Director's Message

At CAAD, we are dedicated to researching and sharing knowledge about Asian art and design. In particular, we are keen to explore the issues of arts, design, and media, and examine how they relate to Asian history and culture. The Centre adopts a broad view of Asia, extending beyond merely South Asia, East Asia, and the Middle East, which tend to dominate academic attention, to also include Southeast Asia and Central Asia. We operate our research and education programmes through several main pillars, including Programming, Continuing Education, and Conferences

CAAD is currently organising programmes for both the NTU ADM community as well as the general public. In late November, CAAD will run the first workshop of Object Lessons++, a series of workshops targetted at first year ADM students exploring the artistic and cultural significance of Asian objects and artefacts. Additionally, CAAD is producing CAADcast, a podcast hosted by Principal Research Fellow Karin Oen where she interviews art and design professionals across Asia. The lineup for the first season is very exciting, and spans from street art in India to traditional textiles in Uzbekistan.

For Continuing Education, CAAD will soon be running CAAD Academy, an education initiative wherein we design and run educational courses about Asian art and history. The initiative will target artistic practitioners and have the goal of teaching them to incorporate Asian history and culture as aspects of enquiry that will inform their creative practices. 

Additionally, CAAD operates Conferences to help lead conversations and lines of inquiry in the world of Asian Art and Design. In January 2022, CAAD will co-host its first conference with IDC School of Design at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay about the state of design education in India and Asia. The event will run for three days, the first two dedicated to workshops discussing ways to improve design education in India. The final day will consist of panelists from across Asia, including China, India, Japan, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Turkey, who will each present about design education in their own countries. Through organising this event, CAAD hopes to facilitate insight on pressing issues in design education, consider potential solutions, and expose an international audience to an Asian perspective to design.

ADM Director
Assoc Prof Peer Mohideen Sathikh