Category: ARTFUL LEADERSHIP
ARTFUL, ATYPICAL & AGILE: Here are my sketches since 2019 of the creative, critical paradigm of ‘artful leadership’: artful ways forward led by (neurodivergent) artists embedded within socio-political structures and multidisciplinary teams to catalyse change, amid a VUCA world. This is also a call for a more inclusive and imaginative ecosystem.
My op-ed ‘What’s Love Got to Do with Neurodiversity and HE Art and Design? discusses the intersection of neurodiversity, the role of higher education art and design to counter the populist, love-less stormy reality today.
Watch my podcast on The Embodied Educator with Dr Liz Wientjes, where I discuss Tentacular Pedagogy and how it relates to social justice and anti-oppression.
YOU ARE INVITED to an animated evening that shares insights into the making of the book Neuro-Futurism and Re-Imagining Leadership: An A-Z Towards Collective Liberation by artist-agitator-advisor Kai Syng Tan at the John Hansard Gallery in Southampton, UK. Drawing on the big-picture thinking and risk-taking approach of neuro-divergence, the book introduces ‘neuro-futurism’ as a toolkit, to re-claim ways to think about and do ‘leadership’ as a diversified, beyond-colonial, neuro-queered and (co-)creative change- and future-making practice.
Love and leadership meets ethics meet counter-mapping meets finding /forming new alliances meets a re-imagination of my new home. FAB PALS is a new project I am leading, commissioned by Social Practice Lab by invitation, and funded by the Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton.
This is a reflection about a 12-point manifesto for the future. Co-authored by three members of the Neurodiversity In/and Creative Research Network, it argues for a decolonised ‘Creative Neurodiversity Studies’ that (re-)centres ‘neurodiasporic subjectivities’ and ‘(in)formal education’, and makes a contribution to epistemic and social justice, creative research and more.
In the final of the 2024 run of Material Interests, we welcomed award-winning filmmaker Nausheen Khan from India. This session was critical to learn more about ways to decolonise the curriculum and the role of arts and cultural leadership to catalyse change through counter-hegemonic strategies in the face of Islamophobia, threats to human rights and democracy, and misogyny not just in the Global South but beyond, and from the perspective of a courageous young feminist filmmaker.
I am excited to share Tentacular Pedagogy: An Embodied Strategy Towards Transforming Higher Education Culture at the First International Conference on Embodied Education: Breaking new grounds in embodied education, Aarhus University, Denmark.
The last PhD I examined — and passed — involved a hike up a hill — during winter — which included performances in-situ (plus sweat, panting and cursing on the part of examiners). The hike was part of a submission which had a written component in the form of a film script, for a doctoral degree undertaken at a School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies of a Russell Group University. If this sound like your cup of bubble tea, get in touch to work with me on your doctoral research at the University of Southampton.
The following is a version of what I first published on Valentines Day on Instagram. It is a further example from my call for those in Higher Education and beyond to centre love in what / how we do, as shared in my recent op-eds.
In this op-ed published for the Valentine’s season on the Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE) blog, I am looking for and locating concepts and actions around a four-letter word – love.
There is a new feature Making the Invisible Visible: Embracing Neurodivergent Perspectives through Art on the Guggenheim Museum website by Shanley Chien Pierce, published 8th December. This story explores the ‘Model Minority Myth’ and East and Southeast Asian (ESEA) communities, where conformity is key and strict codes are adhered to.
I was juror for the prestigious Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival (YIDFF)’s New Asian Currents in Japan. There will also be a showcase for my films, during which I will show How to Thrive in 2050 (2021, commissioned for BBC Culture in Quarantine) and Chlorine Addiction (2000, which was at the NAC in 2001 too, as well as multiple international showcases including Transmediale 2001).
I’ve migrated back down south — quiet south. I’m thrilled to share that since July 2023, I’ve become Associate Professor in Arts and Cultural Leadership at University of Southampton’s Winchester School of Art.
