Sunitha Janamohanan

Sunitha Janamohanan has worked in the arts since 1999 with a portfolio that covers a range of art forms and creative industries, from visual and performing arts to literature and film, design, animation, music and heritage.

She has been a curator in the Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia, arts manager and head of programmes for the British Council Malaysia, Education and Outreach Manager for George Town World Heritage Inc., in Penang, and, prior to moving to Singapore, she was the manager of a multipurpose art space called MAPKL in Kuala Lumpur.

In 2018 she participated in a UNESCO workshop for experts from the Asia-Pacific region on the 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of Expressions of Cultural Diversity, and in 2019 conducted a study on the financial environment for the cultural and creative industries in the Southeast Asian sub-region for the UNESCO office in Bangkok.

She has been a member of the Heritage Advisory Panel for the National Heritage Board of Singapore since 2018 and is now in her third term, serving on a sub-committee for Intangible Cultural Heritage. In this capacity she has also served on the evaluation panel for the annual Stewards of Singapore’s Intangible Cultural Heritage Award Scheme launched in 2020.

At LASALLE she is also the coordinator of ANCER, the Asia-Pacific Network of Cultural Education & Research, leading on the organisation of key programmes and contributing to the maintenance and development of relationships with the network's core members.

Through ANCER as well as her work on arts management and community-engaged arts practice in Southeast Asia, she is a frequent speaker/moderator in the region, and has worked with institutions such as the Mekong Cultural Hub, Cambodia Living Arts, Arts-Ed (Malaysia), and Tokyo University of the Arts.

Modules currently teaching

1) BA Arts Management:

• History & Contextual Studies Foundation (L1)
• History & Contextual Studies: Materials, Methods, History (L1)
• History & Contextual Studies: Themes & Topics (L2)
• Heritage Management (L2 elective)
• Arts Leadership & Nonprofit Management (L3)

2) MA Arts & Cultural Leadership

• Strategies & Leadership for Arts and Culture 

Modues previously taught:

• Exhibition Management (BA L2 elective)
• Financial Resources in the Arts (BA L2)
• Artist Management (BA L2)

• Community and socially engaged arts practice
• Local arts management models in Southeast Asia
• The intersections of social practice and organizational behaviour and cultural leadership
• Culture and heritage of Southeast Asia

• Case study
• Textual and content analysis
• Survey

"Financing Cultural and Creative Industries in South-East Asia" -  a research project undertaken under the auspices of the UNESCO 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (UNESCO Bangkok).

Backstage: Managing creativity and the arts in South-East Asia. Bangkok, UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific & Cultural Organization, 2021, ISBN / ISSN: 978-92-3-100443-8. 

"Community Museums as Alternative Narratives to National Heritage: The Serdang Folk Museum and the Performance of Heritage” Chapter in the book 'Sites, Histories, Identities: Making Heritage in Malaysia', edited by Sharmani P. Gabriel and published by Palgrave Macmillan in February 2020

''Managing Cultural Activism: A Case Study of Buku Jalanan of Malaysia.'' The Routledge Companion to Arts Management, edited by William Byrnes, and Aleksandar Brkić, Abingdon, Routledge , 2019, pp. 234-248, doi: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351030861. 

“To Biennale or Not To Biennale”, ArtsEquator.com (February 23, 2017)

https://artsequator.com/biennale-not-biennale/

Any topic that coincides with my research interests or professional experience.

I am especially interested in the following:

• socially engaged or community engaged arts
• heritage management/interpretation
• politics of art/culture/heritage
• artist or cultural workers' rights

• Project management
• Curation and exhibition production
• Production
• Writing & Editing
• Venue management
• Cultural diplomacy

Rediscover Telok Ayer, Arts Project in partnership with the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA), concept developer and project lead (Aug. 2019 - April 2020)

Managing Islands of Creativity, Workshops in Arts Management by Arts Management faculty of LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore, and George Town Festival, Malaysia (Penang, Sept. 2016-May 2017)

ArtAct! a programme of arts and cultural activism featuring the exhibition “Picturing Change: Visual Culture and the Art of Advocacy”, co-presented with the Malaysia Design Archive (MAPKL, Kuala Lumpur, April 2015)

The Good Malaysian Woman: religion, ethnicity, politics, exhibition co-curator, organised by women’s rights NGO, AWAM (All Women’s Action Society) and Interpr8 art space (Kuala Lumpur, May 2014)

Convenor/co-convenor of ANCER activities:

ANCER Conference 2022, 2-4 December 2022, "Ecologies of the Arts: Sustainable Futures, New Creative Economies and the
Management of Art and Culture"

ANCER Conference 2020, 17-19 September 2020, "Disruption as Opportunity"

ANCER Lab 01 (Kuala Lumpur, Jan. 2019) “Arts Policy, Cultural Democracy and Artist Communities: A conversation around arts & culture, policy and civil society” 

ANCER Lab 02 (Ho Chi Minh City, Oct. 2019) "ANCER Lab Conversations | Trao đổi"

ANCER Lab 03 (virtual, in partnership with De La Salle- College of Saint Benilde Manila, Philippines)

ANCER Lab 04 (Bangkok, March 2023) "ANCER Lab Conversations | Wong Santana"

Community-Engaged Arts in Malaysia

1) Workshops for Community-Engaged Arts Practitioners, supported by the Krishen Jit Astro Fund, and delivered in partnership with Janet Pillai (Kuala Lumpur)

• Mapping the Landscape of Community Engaged Arts Practice in Malaysia (April 2017)
• Why Use Art or Culture in Engaging with Community? (July 2017)

2) Community-based Arts & Culture Workers: A Research and Documentation Project, initiated by Arts-ED (2014)

I have experience working across a range of partners, from government agencies and national institutions to institutions of international cooperation, from corporate companies to individual artists. I am keen to supervise any project that coincides with my research interests or professional experience, particularly that involves:

• public art
• heritage
• community or socially engaged arts