School of Creative
Industries
Sarah Amor Oh Wen Ling
Sarah is a movement artist who obtained her BA(Hons) Dance from LASALLE College of the Arts in 2017. She is a mover at heart and loves the confidence that both movement and art bring to people. Since then, Sarah has taught and been involved in various projects as a professional dancer and educator, and many of her projects fall into the category of theatre for the young. She has an avid passion for young people and has worked mainly with children and adolescents in her clinical placement during her art therapy training. Sarah’s arrangements in her artworks are often schematic, using the reenactment of natural bodily movements along with suitable mixed media and props. Through her experiences, she sees art as a form of bringing better life and well-being to people, and hopes to combine movement into her art therapy practice in her future work.
Work
Oasis of Calm and Chaos
Mixed Media
61 x 91cm
2022
Sarah believes that the body is both the subject and object of intentionality, where it is experienced as an object in the world, yet manifests itself through experience. This constant traction is what makes the human experience so meaningful and worth exploring for her. Sarah aims to provoke, tease and encourage viewers to reflect on social issues, inviting the viewer into a space of speculation. Her work at times involves exploring the relationship between the performer or artwork, the viewers and their human interaction. Oasis of Calm and Chaos takes on a fully experiential perspective where it develops into a representation of an attempt and journey of searching for a psychological safe space.
Thesis abstract
Art of the art therapist within trauma-informed art therapy: A qualitative enquiry in a domestic violence setting in Singapore
The aim of this qualitative, practitioner-based thesis is to study the art of the art therapist and how it contributes to trauma-informed art therapy with children residing within a domestic violence shelter in Singapore. The theoretical frameworks of the art therapist include in-session response art, specifically the third hand and companion art-making, as well as post-session response art, and the vast potential it has to contribute towards addressing the trauma or the effects of trauma related to domestic violence and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). The methodologies include qualitative arts-based research with cooperative inquiry through the use of multiple-case vignettes. Ethical guidelines were carefully considered for art therapy and arts-based research, as well as the ethics required for the topic of the art of the art therapist. Future expansion on the phenomenology of the art of the art therapist is recommended, both in-session and post-session, to further mitigate and process the trauma of the client, as well as the vicarious trauma of the art therapist. The outcomes of this research display the phenomenon of the art of the art therapist, that is purposefully and proactively created in response to the therapeutic encounters, with tremendous contribution to trauma-informed art therapy in containing, holding and addressing the effects of ACEs with children residing within a domestic violence shelter in Singapore.