School of Creative
Industries
Bernice Lin
Bernice Lin is interested in culturally appropriate art therapeutic practices and interdisciplinary approaches for social integration and psychological wellness. Her art practice is dynamic, experimental and eclectic. While inspired by academic art history and forms, she draws upon diverse media and materials to explore, express, embody, evoke and evolve ineffable psychic material. Bernice holds a Bachelor of Social Sciences in Psychology (Highest Distinction) from the National University of Singapore and a Certificate in Western Arts from the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. She is a recipient of The Red Pencil (Singapore) Scholarship and LASALLE Scholarship for MA Studies. For over five years, she has also been involved in translational research projects at Duke-NUS Medical School that concentrate on the design and evaluation of technological interventions to address neuropsychological issues across the developmental lifespan.
Work
Eat, Play, Chill, & Repeat
Digital photography
21 x 21 cm
2021
Eat, Play, Chill, & Repeat is the lived creation of the developing friendship between two art therapists in training, Bernice and Victoria. It is a culmination of their shared experiences over the two-year training journey. The organisation of images is reminiscent of the digital photo albums that are so currently integral to materialising collective memories. Through an intentional exploration together, the pair discovered how play and creative activities transcended individual differences and self-protective defenses. Eat, Play, Chill, & Repeat invites us to pause and appreciate our myriad relationships. It is hoped that playful expressions and relational connections can be deepened.
Thesis abstract
Collaborative artmaking in art therapy: an embodiment of cultural inclusivity and social dynamics in a community hospital
Societies worldwide are ageing. Ageing-related issues in Singapore are examined at multiple levels from government policymaking and infrastructure to independent community projects. The local community hospital is an institution that provides patients, most of whom are older adults, with stepdown care and rehabilitation. It offers a period of care for recovery after discharge from acute hospitals and in transitioning back home. This qualitative hermeneutic-phenomenological study seeks to illuminate how collaborative art-making in group art therapy might be pertinent to older adults in the community hospital setting. Multiple group case vignettes from the palliative, dementia and general rehabilitative care wards are used. The role of embodiment is considered. Findings suggest that collaborative art-making is both relevant and feasible, regardless of the COVID-19 pandemic and restrictions. Collaborative art-making brings forth relational benefits by embodying cultural inclusivity and evolving positive social dynamics in the present moment. Therapeutic gains from collaborative art-making may be optimised by adopting particular therapist attitudes and setting in place conducive infrastructure across organisational, ward, group art therapy, and art-making levels. Given methodological implications, interested art therapists are expected to reappraise the current findings in like manner for their specific contexts. Future research directions are discussed.