HI I’M KAI

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Kai Syng Tan PhD PFHEA (she/they @kaisyngtan) is an award-winning artist-academic–author–agitator known for her ‘eclectic style & cheeky attitude’ (Sydney Morning Herald). Kai’s current research – re-imagining leadership as a decolonial, co-creative, neuro-queered practice centring anti-oppression and futurity – draws on her background as a neurodivergent migrant from a working-class up-bringing. By day Kai is Associate Professor in Arts and Cultural Leadership, University of Southampton, UK. She wears several restless tentacles, as a:

• change-maker (as Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival juror, awarding the top award to an anonymous filmmaker formerly imprisoned by the Myanmar military junta; trustee for CHEAD (Council for higher education art and design representing 68 UK HEIs); as trustee of a charity for detained asylum-seekers, drove its cultural and structural transformation, leading to the appointment of its first, black neurodivergent female Artistic Director),
• curator and creative director (leading programmes ranging from £0 to £4.8m, including a Black History Month celebration that reached 18.2 million worldwide, and the opening and closing ceremonies of Asia’s Paralympics praised as ‘game-changing’ by disability groups).
• trans-disciplinary innovator (first artist on a Royal College of Psychiatrist’s editorial board), which draws on her training as artist (San Francisco International Film Festival Golden Gate Film Award; National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement Culture Change Award; Young Artist Award conferred by the president of Singapore; showcases in MoMA, Guangzhou Triennale and Royal Geographical Society).
• provocateur (regularly delivering keynote lectures; expert advisor for UK and Singapore government bodies, international research councils and even a ministry of defence), 
• research lead (acknowledged as ‘absolutely instrumental’ in re-framing running as creative discourse, through her curated RUN! RUN! RUN! Biennale, as well as Running Cultures and Running Artful Networks; founded and/or (co-)led 6 global research networks, including the 425-member Neurodiversity In/& Creative Research Network), 
• creative theorist/writer (with three books re-defining leadership with Palgrave MacMillan 2024, Routledge 2025, World Scientific 2025; other publications include BBC, Guggenheim, Frontiers Psychology and The Manila Times).
• mentor, teacher and academic developer (awarded Principal Fellowship; taught in 200 universities worldwide; regularly delivers masterclasses and CPDs, such as for Royal Society of Arts, and 870 brain and mind experts from 17 countries, 14th International Conference on ADHD in Berlin). 

Kai Syng Tan PhD PFHEA @kaisyngtan: Kai (she/they) is an award-winning artist-academic-agitator. She is known for the ‘eclectic style & cheeky attitude’ (Sydney Morning Herald) and ‘positive atmosphere’ (Guardian) of her work. Kai’s unique vision of leadership collides creativity, neuro-queering, anti-oppression and futurity, and is a turbocharged culmination of her international portfolio as a sought-after thought-leader and (change-)maker.

• As creative theorist/writer: Kai seeks to catalyse dialogues and actions for a more equitable and creative future by generating novel insights and questions. Drawing upon her background as a neurodivergent migrant from a working-class background, Kai specialises in inventing imaginative strategies (‘artful agitation‘) to develop surprising connections (‘productive antagonisms‘) in playful ways across disciplinary/cultural/ geopolitical/sectoral/class and other normative divides, as well as diverse/divergent bodies and bodies of knowledge (‘ill-disciplined’). Kai is working on three books re-defining leadership (Palgrave MacMillan 2024, Routledge 2025, World Scientific 2025). Other publications include BBC, Guggenheim, Frontiers Psychology and The Manila Times. 
• As trans-disciplinary innovator: Kai is the first artist on the Editorial Board of the Royal College of Psychiatrist’s British Journal of Psychiatry, and the first Creative and Cultural Consultant for UK Adult ADHD Network. Both roles draw on her role as the first artist-in-residence at the world-leading Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre with her art-science commission #MagicCarpet, which has appeared on multiple platforms including an EU-funded film viewed 68,000 times.
• As artist: Accolades include San Francisco International Film Festival Golden Gate Film Award, National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement Culture Change Award and Young Artist Award (conferred by the Singapore president). Shows include Museum of Modern Art (New York), Biennale of Sydney, Tokyo Designer Week and Royal Geographical Society. Kai has been curated by Rirkrit Tiravanija and billed alongside Ruangrupa and Yayoi Kusama. Collaborators include pioneer feminist artist Amanda Heng and avant-garde choreographer Takao Kawaguchi.  
• As curator and creative director: Kai has led festivals and programmes ranging from £0 to £4.8m. This includes the 4-day 75th Anniversary of the 5th Pan African Congress Celebrations to mark Black History Month that reached 18.2 million people worldwide, and the opening and closing ceremonies of Asia’s Paralympics praised as ‘game-changing’ by disability groups. 
• As provocateur: Kai has delivered multiple keynote lectures, including for ELIA, European League of Institutes of the Arts’ Teachers Academy, which has 300,000 members in 282 universities. She was expert panel member for Media Infocomm Authority of Singapore for five years, and is reviewer and/or expert advisor for research councils (UKRI, AHRC, Leverhulme, Iceland). She has even advised a Fortune 25 company and a ministry of defence.
• As change-maker: As invited juror for the prestigious Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival 2023, Kai awarded the top award to an anonymous filmmaker formerly imprisoned by the Myanmar military junta. As trustee of Hear Me Out, an arts charity for detained refugees and asylum seekers, she is central in driving its radical transformation  by embedding co-creation and anti-oppression practices. This includes at governance level, the success of which is seen in the appointment of its first, black neurodivergent female Artistic Director in 2023. 
• As research facilitator: Kai is ‘absolutely instrumental’ (ANTI Festival of Contemporary Art) in re-framing running as creative discourse, through her curated RUN! RUN! RUN! Biennale, 90-person Running Cultures network and now, Running Artful Network. Her PhD research, on the poetics of running, was completed at the Slade School as a UCL scholar and has been downloaded nearly 5000 times. Kai has founded and/or (co-)led 6 global research networks (totalling >600 members) to nurture and amplify the work of other marginalised and/or radical creative researchers. This includes the Neurodiversity In/& Creative Research Network of 410 neurodivergent innovators, allies and groups including US, Canada, Australia & Asia. 
• As mentor, teacher and academic developer: Awarded Principal Fellowship (PFHEA) and nominated for the National Teaching Fellowship, Kai has taught in 200 universities worldwide (Helsinki, Tama Art University in Tokyo, Silliman in the Philippines, Royal College of Art and Nanyang Technological University). She regularly delivers masterclasses and CPDs, such as for Royal Society of Arts and 870 brain and mind experts from 17 countries, 14th International Conference on ADHD in Berlin. Her former mentees and students have gone far, including making award-winning films showcased at Cannes (Bertrand Lee) and Netflix (Michael Tebinka), as well as further inspiring change as keynote speakers at international disability festivals (Ashok Mistry). Kai is Associate Professor in Arts and Cultural Leadership at the Russell Group University of Southampton.
• CV: https://kaisyngtan.com/artful/tag/cv/. Instagram, Twitter LinkedIn, ORCID, Skype: @kaisyngtan.

