The aboves taken at the Lasalle College of the Arts official opening last night. It was a grand affair with a minute-long light show as its inauguration, even the food was from Hilton hotel!

As a former alumni who took a Graphic Design degree there, I can’t say enough how proud I felt to witness the event, to see how far the school has come. A magnificient building, a vibrant student community and commited teachers who have much power to dictate their syllabuses.

I say this with confidence, having interacted with students and lecturers on a regular basis last year, as part of my commission to produce photographic spreads for the Lasalle 2008 Review, a first-ever effort, which would mark the new Lasalle College of the Arts, formerly known as Lasalle-SIA College of the Arts.

Standing in the midst of that glass building smack beside little India would do little for one to understand how this school had grown.

It was only 2003/04 when I received the Singapore Press Holdings Art scholarship to do a course at Lasalle, then located at its Goodman Road campus. It was, may I say, a tattered building, essentially an old primary school converted into a bigger institution.

Fine Arts students were housed in containers.
The canteen had only two stalls and students would cross over to the old market for a meal. The library was tiny, I would go back to the NUS library for research.
However, there was something charming about that old building. I couldn’t describe it enough…Was it the mouldy walls, the spartan patches of grass, the rusty metal, rickety chairs… It always made me feel like a child in a playground, where you could wander without care and sort of.. disappear.

Then, there were the people who would bury themselves in their paintings so much, it touched my heart. I had chosen to study there largely for one person, painter Willy Tay, whom I assisted for 8 months while waiting to enter NUS after my A-levels. He has been largely influential -a stoic, purist approach to his work, not caring what the world thinks of it. Then, Willy was doing his Masters in Lasalle, he had part of the container across the grass patch from my block, I loved watching him drip paints down the canvas, waiting for the smell of linseed oil to consume me.

As students, we’re always idealistic, art’s always for the sake of art. As adults, we have, to many extents, care what the client wants, even in producing personal work. That’s a natural progression, because art should always communicate to an audience. It can never please everyone, but it should have a purpose.

I’ve heard and seen how lecturers craft their syllabuses in the new lasalle, how there is free play. There is more room for improvement. But at the state it is now, this sort of education is a far cry from what aspiring creatives used to receive.

After the event, a post party saw one of its buildings transformed into a bar that sold alcohol. Music students took the stage with their tablas, others Dj-ed. Now we are beginning to understand why the school and the Ministry of Education had a fall-out. (I say this at the risk of losing clients. But more importantly, I say to them, way to go!)
I was carrying my photographic gear ready to go home, but could not resist popping my head in to see what this mini-Zoukout was all about.
The music faculty is so talented, they need a space of their own, just like this one, instead of being stashed all the time to backpackers hostel at the back of Little India.

If substation and the Singapore Arts Fest isn’t going to showcase our own talents, then it’s only right their school is going to do it.

Even the school’s president Alastair joined in. Vice-president and provost sat there watching too. How much more new-age can a Singer’s school get. Man, my former lecturers would be so proud.