Its latest project, in partnership with the Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre, combines art, technology and Chinese cultural heritage in one immersive experience. Moo Moo Park, Asia’s first drive-through exhibition opens in conjunction with the annual Singapore Art Week
“Artists are some of the best-placed people on the planet to communicate complex topics,” declares Kay Vasey. “Not everyone is literate in the sense that they can read or write, but many people respond to visuals.”
The chief connecting officer of creative technology studio MeshMinds and founder of its not-for-profit arts organisation The MeshMinds Foundation is doing her part to address the single greatest threat to our sustainable future—and she is tapping on the power of art and technology. “When we are faced with important topics such as climate action, how can we use the work of artists to communicate what the problem is and what people need to do about it? Technology allows us to really expand on that storytelling ability.”
MeshMinds works with artists to translate their work into a set of social media tools that can then power youths and communities online to get behind causes they care about. Take, for example, its Clean Seas augmented reality (AR) experience, which was created for the ArtScience Museum’s Climate S.O.S. – Season of Sustainability showcase in 2019. Working with Singaporean artist André Wee, MeshMinds created a virtual ocean of sea creatures made from discarded bits of bottles and other plastic items. Audiences are encouraged to “clean” the sea and make a pledge they can share on social media.
Vasey has always been passionate about art since young. The former director of arts at the British Council would have pursued an artistic career but became a lawyer instead to appease her parents. While no longer practising, her time as a technology and media lawyer opened her eyes to numerous “industry x tech” initiatives.
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BRIDGING THE GAP
While researching these “x tech” industries, she became curious about what was happening in the art world. “I discovered that big multinational technology companies such as Google, Facebook and Autodesk were running artist-in-residence or artist incubation programmes, primarily out of their US headquarters. I started to wonder why these opportunities were not being offered to artists in Singapore considering those companies all have their Asia headquarters here.”
Vasey quickly got to work to bridge art and tech. This led to the MeshMinds 1.0: ArtxTechForGood exhibition, which brought together over 20 Singapore artists, who underwent a four-month incubation programme exploring frontier technologies such as AR, VR (virtual reality), 3D printing and the internet of things, and then using them as the “canvas” to showcase their works.
The exhibition at the ArtScience Museum in January 2018 caught the attention of the regional marketing team of Apple (which came on board as the lead technology partner for MeshMinds 2.0 at the same museum in March 2019) and later led to a partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), which strengthened MeshMinds’ focus on sustainability. Using these frontier technologies, the studio pushes for environmental education, communication and pledging.