MOVER & SHAKER (of pinches of salt): The 25-year international portfolio of artist, academic, advisor and agitator Dr Kai Syng Tan FRSA PFHEA is distinct for its insatiable curiosity, risk-taking sensibility, a refusal to stay still and a day-glo palette, my work is distinct for its ‘positive atmosphere’ (Guardian 2014), ’radical interdisciplinarity’ (UCL geographer Professor Alan Latham 2017) and ‘eclectic style and cheeky attitude‘ (Sydney Morning Herald 2006) that is ‘positively disruptive’ (National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement Images Award for Culture Change, 2018). My practice, research and teaching are magically/messily intertwined, and what/how/why I do draws on my working class background with parents who left school by 16, ‘hothouse’ educational upbringing in shiny Singapore, and finding out in 2015 that my communication/learning/cognitive/behaviorial modes and affinity for long clunky sentences is due to my dyslexia, ADHD, dyspraxia and autism.

TACTICS: I use artistic/creative practices and research, interdisciplinary and intercultural dialogues and collaborations as processes of interrogation and expression, to energise, disrupt, connect, and catalyse new conversations towards change. I mobilise the body and mind in motion as modes of creative intervention to trouble and trespass borders/silos/‘norms’ (geopolitical, disciplinary, cultural) amid a world in motion/commotion. Scampering within/between/across crevices and boundaries, I engineer spaces of ‘productive antagonisms’ (Latham and Tan 2016) in a distinctive ‘ill-disciplined’ (Tan & Asherson 2018) approach, gathering diverse and divergent bodies and bodies of knowledge to generate new insights to issues/tasks. There are multiple, overlapping strands, including around: leadership, running, mind wandering and neurodiversity, (im)mobilities and borders, disability, health, gender and technology.

SHOWS include Biennale of Sydney and Tokyo Designers’ Week, at Southbank Centre, MOMA (New York), Royal Geographical Society, Moscow’s Dom Muzyiki, BBC Radio3 & Fuji TV. Recognition includes National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement Images Award (Culture Change) and San Francisco International Film Festival Golden Gate Award. Collections include Museum of London and Fukuoka Art Museum. I am described as ‘absolutely instrumental’ (Gregg Whelan 2015) in opening up what could be called ‘Running Studies’, and the person ‘who has done the most in seeking to develop an interdisciplinary discourse around running art and performance’ (Filmer 2020). This draws on my PhD research which was conducted at Slade School of Fine Art as a UCL scholar. My art-psychiatry commission, #MagicCarpet, explores mind wandering and neurodiversity and has been enjoyed by 10,000 people offline. Co-created with disabled colleagues, the £4m Opening and Closing Ceremonies of 8th ASEAN Para Games (I was Visual and Communications Director) was applauded as ‘spectacular’ by Singapore Prime Minister and game-changing and ‘most inclusive’ by the Singapore Association of the Deaf. I was Co-Curator with Professor of Architecture Ola Uduku of the Pan African Congress 75^th Anniversary Celebrations PAC@75 with 11 creative, academic and community partner institutions, where student leaders took on leading Black thinkers Afua Hirsch, Lemn Sissay MBE, Gary Younge, David Olusoga and Princeton University’s historian Kwame Anthony Appiah. PAC@75’s media coverage reached 18.2m worldwide, including via a BBC Radio 4 programme, while its bespoke Youtube channel welcomed 2000 views in 3 weeks, with positive feedback from stakeholders in S Africa and Ghana. We now co-lead a 55-member action group to activate Black History Month 2021

CURRENTLY I am Associate Professor in Arts and Cultural Leadership, University of Southampton. Until 2020, I was King’s College London Visiting Research Fellow and King’s Artist. I am also UK Research and Innovation and Arts and Humanities Research Council Peer Review College Member, Hear Me Out (empowering detained migrants through the arts) and Fermynwoods Contemporary Art trustee, founder + chair of RUN! RUN! RUN!, Manager of Running Cultures Research Group (90-members), co-founder and co-lead of Neurodiversity In/And Creative Research Network (120 members within first month), UK Adult ADHD Network (for professionals and researchers in mental health), Creative and Cultural Consultant, Philbeat (creative company in Singapore) consultant, and the first artist on the British Journal of Psychiatry Bulletin Editorial Board.