Heartstrings I: Interactions between Art Forms

3-min read

Real-life issues are imbued with multiple dimensions. More than ever before, understanding and dealing with their varying dimensions entails the lively interaction of different disciplines. The world is crossdisciplinary by nature, and to prepare students to face the challenges of the future, it is necessary for them to combine and connect what they learn separately from various subjects.

To promote a cross-disciplinary outlook in arts education, STAR brought together music teacher Lee Ji Heng (JH) and art teacher Low Sok Hui (SH), both from Eunoia Junior College, to pilot our very first a_edge – FIC collaboration (a_edge is an exhibition of art teachers’ artworks and FIC, or Friends In Concert, is a public performance by music teachers). Ji Heng’s composition r_m_mb_r is inspired by his late grandmother who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, while Sok Hui’s artwork Taming the Mind is inspired by her father who is now going through dementia, and who also helped her create the artwork. Through making connections between music and visual art, the two teachers found useful convergences and divergences in their artistic process and exchanged ideas to fuel their creating and teaching of the arts. Ji Heng and Sok Hui share their perspectives with STARPost about their artistic collaboration.

STAR-Post: For both of you, this was your first time being in a cross-disciplinary collaboration. What new insights can you apply to your own creative process that you acquired when working with someone from a different art form?

JH: Regarding the curatorial process, for music, we usually list what equipment we need. But for art, it’s more about how you install the artwork. There’s the interactive, visual and spatial aspect to consider. These are intriguing facets to think about when I was considering how I position the speakers.

SH: I’ve never considered the sonic aspect of art, so JH’s work led me to think of sound as a different artistic element, and how I can layer the sonic dimension in my artwork. When JH came up with the suggestion of featuring different containers for the speakers, for example, this was something new I hadn’t considered when working with materials.

STAR-Post: How did the two of you collaborate?

JH: When one of us thinks of a connection between visual art and music, we would share our ideas with the other person. The idea of discussion is something we can share with students – finding similarities or strands that connect visual and audio layers.

Both our artworks were based on personal experiences in our family. For SH it was taking care of her father and making art with him.

For me, it was responding to my late “ah ma” (grandmother) and relating to someone who had lost her cognitive function. These are congruences and correspondences that unite our artworks and allow us to explore this theme together in the visual and sonic realms.

STAR-Post: If you extended the collaboration, how might that change your art-making processes?

JH: I hope to create a longer timeline for students as they work better in several short bursts as they find it difficult to manage long coursework. They need learning milestones set up for them. This idea can be expanded in future runs of cross-disciplinary collaboration. We could do an interactive setup where we respond to the viewer’s reaction to our art.

STAR-Post: What ideas did you gain from this collaboration that you can apply in facilitating similar cross-disciplinary experiences for your students?

JH: For students, we can use a theme as a powerful stimulus to create art, like what SH and I did.

SH: For students, it is important to have an opportunity to discuss and talk about their artworks. When students share, they are sometimes still hesitant because they are still figuring out what their artwork is meant to be, and how to collaborate with another person to create a collaborative work. This is something we have to teach them.

In previous works, I explore the idea of time: childhood days spent at special places and the specific memories and feelings those spaces bring. Now, when I consider the musical dimension, certain songs bring memories of different people. That is something I can share with my students - how music actually brings memories of our past experiences and memories.

STAR-Post: What do you think is important for students when they collaborate?

SH: Since primary school, I have had a very rigid and mechanical experience of music. In contrast, Ji Heng takes a playful approach to creating his music. Thus, I became very curious about what he was doing. Our conversations and dialogue led me to see music in a different light.

JH: This collaboration showed me how to encourage students to start composing music from something close to them. That’s how SH and I arrived at our collaboration. We don’t need to look too far, to abstract things, because powerful personal expressions come from matters close to your heart.

As the collaboration between Ji Heng and Sok Hui shows, the most authentically powerful and moving art comes from our hearts, inspired by events that have changed our lives and shaped the way we see the world. The collaboration between visual art and music also shows that we are not only eyes or ears, but the art we make combines all our human senses so that our art can be an expression of the total self.