As an educator, Audrey was an adjunct lecturer in the MA Arts and Cultural Management Programme at LASALLE from 2006–2009 before joining LASALLE full-time in 2010. She was also an adjunct lecturer in the Theatre Studies programme at the National University of Singapore.

In 2009, Audrey was nominated by the arts community and appointed as a Nominated Member of Parliament (NMP) in Singapore’s Parliament. During her term she championed the cause of freelance artists in the arts and media sectors in Singapore, as they sought to improve their working conditions. She is still involved in ground-up advocacy for artists and freelancers.

Audrey is sought after for her expertise and guidance on arts policy matters. She has served on various institutional boards and committees including the boards of Singapore Art Museum and Nine Years Theatre, and was a Council member of the National Arts Council and is currently on the selection committee for the National Library's Creative Residency programme. She also sat on the Arts and Culture Strategic Review Committee (2010–2012). 

Audrey has supervised numerous MA and BA dissertations and has a lot of experience guiding students who feel that research is not 'their thing', mentoring them towards successful completion of dissertations and research projects.  

Audrey teaches at both BA and MA levels, covering the following areas: academic writing, research skills, cultural policy, the creative industries and creative economy, and some areas in arts management practice (foundational principles, fundraising, philanthropy, creative labour, strategy), and dissertation supervision. She also runs occasional workshops for arts practitioners in arts management skills.

Arts and cultural policies, particularly of Singapore; creative economy/ creative industries policies; arts and cultural leadership; cities and public spaces for arts and culture; independent arts spaces; freelancers in the arts & creative industries; arts advocacy and intersections between the arts and civil society; censorship in Singapore; traditional Chinese opera. She is currently researching the relationship between the governance and leadership of Chinese opera groups and the survival of traditional opera in Singapore.

Audrey's research interests are motivated by her sense of the need to document and understand current contexts for, and developments in, the arts and cultural sectors in Singapore and Southeast Asia. Arts management and arts /cultural policy are still fairly new fields of study in the region and many situational developments, current practices, and policy responses are not well documented. With greater awareness of the need to decolonise arts management curricula in non-western contexts, the urgency to document and analyse Southeast Asian arts and cultural management practices and leadership issues is greater today. Audrey's research is empirical and the approach is generally qualitative, including drawing from written documentation and records, reports and other secondary sources, as well as evidence drawn from interviews in-the-field. She has also used an action research approach. She has written articles from the perspective of her experience as an arts/cultural worker in Singapore - the intersection between theory and practice is of particular interest.

Backstage: Managing Creativity and the Arts in Southeast Asia, for UNESCO Bangkok (2020-21), co-investigator with Sunitha Janamohananhttps://bangkok.unesco.org/content/publication-backstage-managing-creativity-and-arts-south-east-asia

" 'Emerging Stronger': Cultural Policy Highlights of Singapore's Covid-19 Pandemic Response."  Cultural Policy Tracker, ENCATC - European Network on Cultural Management and Policy, 2022, no. 1, pp. 30 - 38. https://www.encatc.org/media/6291-encatc_policy_tracker_april_2022_final.pdf

"Dialogue, Differences and Empathy: How Theatre Can Facilitate Deeper Engagement with Multiculturalism." One United People: Essays from the People Sector on Singapore's Journey of Racial Harmony, edited by Koh Buck Song, Singapore: Marshall Cavendish, 2022, pp. 164 - 177.

Backstage: Managing Creativity and the Arts in Southeast Asia, co-author with Sunitha Janamohanan, UNESCO Bangkok 2020. https://bangkok.unesco.org/content/publication-backstage-managing-creativity-and-arts-south-east-asia

"Post-Renaissance Singapore." Space, Spaces and Spacing 2020, edited by Adeline Chia, Singapore: The Substation, 2020.

"Rules of Engagement in the Global Arts City: The Case of The Substation." The Routledge Companion to Arts Management, edited by William Byrnes and Aleksandar Brkic, Routledge, 2019, pp. 187 - 202.

"The Report of the Advisory Council on Culture and the Arts." The State and the Arts in Singapore: Policies and Institutions, edited by Terence Chong, Singapore: World Scientific, 2018, pp. 111 - 126.

