Message from the Head of College
For thousands of years, the Arts have offered inspiration, solace and enjoyment. Today, many people judge success only by what can be measured: canny transactions and mass accumulation are frequently revered as the apex of success. So I'd like to share the words of a long dead Headmaster who founded a school at which I once worked with this wish for his students: every pupil "will know beauty when he sees it all his life". (Obviously, it was a boys' school). If somebody started a school today with that as their mission statement, they would be laughed at. Nobody would give them any money and the school would not exist. And that is one of the saddest things about education today.
So, I am fired up with excitement as well as genuine pleasure as I welcome you to Singapore, to the Dover Campus of the United World College of South East Asia, and to the 2018 SEASAC Arts Festival. Dover is one of two campuses of UWCSEA - Dover Campus opening in 1971 and East Campus at its new site in Tampines in 2011 - and we have a long relationship with SEASAC. Enjoy the incredible diversity of events, people and thinking that have gone into this wonderful occasion. I hope you're challenged, energised and, sometimes, stopped in your tracks by the exhibitions and performances. And I hope you may even know beauty when you see it. All your lives. |
Chris Edwards |