About 

Clara Lee (they/she), Singapore

Formally trained in the History of Art and Material Studies, I am a researcher, writer, and cultural worker from Singapore.

Contesting the limits of a representational economy, I am interested in the possibility of thinking through/along/with the body, as it is animated through the interdisciplinary field of performance studies. In other words, the body through which performance becomes materialised, and is synchronously made (to) matter through performance. 

More broadly, I am interested in attending to the co-constitutive materialisation of race, sex/gender through questions of form. Tracing the affinities between affect theory, psychoanalysis, film studies, and queer of colour critique, my work dwells in the interanimation of the kinaesthetic and haptic, across film, media and performance. In particular, I ask, what moving/being moved is and does, and under which techno-aesthetic conditions does movement express itself as a particular mode of feeling.

Apart from my research, I also have a background in arts and cultural work. Over the years, I have worked with/for commercial art galleries, non-profits and charities such as Galerie Michael Janssen Singapore, Parasol unit, and The National Trust (UK).  As a cultural worker, I am invested in research-intensive, art-forward, and pedagogically sustained ecosystems.

Based between Singapore and Chicago, where I am currently a doctoral candidate in the Department of Performance Studies at Northwestern University, I am open to possibilities of all kinds (studio visits, commissions, etc.), especially in the area of performance (dramaturgy) .

︎ Email

Ongoing — Forthcoming

Fine, Medium, Coarse Singapore
Co-Editor & Contributing Writer
Forthcoming 

Education

Northwestern University
Evanston, IL
PhD in Performance Studies
September 2021 - Present
2024 Recipient of The Lilla A. Heston Award for Academic Excellence

California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) Valencia, CA
MA in Aesthetics and Politics
September 2018 - May 2020

University College London (UCL) London
BA in History of Art with Material Studies (Hons)
September 2015 - May 2018

Work

Independent Researcher, Writer, Editor & Curator
January 2017 - Present

Selected
2024 The Aesthetics of Race: Affects and Embodiments in Performance Conference, Northwestern University, Co-Covenor and Chair of the Organising Commiteee
2022 The Gestures of Virality, motor dance journal, Contributing Writer
2022 Can, Cannot, and Other Options: Between Defiance and Desire, Towards Fuller Lives, AWKNDAFFR, Copy Editor
2021 Traversing the Matrix Webinar Series, Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA), Facilitator and Organiser
2020 Time is Out of Joint, CalArts MFA Postgraduate Exhibition, Contributing Writer, “Dear______,"
2020 Desire Lines, CalArts Aesthetics and Politics MA Anthology, Contributing Writer, “Remembering Brother Cane (1994)”

2019 Coming Between, Becoming (Group Exhibition), Plot Space, Singapore, Curator2018 Objects of Delight (Group Exhibition), hosted by STAPLE and Shed, London, Curator 2017 XING Photobook, Contributing Writer, “CAM/WHORE: Reimagining East Asian Femininity”


Research Assistant to Artist, Kandis Williams Los Angeles, CA
February 2020 - March 2022

2021 Cassandra Press: An Unfolding, Sanford Biggers and the Amistad Research Center, California African American Museum (CAAM)
2021 Cassandra Press/Kandis Williams, The Absolute Right to Exclude: Reflections on and Implications of Cheryl Harris’ “Whiteness as Property,” LAXART
2020 Kandis Williams: A Field, Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), Institute of Contemporary Art
2020 Made in L.A. Biennale: A Version, The Huntington and UCLA Hammer Museum

California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), Main Institute Library Valencia, CA
Library Associate
September 2019 - March 2020

California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), School of Critical Studies Valencia, CA
Research Assistant to Arne de Boever
January 2019 - May 2019

California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), School of Critical Studies Valencia, CA
Teaching Assistant to Norman Klein
September 2018 - December 2018

STAPLE Magazine Singapore
Co-Founder & Editor-in-Chief
June 2015 - December 2018


Parasol unit, Foundation for Contemporary Art London
Exhibitions and Programming Intern
June 2017 - December 2017

National Trust (United Kingdom) London
Digital Archives Assistant
September 2017 - December 2017

Galerie Michael Janssen Singapore Singapore
Gallery Assistant
December 2014 - September 2015

2015 Cheo Chai-Hiang, In A Cowboy Town…. 
2015 Ronson Culibrina, Blood Compact
2015 Simryn Gill, Like Leaves


Galerie Michael Janssen Singapore Singapore
Exhibitions & Marketing Intern
September 2014 - December 2014

2015 Wong Lip Chin, Thousand Knives
2014 Jason Wee, Requiem (The Sea Can’t Reach You Now)
2014 Yukinori Yanagi, MONEY/FLOWER

ARNDT Fine Art Gallery Singapore
Gallery Assistant
April 2014 - July 2014

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