"Sinking roots, or trying to." The Esplanade Off-Stage: Researchers, 2017. https://www.esplanade.com/offstage/researchers/explore/sinking-roots-or-trying-to-singapore-theatre-past-into-future

(Editor) 25 Years of The Substation: Reflections on Singapore's First Independent Arts Centre. The Substation & Ethos Books, 2015.

"Exegetical Commentary" to "The Singapore Arts Landscape: Influences, Tensions, Confluences and Possibilities for the Learning Context" by Gene Navera, in Contextualized Practices in Arts Education: An International Dialogue on Singapore, edited by Lum Chee Hoo, Springer, 2013, pp. 21 - 24.

"Artists' Advocacy in Singapore: A Changing Drama." Asia Pacific Journal of Arts and Cultural Management, vol. 9 no. 1, 2012, pp. 45 - 52.

Yes, I am available for academic supervision. Most recently I have supervised dissertation research in the following areas: arts leadership in Singapore; cultural policy and creative industries policies; creative placemaking; Singapore's punk subculture; the film / media industry in Singapore; music industry ecosystems; censorship in Singapore; managerial challenges for arts organisations.

As an arts manager, Audrey was comfortable working in visual, image-based and performing arts (reflecting The Substation’s interdisciplinary approach), and was particularly interested in nurturing emerging artists, developing platforms for contemporary performance and cross-disciplinary collaboration by independent artists, as well as developing the audience for contemporary arts. Her arts managerial expertise covers artistic programming, fundraising, strategic planning, arts /non-profit governance, community organising and arts advocacy. 

Co-convenor, ANCER Conference 2020: Disruption as Opportunity. LASALLE College of the Arts.

Co-convenor, ANCER Labs: Manila 2021, Ho Chi Minh City 2019 and KL 2019.

Research resource for Debbie Ding's The Substation Archive Exhibition, 2015.

Co-convenor, ANCER Conference 2014. LASALLE College of the Arts.

Producer, Reinventing Sita - a Singapore-Mexico theatre production by Elizabeth de Roza, Eugenio Cano Puga, Itzel Rodrigues Macias, 2011. 

Co-organiser (with Khairuddin Hori), The HAO Summit (networking and mentoring summit for arts managers, artists and curators in Southeast Asia), 2006 - 2010.

Launched and developed Associate Artists Programme at The Substation, 2002 - 2009.

Co-artistic director, Septfest at The Substation, 1999 - 2009.

Organising committee, Magdalena Singapore: A Festival of Women in Contemporary Theatre, 2003.

Organising committee, Open Ends: Documentation Project on Performance Art in Singapore (Exhibition and Publication), 2001.

Programmer, Moving Images at The Substation, 1997 - 2000.

Since 2021, I have been part of a group of 8 artistic directors/ arts administrators who are engaging with the NAC on issues pertaining to the impact of policy on arts practitioners and arts companies in Singapore. 

Selection Committee, National Library Creative Residency, 2021 -  2022. 

Keynote address for ProducersSG's Producing Lab "What if we do it this way?", 2021.

Community workshop on Our SG Arts Plan, co-convened with Dr Hoe Su Fern, 2021.

Part of ArtsEngage, an ad-hoc, informal group of arts practitioners /advocates in Singapore: https://sites.google.com/site/artsengagesg/whois

Chairman, Nine Years Theatre (2020 - present); board member, Nine Years Theatre (since 2012).

Advisor, The Substation (2021 - present).

Facilitated Art of the Willing Hearts, a fundraising exhibition by MA students for Singapore charity Willing Hearts, 2015. 

Nominated Member of Parliament for the Arts, 2009 - 2011.

Board member, Singapore Art Museum (2010 - 2013).

Council member, National Arts Council (2011 - 2013).

Steering Committee member, Arts and Culture Strategic Review (2010 - 2012).

Singapore Internationale Grant committee (2011 - 2015).

Vice-president, Magdalena Singapore (society of women theatre practitioners), 2007 - 2009.

I can assist with projects of a cross-disciplinary nature; performing arts projects; film festivals. I may have time constraints though, due to other work commitments.

National Arts Council Cultural Leadership Fellow, 2013.

Nominated Member of Parliament for the Arts, 2009 - 2011.

Italian Institute of Culture scholarship, 1995.

English Literature Book Prize, National University of Singapore, 1988.