School of Creative
Industries
Lian Bee Ngo (Mei Er)
After 13 years of experience as a practicing architectural consultant, Mei Er discovered her passion for psychology through volunteer work with a community-based organisation as well as an internship in art psychotherapy.
LASALLE's MA Art Therapy programme offered her a platform to integrate her artistic practice with psychotherapy training. During her clinical placements, she offered therapeutic services to adolescents in a residential environment, as well as to individuals in the adult service industry through a non-profit organisation.
Mei Er uses art as a tool for self-care and introspection, pushing her to grow both personally and professionally, allowing her to expand the potential of her artwork as a channel to advocate causes, facilitate dialogues and generate awareness.
Work
Lenses: Do You Really See Me?
Mural, found objects
Dimensions variable
2024
In an attempt to make sense, survive and connect, we piece together inherited and borrowed lenses to form perceptions of reality. The inability of any lens to fully capture the spectrum of existence suggests that the moment of seeing and being seen is precious, even if they only offer a glimpse of a fraction of one's self.
This also implies that when unchecked distortions are combined, skewed or narrowed, perceptions can escalate into discrimination and oppression, further reinforcing systems of injustice.
This work invites the audience to pause and check what's getting into their lenses by looking at/from the portrait, and through or between the lenses. In those moments, they may reflect if they are really seen, and vice versa.
Thesis abstract
The role of metaphors in trauma-informed art therapy: A single-case qualitative study with individuals from the adult service industry in Singapore
This thesis is a reflective, practitioner-based inquiry into the role of metaphor in a trauma informed art therapy practice with individuals from the adult service industry in Singapore. It studies the meta-verbal quality that is shared by both trauma experiences and art therapy as a therapeutic modality. While trauma responses are stored in the form of implicit relational memories and often manifest in non-verbal form; art therapy as a unique therapeutic modality elicits metaphorical expressions through the creative process, externalising the unconscious through the use of media and facilitating intersubjectivity in the triangular relationship.
By drawing a link between the two and considering the significance of cultural inclusivity for an already stigmatised community, art therapy holds valuable and unique contributions in a trauma-informed therapeutic practice with individuals from the adult service industry. This is through its ability to transcend verbal communication and touch on multi layered meanings via a holistic comprehension of metaphors. Through a single-case study, the metaphoric expression and intervention in the given setting will be explored and illustrated in this thesis.