About
Jia Ling is a graduating BA (Hons) Arts Management student from LASALLE College of the Arts, where she also earned a Diploma in Fine Arts.
Her practice bridges art, culture and education, with a focus on heritage, festivals and community engagement.
In 2023, Jia Ling was awarded the Winston Oh Travel Award, which enabled her to engage with Indigenous communities in Sarawak. She further expanded her international perspective by participating in the 2025 Sibiu International Theatre Festival in Romania, and presented on her experience at the 2026 panel, Kaleidoscope of Experiences: Music, Performing Arts and Heritage at the Sibiu International Theatre Festival.
Jia Ling developed her festival management expertise during an internship with Arts House Group, supporting the Singapore International Festival of Arts, Singapore Writers Festival and Verse 2026. In her previous role at the Singapore Tyler Print Institute, she curated outreach workshops and co-developed STPI Activity Kits.
As part of a student team, she contributed as a researcher and writer for the LASALLE x Land Transport Authority (LTA) Art in Transit project for geological education, where she demonstrated her collaborative and curatorial capabilities. Her team developed a commissioning portfolio that integrated site histories with community engagement, and their innovative artist recommendations were commended by LTA for cutting down research time and advancing future public art projects.
Dedicated to socially engaged art, Jia Ling has led mural initiatives for KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital and the Singapore Red Cross, and co-curated an exhibition for Singapore Art Week 2023.
The interconnected realities of archiving ephemeral art in Singapore
This dissertation investigates the challenges of archiving ephemeral art in Singapore, navigating the tension between top-down state institutions and bottom-up independent practitioners.
It investigates the challenges in cultural preservation posed by institutional constraints and digital vulnerabilities. This qualitative study draws on insights gained through participant observation at the Art House Group (AHG) and incorporates case studies from the National Library Board (NLB), Centre 42 and independent archivist Koh Nguang How.
The research reveals three main findings. Firstly, autonomous arts organisations encounter a significant "technical wall," compelling them to depend on state infrastructure. This reliance exposes a bureaucratic "confirmation gap", where contentious historical narratives are systematically cleansed. Secondly, grassroots physical archives serve as "embodied research," transforming fixed repositories into a dynamic, "living archipelago" of collective memory. Third, the post-pandemic push toward mass digitalisation is highly susceptible to format decay and "link rot", threatening further historical erasure.
The study argues that the preservation of Singapore's ephemeral arts necessitates a complex co-dependency. While state infrastructure is critical for preventing physical deterioration, the independent sector's "healing discourses" are equally vital for recovering lost historical narratives and ensuring the survival of a genuine cultural record.
Professional practice
Jia Ling’s professional practice operates at the intersection of festival management, arts education and cultural preservation.
Grounded in a dual fine arts and arts management background from LASALLE, her work investigates the programmatic dimensions of large-scale public events, demonstrated through her contributions to the Singapore International Festival of Arts.
A central pillar of her practice is bridging cultural initiatives and public audiences through pedagogical design and hands-on participation. This educational commitment is evident in her outreach work at STPI and leadership in community-driven mural projects at KK Women's and Children's Hospital and Geylang Serai. Her research extends this community focus into preserving local memory, as explored in her dissertation on archiving ephemeral art in Singapore.
In conclusion, her practice strives to design engaging, educational arts experiences while building the frameworks necessary to sustain inclusive cultural narratives.
Kaleidoscope of Experiences: Music, Performing Arts and Heritage at the Sibiu International Theatre Festival
As a LASALLE student representative at the 2025 Sibiu International Theatre Festival (FITS), Jia Ling participated in the Kaleidoscope of Experiences panel, presenting 'Navigating Festival Audience Engagement Across Cultures.'
She provided a comparative analysis of the distinct engagement strategies used by the Singapore International Festival of Arts 2025 and FITS 2025, highlighting critical cross-cultural differences in festival programming and broadening perspectives on global arts collaboration.
This presentation reflected her core belief that whether through structured reach or spontaneous connection, festival management is ultimately the art of making space for people to come together.
LASALLE X LTA: Curating Art in Transit for Geological Education
In this project, Jia Ling co-developed a curatorial portfolio that integrated geological and contextual histories into public MRT artworks.
While her official role was researcher and writer, Jia Ling collaborated within a six-member team with a strong synergy. Team members consistently stepped outside designated roles to help one another synthesise complex research, brainstorm community engagement strategies and refine the report, collectively providing innovative artist recommendations.
This collaborative effort was highly successful as LTA specifically praised their portfolio for its focus on new artists, stating that their work would substantially streamline their research process for subsequent public art commissions.
Aria Maish Nichani
Ruth Au
Sri Nor Wakhidatun Nazila
Syahirah Afiqah
Daniel Antonio D’Souza
Janyka Ross Caganap
