A transdisciplinary conversation with Kai Syng Tan
Abstract
Join us for SCC’s Celebrating Neurodiversity events!
Kai Syng Tan is an artist-academic-agitator, co-lead of the Neurodiversity In/& Creative Research Network and, as the first artist on the Royal College of Psychiatrist’s editorial board, a transdisciplinary innovator.
In this event, through conversation and film, we will be exploring the ‘magic’ of the intersections of creativity and neurodiversity, and the need to diversify neurodiversity.
Tan will provide inspirational insights into how neurodiverse students and staff can thrive and how neurofuturism can help us redefine leadership in HE.
About the speaker
Kai Syng Tan PhD PFHEA (she/they @kaisyngtan) is an artist-academic-agitator known for her trademark ‘eclectic style and cheeky attitude’ (Sydney Morning Herald).
Kai is:
- a trans-disciplinary innovator (first artist on a Royal College of Psychiatrist’s editorial board)
- artist (San Francisco International Film Festival Golden Gate Film Award; National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement Culture Change Award; Young Artist Award conferred by the president of Singapore; showcases in MoMA, Guangzhou Triennale and Royal Geographical Society)
- provocateur (regularly delivering keynote lectures; expert advisor for UK and Singapore government bodies, international research councils and even a ministry of defence)
- a research facilitator (acknowledged as ‘absolutely instrumental’ in re-framing running as creative discourse, through her curated RUN! RUN! RUN! Biennale, as well as Running Cultures and Running Artful Networks; founded and/or (co-)led 6 global research networks, including: the 410-member Neurodiversity In/& Creative Research Network)
- creative theorist/writer (currently working on three books re-defining leadership with Palgrave MacMillan 2024, Routledge 2025, World Scientific 2025, other publications include BBC, Guggenheim, Frontiers Psychology and The Manila Times)
- change-maker (as Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival juror, awarding the top award to an anonymous filmmaker formerly imprisoned by the Myanmar military junta, as trustee of a charity for detained refugees, drove its radical transformation by embedding co-creation and anti-oppression practices, leading to the appointment of its first, black neurodivergent female Artistic Director in December 2023
- curator and creative director (leading programmes ranging from £0 to £4.8m, including a Black History Month celebration that reached 18.2 million worldwide, the opening and closing ceremonies of Asia’s Paralympics praised as ‘game-changing’ by disability groups)
- mentor, teacher and academic developer (awarded Principal Fellowship; taught in 200 universities worldwide; regularly delivers masterclasses and CPDs, such as for Royal Society of Arts, and 870 brain and mind experts from 17 countries, 14th International Conference on ADHD in Berlin)
- an Associate Professor in Arts and Cultural Leadership.
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