I am delighted to have signed a contract in February 2023 with World Scientific (a leading academic publisher of scientific, technical, and medical books and journals with partnerships with Nobel Foundation and Imperial College Press) to publish a full-length monograph (70,000 words, 12 chapters, 14 colour plates) of the same title as this website, for circulation circa Q1 2025.
I am delighted to have signed a contract with Taylor and Francis in January 2023 as Co-Editor for a new edited collection, A Handbook of Neurodiversity and Creative Research (circa Q1 2025), after being approached by the commissioning editors of Routledge.
I have been awarded the Principal Fellowship of Higher Education Academy (PFHEA) by Advance HE in December 2022. The highest of the HEA fellowships, PFHEAs are awarded to professionals with sustained records of effective strategic leadership in academic practice and academic development as a key contribution to high quality student learning
The new Creative Arts Leadership MA course, for which I am Programme Lead, is an innovative, radical trans-disciplinary programme that creatively interrogates and explores new, diversified models of ‘leadership’. Curated by UK’s oldest comprehensive art school, and co-delivered with the triple-accredited Business School, the MA scopes, maps, and enacts the possibilities of a more equitable creative leadership praxis.
I will be delivering a workshop with Dr Mohammed Rashed entitled ‘From Conditions to Encounters: The Problem of Understanding in Philosophy of Psychiatry’ at Mind, Value and Mental Health: Philosophy and Psychiatry Summer School 2022, St Hilda’s College, University of Oxford.
Watch my chat with artist Jonathan Drury, of Dialogue Village. Other interviews in the series include one with author of the 2016 cult book NeuroTribes, Steve Silberman, as well as official Star Wars and Stranger Things artist Rees Finlay.
This new short film was created at the invitation of a design pedagogy event by European consortium FUEL4Design: Future Education and Literacy for Designers as International Respondent. A performance-lecture version was created as Keynote Lecturer for Deep Meaningful Conversations of the Design Management course, London College of Communication, University Arts London.
I was Co-Researcher and Mentor in the Social Art For Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (SAFEDI, 02/2021-04/2022), an AHRC EDI Fellowship (PI: Professor Amanda Ravetz,£100,609) led by Manchester Metropolitan University, Social Art Network, & Axis, working with social artists, marginalised communities and policy makers around the UK to rethink what inclusion in the arts means. A legacy of SAFEDI is the research network Social Art Inclusion Lab (SAIL), which I am a founding member of.
The success of others is both a duty and reflection of my own progress. Through co-creative engagement with diverse stakeholders and ‘students’ from within and beyond HE, via inclusive scholarly projects and communities, the potential for culture change and necessary attitudinal shifts to improve HE can grow exponentially. 03/2022 saw several positive outcomes.
UPDATE: As of 08 March 2022, I have resigned from the board, although my support for the Director and Fermynwoods remain. Another role I have previously resigned from was as Research Fellow from Leeds Arts University. Watch this space for a future post on walking out (why, when, where to draw the line, and what some of the lines are).
BBC Radio 4 programme on the 5th Pan African Congress in Manchester and how it relates to BLM today, covering the PAC@75 celebrations that I co-curated with the Prof Ola Uduku who is interviewed in the programme.
CREDIT: Manchester Centre for Public History and Heritage MCPHH. October 2021 ‘The Legendary 1945 Manchester Pan African Congress: Professor Ola Uduku, Dr Kai Syng Tan, and Dr Marie…
What can ‘Neurodivergent Leadership’ look like? A 15-month creative practice-led research project. Get in touch now to support/collaborate!
What would a neurodiversity-led reality look like? My installation and performance at the Attenborough Arts Centre in the exhibition The World is A Work In Progress (curated by Rachel Graves, 25 September 2021 – 16 January 2022) in Leicester, UK proposes that art and neuro-inclusion are key in creating bold visions of how things can be better, and that each of us can play an active part in that process.
