School of Creative
Industries
Victoria Ng
To Victoria, art creation is the channel through which she responds to her emotions, thoughts and dreams. Having gone through two years of art therapy before joining the MA Art Therapy programme at LASALLE, she experienced first-hand the therapeutic benefits of art-making and the healing process of art therapy. As part of her training, she worked with children and adolescents in a medical setting and older adults in a senior day care centre setting. During the COVID-19 circuit breaker period, Victoria also came together with six other art therapists to run the campaign #art4SGMW to support the emotional well-being of migrant workers. She sees art as a universal medium, that serves to bridge language barriers and provide an avenue for self-expression, as art not only taps into one's imagination to enhance emotional and psychological well-being but also gives one a voice.
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
A single qualitative case study of mess-play and self-portraitures in art therapy with an 8-year-old girl with end-stage renal disease in a medical setting
This practitioner-based, reflective thesis is a preliminary single-case qualitative study on the role of mess-play and self-portraits in regaining autonomy of self in art therapy. It involves an 8-year-old girl diagnosed with end-stage renal disease (ESRD). ESRD is an incurable, final-stage, progressive renal disease, where both kidneys no longer work as they should to meet the body's needs. Children with ESRD often suffer from loss of autonomy, poor psychosexual well-being and social exclusion. Psychosocial support is thus needed to preserve or enhance the child's quality of life. Art therapy sessions were carried out in a local medical setting where the client underwent haemodialysis. Mess-play and creation of self-portraits were introduced over an eight-month period. These methods were found to enable the girl to adequately express emotions about herself and her surroundings via art-making, suggesting that mess-play and self-portraits may aid the growth of sense of self. Given limited literature on the topic, these findings help expand current understanding of how art therapy through mess-play and self-portraits in a medical setting may enable children who require more psychosocial support due to conditions such as ESRD to regain autonomy and express and make sense of their inner and outer worlds.