Residency dates for 2026 coming soon.
Tropical Lab International Art Camp
A two-week international art camp in Singapore for a current National Art School MFA student
Application deadline Sunday November 24 2024
Residency dates Thursday 17 July – Friday 1 August 2025
Notification of outcome Thursday 5 December 2024
Residency
The nineteenth edition of the renowned TROPICAL LAB, an international art camp for art academies and institutes, will take place from 17 July to 1 August 2025 at LASALLE College of the Arts in Singapore.
TROPICAL LAB is an intensive and highly engaging fourteen-day event, bringing together more than 20 student-artists from various art colleges and institutions around the world. TROPICAL LAB is a real and imaginative space for student artists to research, experiment and collaborate to create contemporary artworks, regardless of medium, method and approach.
The event will include workshops, talks and seminars guided by established international and Singaporean artists culminating in an exhibition curated by LASALLE’s curatorial division, Institute of Contemporary Art Singapore at LASALLE.
The recipient of this Prize will receive:
- $1000 towards airfares & transfers
- Coverage of program registration fees
- LASALLE will cover accommodation and local travel costs in Singapore. All participants will reside at a hotel arranged by the College on a twin sharing basis.
- LASALLE will provide studio space, workshops, technical assistance as well as curatorial expertise.
Eligibility
- You must be a full time MFA1 student at the time of application, and a full time MFA2 student at the time of the residency.
- Applicant must be responsible for researching the relevant visa requirements for Singapore and preparation of these arrangements in advance.
- Participants are required to be in full attendance during this two-week period. This will include missing the first 2 weeks of S2 2025, which will be discussed with staff in advance.
Selection Criteria
The Residency will be awarded to an applicant who:
- Has displayed a high level of achievement and dedication to their practice throughout their MFA.
- Demonstrates clarity of purpose and a compelling rationale for their proposed residency.
- In the opinion of the judges, would benefit artistically from the experience at this stage of their studies.
Applications
- To be considered for selection, applicants must submit all parts of the online application form, together with required application materials, by the deadline.
- Eligible applications will be reviewed by a selection panel comprising suitable representatives of the National Art School.
Application Requirements
- A summary CV (of not more than two pages) in PDF format.
- Your most recent revised MFA Proposal (PDF format).
- A maximum of 10 images, presented in PDF format, with only one image per page. Each page should include the name of artist, title, date, medium, and dimensions. For moving image-based artists only, a high-quality video of up to two minutes presented as a single-track show reel. The panel reserves the right to not assess applications that do not include specified supporting material correctly formatted as outlined above.
- A 300 word travel proposal (PDF format): Please comment on your interest to participate in TROPICAL LAB and the ways in which you might benefit from the program, making reference to the 2025 theme: ‘Service’ (see Application Guidelines)
Referee
- All applicants are required to state the name, phone number and email address of one referee.
Conditions of Entry
- The successful applicant must abide by all the regulations of the award.
- The successful applicant is responsible for any additional costs associated with the residency.
- The selectors’ decision is final, and no correspondence will be entered into.
- The successful applicant must strictly agree to abide by the conditions of LASALLE.
- The selectors reserve the right to withhold the award if in their opinion the standard of applications is insufficient to warrant awarding.
- The selected applicant will be required to maintain communication with the Residency Coordinator during the residency.
Acquittal of Residency
Post-residency, the selected applicant will be required to:
- Take part in a lecture or panel discussion about the residency to students and alumni, to a PowerPoint presentation.
- Provide high-resolution photographs and a quote of approximately 100 words that can be used by NAS for promotional purposes and in publications including the Annual Report and Yearbook.
- Submit an approximately 500-word report no later than eight weeks post-residency regarding their residency and experience.
Please email [email protected], for any inquiries regarding the application process.
Read more about TROPICAL LAB on the LASALLE College of the Arts website.
CONTACT
Lily Fenwicke
International Residencies Coordinator
+61 2 9339 8717
[email protected]
We encourage all eligible candidates to apply, regardless of whether this is your first residency application. Please contact the International Residencies Coordinator to discuss any accessibility requirements or adjustments that can be made to your application process.
Introducing Sean O`Connell and Pia van Gelder, speakers at Facture: Drawing Symposium 2025
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Moderated by Ben Denham, Sean will explore traditional and extended practices that map connections and energetic exchange within abstracted landscapes, while Pia will discuss drawing of electronic circuits and their curious divinatory elements in 20th century radionics and their own work with electrodermal activity and audio synthesis.
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Sean O`Connell is an artist exploring the internal world of matter and the movement of electrical energy and force. He uses alternative photographic techniques, electronic circuitry, noise, energetic structures and experimental processes to visualise and sonify these spaces of interest. His work is concerned with the realms of both matter and electricity, exploring the ways they each transform, modulate, and inform one another`s nature through their interaction.