Summary some of my ongoing efforts in anti-racism and Black Lives Matter in collaboration with the outstanding Professor Ola Uduku (University of Liverpool Head of Architecture) in Manchester and the Northwest region and beyond.
Summary of some of my ongoing EDI efforts through art and performance at and beyond MMU as a Senior Lecturer there.
How To Thrive In 2050: 8 Tentacular Workouts For A Tantalising Future! is a new short film I made in Spring 2021. This is an art manifesto calling for a creative, equitable and ‘neuro-fantastic’ future by an Octopussy. The World Premiere is on BBC Culture in Quarantine Autumn 2021
In Spring 2021, I gave two presentations that were also CPD units, including one to 870 Europe-based mental health specialists from 17 countries (+ 6 languages and interpreters – almost as fabulous as Eurovision).
This is an op-ed published in Frontiers in Psychology. It is led by Laura Gallo (formerly King’s College London neuroscience MSc student), in collaboration with myself, Dr Vincent Giampietro and Dr Patricia Zunszain (King’s College London).
I’m delighted to join the British Journal of Psychiatry Editorial board. ‘ve been asked to help shape content, especially with the new culture section, and to help commission and identify reviewers and contributors. Contact me if you are keen to get involved!
This article was published in Art, Design & Communication in Higher Education April 2021. It outlines three actions for the supervisor, student and examiner, to introduce a level of anti-racist consciousness in the journey of the Fine Art PhD.
Will we augment reality? Will we see with our body? Will we embrace death? Will we kill cinema? Will we kill the film school? Will we create the…
I was commissioned by Fermynwoods Contemporary Arts to create a mask. I made 5 and you can buy my favourite one, Sight and Site of Dissent, here.
I was commissioned by Fermynwoods Contemporary Arts to create a mask. So here is my set of 5, which are masks for the 21st Century Artful Agitator series.
Can running-inspired art and art-inspired running catalyse artful ways forward for a more equitable post-pandemic future?
UPDATED: See here for report and reflection of #PAC75, Race Equality Activities Planning (REAP) and other legacies in collaboration with the amazing Professor Ola Uduku. #PAC75: The 75th…
Leadership: What is it? What could it be? Power posing: How is power performed? Why pose questions for those in power? Neurodiversity or neurodivergence? Being/becoming ill-disciplined: How to…
This is a recording of a performance lecture I delivered on 6 August 2020 for University of Reading, a repeat of a keynote-lecture that premiered for Royal Society of Arts on 9 July 2020 which was attended by up to 130 people.
Instead of OBE/MBE/CBE, we’ll have NDE (NeuroDiversity medal of Excellence). Universities will finally stop failing or boring people, offering interdisciplinary MASc and PhDs. ‘Neurodiversity’ will also become truly diversified. We’ll then run around with tentacles on our heads. New performance-lecture at Royal Society of Arts attended by 130 people.
The etymologies of curating include healing and care. So, make change. Don’t waste your time, don’t waste my time. Created in mid-June 2020, this new slideshow was for a session in the MA/MFA Contemporary Curating, Manchester School of Art.
03/2020: The COVID-19 pandemic will fundamentally change what/how/who we are forever. Or will it? What is the role of art, creativity and neurodiversity?
Speed dates are the perfect format for the short-attention spanned, novelty-chasing, risk-desiring, boredom-adverse, intellectually-promiscuous ADHD person. Thus, I curated this speed-dating event at the South London Gallery in June 2018.
MOBILITIES RESEARCH: I was Visiting Fellow (2017-2018) at Centre for Mobilities Research (Cemore), Lancaster University. This draws on my associated with Cemore since circa 2012, when I first…
WOMEN’S ISSUES ARE EVERYBODY’S ISSUES: Gender is a subtext in all my work. As a neurodivergent woman of colour, my presence in work (directly/indirectly) is already often political….
Since 2019, I have been thinking about ‘Artful Leadership’: thinking, making, organising and being in ways that are artful, agile and atypical. This is about leading within, as well as beyond the arts/cultural realms, by which I refer to being embedded within the socio-political structures, to effect cultural, social and systemic change.
