“Love & Daydream is a video inspired by the daydreamers, and the artwork aims to bring “fun” back into fashion, to encourage its wearers to experiment, and to make a statement with a personal style that is uniquely theirs. Keeping with the exhibition’s theme -Kaleidoscope- we would like this work to encourage the viewers to be free to express themselves creatively through their dressing.”

Apprentice Teo Jia En (Creative Direction) is a Fashion Management student at LASALLE. Having cultivated an interest in the arts since young, she continued with art studies for her ‘O’ & ‘A’ levels, and decided to pursue fashion. “With a deep appreciation of the arts and cultures found in fashion, I aspire to become a leading trend maker in the fashion and luxury industry.”

Collaborating artist, Gilda Su (Fashion Designer and Make Up Direction) attended Bunka Fashion College. After graduating with a specialist degree in dress-making, she continued her studies at Parsons, the New School of Design in New York City. Gilda is a full-time daydreamer and joyseeker. Her designs show her love for color and pattern manipulation, a playfulness that comes with self-confidence and an original personal style.

Collaborating artist, Nicole Lee (Videographer, Lighting, Editing) is a jack of many trades, who aspires to become a master in photography and videography. Nicole’s passion started with music, shooting at concerts and club events. While she has expanded into other aspects of photography, Nicole hopes to continue with this mantra of capturing the essence of moments on image. “The journey hasn’t been easy, but I am very grateful for everyone who has helped, inspired and taught me.”

You can watch the video at the Transmission: Kaleidoscope exhibition which opens on 12 May at 188-8 Tanjong Katong Road.

Aisya Rila is a year four Visual Communication student at Nanyang Technological University, Art, Design & Media. With a diploma in Film, Sound and video, her interests include a mixture of media and design. “I love video editing to the core, and I wish to explore into multi-disciplinary art using interactivity as a tool of communication.”

HI:SS (Hearing Images, Seeing Sounds is a real-time audio-visual installation exploring the expression of musical structures and translates them into compelling visuals. “This is my graduation project, and it aims to encourage the viewers to consider the possibility of composing with visual aesthetic rather than the customary aural one. By combining visual and musical thinking through aesthetics and tools of generative art, new improbable relationships are explored and possibilities are opened for variable audiovisual collective experiences.”

Lengfei is a young lad with a passion for design, bags and films. He thinks that design is much more than just aesthetic; to him it’s a relationship.

“To some people, design is a waste of time – impractical and superficial. They do not realize that everything involves the process of design in one way or another. The society and human beings are constantly evolving for the better, overcoming problems and even this is a form of design.”

Lengfei has developed a strong interest in branding and identity design. During his time as a design student, he handled live projects including the logo for Singapore Polytechnic. He was also the head of branding for the Design School graduation show – BIRTH. “I became more aware about Singaporean’s reaction towards design, and their judgement about local designers. They feel more than a little skeptical, and are to afraid put their trust in us. While some of the perceptions of the design industry hurt me, they provide an added motivation to promote and advocate for a change in the mindset of my fellow citizens towards design.”

Beyond graphic design, Lengfei’s interests extend to designing bags. “When designing a bag, it is important to pay attention to detail. When using a bag, the user creates an immediate relationship with the design. Thus, it is important to make sure that the bag works well for the user. I struggled when I first started out, as high quality materials, hardware and tools are not easy to find in Singapore. A friend of mine introduced me to a young accessories brand owner. He was supportive, and gave me some of his fabrics, leather, tools and even his working studio for a day. With his help, I crafted my very first bag. My sketchbook contains more than thirty sketches ranging from day bags to trip bags. I hope to start my very first collection in the near future. Brand concept and design ideas are practically finished; I am collaborating with a friend now to make this project come true.”

Films have also been a constant source of inspiration for Lengfei. Throughout the three years at Singapore Polytechnic, he organized and invited his peers and lecturers to several film screening sessions in his studio. “The production design in films like Pan’s Labyrinth, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus and The Aviator never fail to impress me. They are so visually captivating, encapsulating the essence of what the stories needed. There are so many things to look at and be inspired when watching a film – the cinematography, acting, visual effects, costume design, sound design and music. The filmmakers’ ability to orchestrate these elements into a meaningful whole and to have the audience emotionally attached to the film is truly remarkable.”

“I always think that learning to design is easy, but to design with integrity and to have the aptitude to connect people to your design is difficult. Just like Edward Wood Jr.; He was passionate about his movies, and he did not let himself derail from his path. However, he was considered by some to be the worst movie director of all times. He failed to make the connection to his audience, which is the most important factor in the film and design industry. I am determined to become a graphic designer and an accessories designer because branding is my passion and bags are my obsession.”

Motion Designer Darren Shieh is a graduate from Motion Graphics & Broadcast Design at Nanyang Polytechnic. The man is  always in search of an adventure to expand his horizons, and hone his creative process and skills set. “I have the curiosity to venture for different styles, and enjoy working from concept to design to post-production. I also love managing projects and come real close with clients to understand their needs.”

