Sri Nor Wakhidatun Nazila

This dissertation examines how mediation is practised by arts managers working within Singapore’s cultural sector, focusing on how practitioners respond to tensions between artistic intentions, organisational expectations and working conditions.

While mediation is widely recognised as part of cultural management work, it is often described conceptually rather than examined through the everyday decisions required to sustain artistic projects within structured institutional environments. The study draws on qualitative interviews with arts practitioners whose roles involve producing, directing, facilitating and managing collaborative cultural work across different organisational contexts.

The findings show that mediation operates as an ongoing process embedded in project development rather than as a discrete professional intervention. Participants described negotiating relationships across artists, institutions, collaborators and communities while responding to funding structures, regulatory expectations and organisational responsibilities that shape how projects could be realised in practice. Ethical decision-making did not take the form of applying formal frameworks but emerged through adjustments made in response to shifting conditions and commitments to others involved in the work.

By situating mediation within practitioners’ everyday responsibilities, the study extends discussions of cultural governance in Singapore beyond policy structures to the level of practice. It also shows how structured decision-making models and forms of practical judgement appear indirectly within institutional settings rather than as explicit tools guiding action.

Mediation, therefore, emerges as a central component of arts management practice through which practitioners sustain relationships, maintain project viability and support meaningful artistic outcomes within a highly structured cultural environment.