As we move from the immediate crisis towards new ones, we need atypical thinkers, agile doers and creative problem-solvers who thrive in unknowns. A call for a more inclusive and creative socio-political ecosystem.
It’s not business as usual anymore. Instead, it’s time to lead, creatively. Redacted sketch of how I envisage a new creative arts leadership MA/MFA programme, which proposes ‘creative arts leadership’ as an interdisciplinary creative research and practice paradigm is curated through an art school ethos, and situated as extension of art intervention, social practice, seeking to catalyse and make change, in an Industry 4.0 and VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) contexts.
04/2020: Watch this interview (40 minutes) on ‘artful leadership’. With Dr Michael Pinchbeck.
05/2020: Germany and France have enlisted the help of humanities scholars, but we’ll need atypical thinkers and agile makers for artful ways forward.
04/2020: An early outline of ARTFUL LEADERSHIP artful, sly ways forward, led by artists, in productively antagonistic dialogues with members of other species, through artistic processes and outcomes, exploiting art’s power to provoke, confuse/amuse/bemuse.
Seeking collaborators/sponsors: I aim to curate a residency-cum-collaboration programme that will lead to an exhibition asking, ‘What Could A Neurodiversity-led 2050 Look Like?’ I want to matchmake unlikely pairs of neurodiverse artists and designers with scientists and technologists, and choreograph ways for them to work collaboratively towards the co-creation of new pilots and prototypes of apps, objects or experiences.
Tweet/Email to collaborate on new ‘Artful Leadership’ project from 2021. I promise to be nice. It will be fun.
1) WE MUST STEP UP OUR GAME 2) LET’S BECOME CRITICAL FRIENDS 3) LET’S CREATE PRODUCTIVE ANTAGONISMS 4) LET’S PLAY 5) LET’S BE ILL-DISCIPLINED 6) LET’S STEP OUT OF SILOS & EMBRACE A 360-DEGREE VANTAGE POINT 7) LET’S STEP OUT OF COMFORT ZONES 8) LET’S STEP INTO UNKNOWN TOGETHER 9) LET’S EMBRACE ERRORS 10) WE’RE STRONGER TOGETHER
I. Step Up the Game II. Step into the Unknown III. Step Away from Comfort Zones IV. Embrace Errors V. Take Risks VI. Play VII. Change Culture VIII. Break Locks and Challenge Gatekeepers IX. Be Athletic X. Be a Running Post(hu)man XI. Be Promiscuous XII. Not All Dead White Men XIII. Be Ill-Disciplined XIV. Embrace Athletes of Creativity XV. Be Happy With The Unfinished
Article in The Conversation 2018 (10.6m subscribers) which was read 2000 times in the first 2 days. Using #MagicCarpet as an example, it introduced the notion of being ‘ill-disciplined’ (Tan & Asherson 2018).
Desperate times call for desperate, artful measures. Our relationship with time gets distorted when we are desperate. A key response to the pandemic has been the coining of…
Book chapters and journal articles RUN is this now stub?? monster LADA transfers 8) Running Artfully Across Disciplines (23/3/2020 Workshop for medical from St Georges Hospital and medical…
Royal Society of the Arts blog post contextualising RUN! RUN! RUN! Biennale 2016, which responded to the (anti-)migrant crisis and referendum results.
Where are neurodivergent leaders in the Cultural and Academic Sectors? Premiered at Birkbeck, Arts Week May 2019.
Unreasonable Adjustments outlines the compromises I have to make to fit the neuronormative world. It premiered at Southbank Centre. Tour: 5th International European Network for Hyperkinetic Disorders Conference, Edinburgh and 4th National Conference SOS Dyslexia, San Marino.
04/2020: I responded to UK Parliament’s call for COVID-19 Outbreak Expert Database, as well as a separate call by the UK Government Cabinet Office’s Open Innovation Team for a similar database.