Baroque of the East and West: Sowing the Seeds for Intersections in Teaching and Learning of Art, Design and Music

Conference: The European Conference on Arts, Design & Education (ECADE2022)
Title: Baroque of the East and West: Sowing the Seeds for Intersections in Teaching and Learning of Art, Design and Music
Stream: Learning Practices in Art & Design Education
Presentation Type: Live-Stream Presentation
Authors:
Rebecca Kan, Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Singapore
Choong Kheng Tan, Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Singapore

Abstract:

Typically known as the Baroque of the East, Peranakan art is known for heavy ornamentation and vibrant colours depicted through everyday objects in Southeast Asia. Inspired by the Peranakan, we developed an integrated curriculum to highlight art, design and music outcomes. The process involves students negotiating their understanding of design and music through creative inquiry, synesthesia, and graphic translation. Through various forms of technologies to support the inquiry process, students generated visual interpretations of the sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti, an Italian composer who was in the service of the Portuguese and Spanish royal families. The ambition of this project was to turn the reading of Southeast Asian elements into performance outcomes, using creative inquiry to unlock contemporary possibilities. The creative outcomes of this integrated curriculum are examined vis-à-vis artefact analyses of the kinds of reinterpretations of Baroque created and surveys of student perceptions. With this process, students developed critical sensibilities about lines, shapes and forms in music and design, and generated creative products that raised both technical and aesthetic competences. This paper augments the recent publication of our book chapter (Tan & Kan, 2021), in which we observe that creative inquiry is situational and contextualised. The student-articulated outcomes point to the urgent need today of re-designing curriculum that supports creative thinking and critical inquiry. Hence, as higher education institutions gradually return to in-person learning, we open the discussion on how indigenous Southeast Asian elements can empower a post-pandemic future in the teaching and learning of the arts for higher education.

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