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Pia van Gelder is an electronic artist, researcher and historian at the School of Art and Design at the Australian National University. Their research investigates historical and contemporary conceptions of energy and how these shape our relationships with technologies, bodies and environments. Their scholarship has concentrated on the influence of esotericism on electronic instruments of the 20th century and their studio practice produces instruments for performance and installation contexts. Their current project *The Energies Artists Say* with co-editor Douglas Kahn, presents a methodology for understanding the polyvalence of energies in practices across the arts.
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Facture: Drawing Symposium 2025
Saturday 12 April 2025
Facture – The manner in which something is made
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Learn more about the speakers and symposium at the link in bio.
Mar 28
We’re looking for a Facilities and Risk Manager - Application Deadline Sunday 13 April
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Apply at the link in bio.
Mar 27
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Moderated by Chelsea Lehmann, Kirtika will be discussing the role of drawing in process, experimentation, and abstraction in material and socially-engaged practices, while Kyra will discuss the influence Dylan Mooney`s work has had on their practice, especially his most recent exhibition The Story of My People.
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Kirtika Kain is an artist practicing on Darug Country, New South Wales, Australia. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2016 and was awarded the Bird Holcomb Scholarship to complete her Master of Fine Art in 2018 at the National Art School, Sydney. She was a recipient of the Lloyd Rees Memorial Youth Art Award in 2017, the Art Incubator Grant and Dyason Bequest, Art Gallery of New South Wales, and a finalist in the Churchill Fellowship and numerous art prizes including Blacktown Art Prize (2017, 2019). Kirtika has been a finalist in the Create NSW Emerging Artist Fellowship at Artspace, a recipient of the Parramatta Artist Studio (2020, 2024) and an artist in residence at the British School at Rome (2019) and the Amant Siena Summer Residency (2022).
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Kyra Mancktelow’s multidisciplinary practice investigates legacies of colonialism, posing important questions such as how we remember and acknowledge Indigenous histories. A Quandamooka artist with links to the Mardigan people of Cunnamulla, Kyra’s practice includes printmaking, ceramics, and sculpture – each applying a unique and distinct aesthetic. Kyra works with various materials to share her rich heritage, stories, and traditions to educate audiences and strengthen her connection to Country. Her printmaking explores intergenerational trauma as a result of forced integration on colonial missions, and her use of local materials in her sculpture, including clay, emu features, and Talwalpin (cotton tree), strengthens her connection to Country.
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Facture: Drawing Symposium 2025
Saturday 12 April 2025
Facture – The manner in which something is made
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Learn more about the speakers and symposium at the link in bio.
Mar 27
Introducing Anne Judell and Liz Coats, speakers at Facture: Drawing Symposium 2025
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Moderated by Margaret Roberts, Anne will discuss her decades-long exploration of the patterns and forces of the natural world and pay homage to the artist who first inspired her, while Liz will talk about the recent work of long-time friend and colleague, Margaret Roberts, together with a short description of her experiments with colour painting.
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Anne Judell was the 2011 winner of the Dobell Drawing Prize awarded by the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Respect for Anne`s work has grown over a career spanning more than four decades, as a solo exhibitor and through her presence in selected group exhibitions. Her entries have been included on many occasions as a finalist in the Wynne Prize, the Dobell Drawing Prize and the Blake Prize as well as in other prestigious competitions including the Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award and Kedumba Drawing Award.
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Liz Coats has devoted her career to the exploration of colour in abstract painting as an embodied, material practice that brings organic and formal issues into relationship. Since the mid-1970s, colour has remained her central focus, in particular how it mediates her preoccupations with dimensional insight, transition and connectedness.
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Facture: Drawing Symposium 2025
Saturday 12 April 2025
Facture – The manner in which something is made
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Learn more about the speakers and symposium at the link in bio.
Mar 26
Introducing Dominic Terlizzi and Osvaldo Budet, speakers at Facture: Drawing Symposium 2025
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Moderated by Joe Frost, Dominic and Osvaldo will discuss transformations and voids found in objects and history through expanded drawing approaches.
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Dominic Terlizzi is a Brooklyn based artist whose studio work includes drawing, painting, sculpture, and installation. He utilises objects and textures to build imagery. Dominic recently exhibited at Craig Krull Gallery and Helen J Gallery in LA, My Pet Ram, Tappeto Volante, Field of Play, The Front, Good Naked, Underdonk, and Headstone Gallery in New York. International exhibitions include McBride Contemporian in Montreal, and NEVVEN Gallery in Gothenburg, Sweden.
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Osvaldo Budet is a Puerto Rican artist and graduate of Maryland Institute College of Art, where he completed his Master of Fine Arts in painting. He currently lectures in drawing at the National Art School, Sydney and is represented by Cassandra Bird, Sydney. His work explores the physical and political dimensions of colonization and post-colonization, as a reflection of the culture and the interests of the systems we inhabit.
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Facture: Drawing Symposium 2025
Saturday 12 April 2025
Facture – The manner in which something is made
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Learn more about the speakers and symposium at the link in bio.
Mar 25
