I’m going to let you into a secret. Throughout the past 3 years I’ve been the troublemaker in the group. So I think there’s a good deal of grace in the fact that I’ve been allowed to speak today. And although I was going to abuse this privilege to incite mindless rebellion, I can see that everyone is very well dressed, and I’ve decided to behave myself.

Well, I hope it’s not seen as subversive for me to start by saying that as we come together today, to celebrate the turning of the first revolution of our new art school, there’s a tiny part of me that’s surprised that we’re gathered here at all.

I’m thinking of my state of mind, nearly 3 years back, when I had arrived for the first time in this corner of South-East Asia.
It’s 3 o’clock in the morning, but my body thinks it’s 7 in the evening. I’m sweating like a monkey and slumped over a table full of tiger beers in Chinatown with Eric Flanagan and Puttnam. We’re debating endlessly whether or not we’re being ripped off by our flat realtor, when the conversation turns to the new school that we’ve all given up our lives to be a part of.

It turns out that nobody’s actually seen the building yet. Someone tried, but they couldn’t see past the village of Indian labourers that had set up camp at the bottom of 3, Kay Siang Road.

We start to wonder if this whole Tisch Asia story is a hoax. I mean, I had accepted my offer over a payphone in Palestine, where I was living at the time, and hadn’t so much as seen the face of a member of faculty.
Well Puttnam and Eric had met a few of the faculty, but even when the hoax theory had been dismissed as far-fetched, the questions kept rolling with a fury:

If it did exist, what would this school turn out to be? Would it last the whole year, or even a full semester? Say we did graduate in, what then, seemed an impossibly distant 3 years’ time, would the school be taken seriously in the outside world? Or would it be known as just a pale imitation of the famous Tisch School of the Arts in New York?

The fact is that Tisch Asia has been, for everyone involved in its inception – students, faculty, and administration – a massive leap of faith into the dark.

Who among us hasn’t had to leave behind the people they love, the places that make you feel you know who you are, a path in life that gave you comfort but didn’t challenge you enough?

Tisch Asia, before it is anything else, is a testament to the courage, commitment and community spirit of everyone here; of people who have been willing to risk what they already know in pursuit of a brighter vision.

And what’s also clear, standing with you today, is that those doubts about what this school would be and where it would leave us are, 3 years on, being vanquished, as Tisch Asia emerges with a powerful identity of its own.

I want to take this opportunity to pay my respects to the campus in New York and the tradition that it represents, a tradition that has been a constant point of reflection for us here in Singapore, and whose influence has been working on me since long before I had ever heard of the name, Tisch School of the
Arts.

Names like Martin Scorcese, Oliver Stone, Ang Lee, to name just a few that have inspired me, stand as icons of a tradition, nurtured by NYU, a tradition that encompasses cinema, writing, and animation, a tradition that changed the face of narrative art in the 20th century. It’s a rebel tradition that bridged the gap between Hollywood and the world it represented, opening up the entertainment mainstream to a wider reality, and to the pursuit of creative innovation.

If any single factor, 3 years ago, was enough to motivate me to take that leap of faith, it was the opportunity to be a part of that tradition.

Now, I believe, we hold the torch of that tradition here in Singapore, at Tisch Asia.

If you are an artist and a rebel, if you wanted to challenge the global entertainment machine to reflect the world and not itself, if you wanted to seek out new opportunities, new stories, new audiences, if you wanted to do for cinema in the coming decade what Taxi Driver did in its own time, then why would you not be here among us?

Nearly ten years ago, I interviewed a veteran Magnum photographer, Philip Jones Griffiths, best known for his coverage of the Vietnam War. A lot like Em, he’s a cantankerous Welshman, and what I remember most from that interview was his insistence that the Magnum tribe were “a bunch of anarchists” who wouldn’t sit around waiting for a commission, but instead would, “wake up one morning and say, fuck it (his words, not mine), I’m going somewhere”. Witnessing the zeal with which students of this school have made Asia their playground, it often makes me think that the same description could equally be applied to our own community.

Within these first three years, we have travelled out to India, China, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Cambodia and Thailand in pursuit of new perspectives, new material. We’ve engaged first hand with the logistical obstacles, the barriers of language, the complexities of conception and production that this kind of internationalism entails. We have repeatedly come back to Singapore and allowed our campus to grow as a hub of this knowledge.

Tisch Asia is a hub where the NYU tradition is constantly called into question. Where the constraints of production are challenged by the liberty of animators and writers. Where the certainties of American ideas are challenged by the realities of Asia. It’s a place where new ideas have space to breathe, a hub that is leading NYU into the 21st century.

In the world of film, this creative vitality is already earning recognition from international festivals of the stature of Venice, Pusan, Clermont-Ferrand, Rotterdam and most recently, Tribeca.

And in the years ahead, as we move forward as a community, we have the opportunity to carry this vitality into the creative industries of both Asia and the West, to extend the dialogue, to change the face of the arts, to reflect a wider world.

I want to pay homage to some of the individuals who have been so instrumental in bringing the best of the NYU tradition here to Singapore:

President Pari Shirazi, whose vision was the genesis of this enterprise, and without whose dedication and drive to overcome innumerable obstacles, this school could never have been realised. Pari’s personal touch, her humanity and responsiveness, have made her a bedrock of this community, and have earned her the kind of loyalty that few leaders are entitled to – not just respect, though that in spades, but love and admiration too.

Artistic Director Oliver Stone, and other great alumni who have come to share their experience with us, drawing the line between the formative education that NYU provided them with, and the vast heights they have scaled in their careers.

Departing Film Chair, David Irving, who came into this community 2 years ago, at a time when we were still a community unsure of ourselves, and leant all the weight of his strength of character, his openness of mind and generosity, to leave a community full of energy and confidence. David, we owe you immense gratitude for everything you’ve done here, and wish you and Susan a very happy return to your home in New York.

Perhaps there has been no more profound embodiment of this connection than in our encounter with Charles Blackwell, whose wisdom on sound stands as a bond between numerous generations of NYU alum. We didn’t get to spend as much time with Charles as we would have liked, but in the short time that he was here with us, he impressed a sense of humble and enthusiastic engagement with what our position here in Singapore offered us as NYU grad students. His goal was very clearly to bring what was best from his experience of the campus in New York and to allow it to flourish here. And that tree that now stands in front of the school, and that will grow with us, and whose roots will grow too into the soil of our campus, stands now as a symbol of that engagement, between Singapore and the NYU tradition, of that dialogue between the old and the new that Charles’ memory represents.

That what we bring here, what we do, will live on, will grow. This is the wish that I want to leave you with. We stand at the end of one revolution and the beginning of another. Look around and cherish this moment that has brought us together from every tribe, from every corner of the world, that has blessed us with the chance to share and learn from one another, that has made us a part of each other’s story. We have every reason to celebrate. With this thought in mind, let’s make this night a night to remember.