Turbulence

I had the wonderful opportunity to embark on a Global Experience (GEx) study trip to Bandung and Yogyakarta, Indonesia, with a professor and fellow students from NUS College. The study trip spanned one month (half a month in each city) and comprised visits to houses and studios of prominent local artists, hikes to notable landmarks of the areas, a street art biking tour, student consultations, and student-initiated trips. I was attracted to this study trip by the theme of creative city development. I have always been fascinated by the arts and the question of how we can use the arts to address the social problems in the city. That is a question that has intrigued me for a very long time, long before the trip. Whenever I read a book or observed a painting, I have always wondered if the arts can be more than a medium for self-expression. What if the arts were used as a form of non-verbal language to discuss and dissect social problems?

NUS-AUN Asian Undergraduate Symposium (AUS in short) is one of the series of the summer programmes that students from ASEAN (with a few Asian), from now on ASEAN+, universities can choose from. This series of summer programmes consists of similar AUS-like programmes running in parallel in different countries in the ASEAN+ region. AUS2024 has extended in scale and scope, hosting 300 delegates from the ASEAN+ universities. With the theme of Interconnected Community, students are expected to collaborate with each other to work on a project that aim to tackle the social problems facing their home countries and beyond, spanning three areas Sustainability and Environment, Needs and Wants, and Diversity and Inclusion.

Hmm, this question seems unexpected, huh? Yeah, it is rare for people to ask this question, since it is generally accepted that a child should be adopted before he forms awareness. But it strikes me hard to think of the reasons behind this common practice.