Tomorrow I am meeting with my supervisor to show the first 100 pages of my dissertation and the preliminary structure. My second semester of writing the dissertation in Malaysia is coming to an end, so I feel that this is a good moment to stop and look back at what has happened, what has developed through my practice, and where I am going next.
One thing I am particularly happy about is that I have continued writing my blog. I have written 29 posts so far. This has become a very valuable tradition for me, which started during my Master’s programme. Writing regularly creates a habit of stopping, concentrating and asking myself what is most important at that particular moment. It helps me direct my thoughts and actions instead of allowing everything to remain scattered.
It is also very useful to look back after some time. I can return to an old post and remember details, decisions, conversations and events that I would otherwise probably forget. Because I write publicly, there is also a certain responsibility. I cannot simply think about what I am doing — I have to articulate it. In this way, the blog has gradually become part of my research process.
Alongside the dissertation and my artistic practice, I also completed several academic and methodological components this semester. I completed a Mixed Methods Research course through Oxford, as well as the Research Methodology course at USM and the Malay language course at USM. All three were completed with the required coursework and examinations.
These courses gave me another way of looking at my research. They helped me think more systematically about methodology, research design and the ways knowledge can be produced, documented and communicated. At the same time, I began to understand more clearly how these academic approaches can meet my own practice-led way of working. Completing the courses while writing the dissertation also made me feel that I am gradually moving from a more exploratory stage towards a more structured research process.
During this period I also held an exhibition. It was an experimental work directly connected to my dissertation. I brought together sketches, ideas and different parts of my research into one exhibition. For me, the exhibition was not simply a presentation of finished works. It became a space where I could test how my research could exist through artistic practice.
The performance within the exhibition, accompanied by live music, was another important experiment. It was not easy to fit the performance into the exhibition format or to work with the audience that was there. I wanted to experiment more, but the space and the fact that many of the visitors were families with children pushed the work in a different direction.
Unexpectedly, this became interesting for me. I started to see a possible direction that I would like to continue developing: live music, a gradual revealing of a mask or artwork, and the possibility for an artwork to move from something that is simply looked at towards something that has the potential to act. I feel that this could become an interesting thread in my future performances.
Another major part of the semester was the five performances during Singapore Art Week 2026. This was also directly connected to my dissertation. The initial experimental idea came from my supervisor, and from there the work developed quite spontaneously. We rehearsed only five or six times, and the sequence continued to change as we worked.
Interestingly, the administrative process also became part of the research. I had to apply for permission for the performance several times and repeatedly write and rewrite the description of what we were going to do. I submitted the application to the police six times. At the time, this felt mainly like a bureaucratic difficulty. But looking back, I can see that having to explain the performance again and again forced me to understand what I was actually trying to do. Each application became another attempt to formulate the work.
The performance in the elderly care centre had an even stronger effect on me. I wanted not only to perform but also to explain the idea and show the development of the work through slides. This experience changed something in me as a performer.
I realised that explaining, demonstrating and performing do not necessarily have to be separate activities. The audience can become part of the way the work is understood. This encounter made me think differently about what it means to perform and about how much of the research can be communicated through the body, through objects and through explanation at the same time.
The conference performance was another unexpected and, for me, very successful experience. I had been working on the paper for approximately three months. I prepared the slides before travelling to Kazakhstan, while the final performance text and the costume developed during the three or four weeks before the conference.
But the idea of using the ball of thread and the spiral came only immediately before the performance, when I saw the actual room and the space where I would be presenting. Again, I realised how much my practice develops through a direct relationship with space. I cannot always plan everything in advance. Sometimes I need to arrive in the space and allow the space itself to tell me something.
I also became ill the day before the conference. But I stood up and did the performance anyway. For me, this was important. Not because of being ill, but because I realised that I could trust the work enough to continue. I could stand there, speak and perform without knowing exactly how everything would unfold.
After the conference, I submitted the paper for journal publication, and I am currently waiting for the response.
There have also been several rejections this semester.
I submitted an article to Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies, but it was rejected. I then substantially revised another article and submitted it to Southeast of Now, but it was also rejected. I revised the paper again and submitted it to the Journal of Visual Art Practice at Taylor & Francis, where I am currently waiting for a response.
I also wrote a book chapter at the invitation of an editor. I spent approximately two months working on it and eventually submitted it, but it was rejected. Of course, I was disappointed. But I do not feel that the work was lost. The process of writing the chapter produced an interesting article, and I now want to rework it and submit it to journals.
I think this is also an important part of doing a PhD. Not everything works the first time. Sometimes a rejection simply moves the work somewhere else. A paper changes its form, an idea becomes another paper, and something that initially seemed unsuccessful can become useful later.
Looking back, I realise that this semester has not only been about producing pages of a dissertation. The writing, exhibitions, performances, conference presentation, applications, courses and rejections have all become part of the research process.
Some things worked. Some things did not. Some things developed in directions that I could not have predicted.
The most important thing I am beginning to understand is that my dissertation is not developing separately from my artistic practice. The writing and the making continuously affect each other. A performance changes the way I write. Writing changes the way I perform. An audience changes the work. A space changes the performance. Even an administrative requirement can force me to articulate an idea more clearly.
This is perhaps one of the things I am beginning to understand about practice-led research: the research does not always happen before the artwork. Sometimes the artwork is where the research happens.
Now, with approximately 100 pages written and a preliminary dissertation structure in place, I feel that I am moving from a period of exploration towards a period of consolidation. The next stage is to look carefully at all these experiments and ask what they are actually telling me. What belongs at the centre of the dissertation? What are the recurring ideas? What has changed through practice? And how can these different experiences become one coherent research argument?
My next blog post will focus on the artworks I have made during this period. I want to look back at them not simply as individual artworks, but as traces of the research process — how ideas have moved between drawing, material, mask-making, performance and writing.