Darren’s recent Projects include the 2011 Singapore National Day Parade and a yet-to-be-released local Short film “WaterCrass” with a title sequence by Mindee Ong.

View more of Darren’s work on his site.

Zihan Loo received an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in May 2011, and did a BFA at the School of Art, Design and Media at Nanyang Technological University (NTU). Zihan started out working in theatre, and discovered moving image as a medium only in 2005, during his first year at NTU. The moving image seemed like a medium which was a perfect amalgamation of all his interests in performance, movement, visual design and lighting.

“My work is anchored in the moving image and extends to performance and mixed-media installations. I deploy these divergent mediums to address fundamental societal and artistic questions, such as the relationship between the artist and participant, the role of the “proper” and the still under-recognized pervasiveness of shame. A quiet lyricism and poetic rhythm couches my explorations of shame, sexual content and the dangers and pleasures of self-exposure. In submitting to my own self-exposure, I propose my work as a gift to the viewer.”

Koo Chia Meng received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Digital Filmmaking at Nanyang Technological University. Trained as a filmmaker, his short films have been seen by audiences locally and abroad at festivals such as the 6th Singapore Short Film Festival, Singapore Short Film Awards 2011, Vancouver Singapore Film Festival 2009 and 2011 AAS-ICAS Joint Conference in Hawaii.

“The featured short films involve travelling,” Chia Meng explains. “The travelling of your body, the travelling of your senses as well as the travelling of your memories. Travelling through spaces, through speeches and through time. At times we need to forget someone, but no matter where we go, we remember. Sometimes when we backtrack on the roads once travelled, we realize that we actually don’t want to forget. In fact, many beautiful moments are getting increasingly hard to remember.”

Chia Meng is an associate Multimedia Designer with Theatrestrays. Previously, he has collaborated with theatre companies like A Group Of People, The Finger Players, Drama Box, Toy Factory, Frontier Danceland and W!ld Rice. His work on ‘SITA’ had the opportunity to be presented during the Festival Internacional Cervantino 2011 in Mexico City.

With experiences in various disciplines, Chia Meng has made music videos, publicity videos and had previously provided content for NDP 2010, Man Singapore Theatre Festival and Casual Days magazine. He is currently working on W!ld Rice’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and Resort World Sentosa’s ‘Voyage de La Vie’. He will also be directing a new narrative short film entitled ‘Soul On A Wire’ in 2012.

Junda Lim is a freelance motion designer, currently in his final year at Nanyang Polytechnic, Motion Graphics and Broadcast Design. His most recent project was the projection for Singapore’s National Day Parade 2011.

“Choices (top image) is a collaboration with a local band -The Summer State- and was nominated for the Adobe Design Achievement Awards 2011. It was done within a month in collab with two other designers. We conceptualized the lyrics into a story and shot the entire film. We then moved on to shoot the band against green screen and did the animations in post.”

Junda reveals in his biography a preference for motion design and graphic design, especially typography and photography, so we’ve included a few extra works from his portfolio for your viewing pleasure.

Click to watch the video.

26-year-old filmmaker Jacky Lee graduated from Swinburne School of Technology, Melbourne in 2010 with a Bachelor degree in Film & Television.

Over the past four years, he has been actively involved in the local film scene, working in the art department on films like Royston Tanʼs “12 Lotus”, Kelvin Tongʼs “Kidnapper” and “Itʼs A Great Great World”. He is currently a part-time lecturer at the Temasek Polytechnic School of Design, which also happens to be his alma mater.

“To be honest, I got into Temasek Polytechnic without any clues of what filmmaking was all about. I only really fell in love with film after I saw Wong Kar Waiʼs “Chungking Express” for the first time. It has this raw energy and charm which I never thought film was capable of capturing. It remains my favourite film to date and it also serves as a constant source of inspiration. I also like films by Gus Van Sant and Michel Gondry. I was working in the local film industry for a while before deciding to leave for Melbourne. I felt that there was a need to get myself out of this comfort zone and at the same time to learn more about film. I came back to Singapore during my semester breaks to continue working on local productions and then head back to resume my studies. It was really tiring but looking back at it, it was probably the most fruitful phase of my life.”

“Wild Fire” is Jacky’s latest work which made it to the finals at this yearʼs Creative Video Awards jointly organised by Singapore Media Academy and Mediacorp Channel 5. “The given theme for the competition was ʻCreating Storiesʼ and the first thing that came to my mind was the broken telephone game I used to play when I was younger. Information is never a hundred percent accurate when passed on via word of mouth. I hear all these rumours and gossips everyday within my neighbourhood and thus it was really easy to pen down the script. It was the first time that I am working with so many actors and actresses because I usually work on music videos or films that are quieter. I had a great time on set because all of them are really good and it made my job a whole lot easier.”

Jacky is currently working on a script for a coming-of-age romantic comedy which he hopes to complete by June 2012. “The script is slowing coming together and it feels like a really fun script. I also hope to release a soundtrack for the film featuring music from local bands.”