Hi, I’m Corrie, and I make sense of art through intimate writing. A wayfarer between academia and journalism, I am often invited into projects where I can be a critical companion, resource sharer and co-thinker, and can offer up rich textual accompaniment to a creative process or work. I’m committed to three main things at the moment: I’m a Senior Lecturer in the School of Fine Art at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (University of the Arts Singapore); I’m arts editor of the independent digital magazine Jom; and the incoming director of the Asian Dramaturgs’ Network.

What brings all these roles together is my desire to be an architect of affect, where I consider all the ways I can scaffold the emotional or affective spaces around any activity I’m creating, or have a shared responsibility for. In both my personal and professional lives, I hope to build affective architectures around “hosting” or “holding” spaces for people, so they feel like they can be invited to be their best selves. This space may be a classroom, or it may be a page of text. 

On the academic front, I received my joint Ph.D. in Theatre & Performance Studies from King’s College London and the National University of Singapore, generously funded by a President’s Graduate Fellowship (NUS) and the Li Siong Tay Postgraduate Scholarship (Tan Kah Kee Foundation). My doctoral work is practice-led and knits together care ethics, collaborative practices, and new articulations of performance criticism in archipelagic Southeast Asia. My thesis is titled The Intimate Critic, and it is grounded in theory-doing and performance-making from this region. I like thinking about the critic as a shapeshifting intermediary, archivist and collaborator—with an emphasis on care work, intimacy and generosity.

Other things I’m exploring and (un/re)learning: care and intimacy practices; emotion and affect; postcolonialism and decolonialities; Southeast Asian performance (Singapore in particular); participatory performance; performance in public spaces and site-specific performance; contemporary feminisms; dramaturgical practice; disability and access work.

Before all this, I graduated from Brown University with a B.A. (Hons) in Literary Arts on a Singapore Press Holdings Journalism Scholarship. I worked as an arts journalist for many years before transitioning to academia. I hold an M.A. (Dist) in Performance & Culture from Goldsmiths, University of London as a recipient of both the National Arts Council (Singapore) Postgraduate Arts Scholarship and the Goldsmiths International Scholarship.

As a researcher, I engage with scholars from the Southeast Asian region as a priority, with praxis as a cornerstone of the work I do. I was formerly assistant editor with AcademiaSG and was also on the Future Advisory Board of Performance Studies international. It’s important to me that research is accessible and legible to the communities and publics we serve, but that strategies of refusal and illegibility are also available when we need them. I often work and think with my peers, feminist scholars Nurul Huda Rashid and Phoebe Pua.

As a critic, I am the arts editor of weekly digital magazine Jom. I also run The Intimate Critic, an intermittent newsletter on performance, intimacy, care and criticism. I have covered the arts for 15 years, and was formerly contributing editor and resident critic with Southeast Asian arts platform ArtsEquator, and part of their inaugural Asian Arts Media Roundtable for regional writers. I’ve also written regularly for The Guardian, The Stage, Exeunt Magazine and The Straits Times. I value long-term relationships, generosity, and asking good questions.

As a dramaturg, I am the incoming artistic director of the Asian Dramaturgs’ Network. In my practice, I often collaborate with theatre practitioner Chong Gua Khee and dance artist Bernice Lee on their long-term performance project Tactility Studies, and their approaches and ethos have deeply informed and are densely intertwined with the work I do. I also often work with playwright Nabilah Said. To me, dramaturgy is about companionship, communication, and a commitment to people over outcomes.

As a facilitator & educator, my pedagogy is closely aligned with Joan Tronto’s ethical elements of care: attentiveness, responsibility, competence and responsiveness. I relish scaffolding students’ creative and critical explorations. To me, the classroom is a space of rehearsal, both for myself and my students. I’m also interested in Universal Design for Learning, which broadly means providing multiple means of engagement, representation and expression for my students. I’m currently co-leading the development of the MFA Fine Art at NAFA.