Our Story
Introduction
As an organization devoted to working towards the betterment of the society by harnessing the effects of arts and culture on human learning, Essence of Learning & Culture has been striving to raise the public awareness of the multiple benefits of getting engaged into the creative making of arts and understanding the rich cultural connotations embedded within the artworks. We have been investigating into the various means of getting the message across to the wider public by organizing exhibitions, book sales, donations and talks on the connections between arts and cognition; particularly on how the understanding of arts and its historical and cultural background knowledge can stimulate and enhance the cognitive development of children. These are no easy and straight-forward undertakings as they involve lots of researches to be done, published and presented to the audience through different platforms. New evidences have surfaced over the last 10 years to re-affirm the hypothesis that arts learning is an indispensable element in the knowledge acquisition process of children, we are thrilled by these findings and for these reasons, we have decided to continue working to build on our past successes so that our beliefs can be further promoted to reach out to a wider audience.
"Clearly, cognitive ability is called for when one is to have a good comprehension of the facts and materials on which our justifications are to be based. Culture can offer ample opportunities for one to explore, discover and under the connections of different knowledge disciplines."
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- Henry T.T. Yau, in his book
Cultural Cognition and Creativity
For years, our organization has been working consistently to promote our beliefs that engaging in arts making can reap real benefits in terms of learning and understanding of cultures other than one's own. We set off on a modest pathway as the work involved long term researches and planning, especially on uncovering inherent artistic talents or someone whose artistic potentials are embedded without their realization. Besides, the myopic concept of arts being trivial is still deeply ingrained in the minds of many people, especially for Asian communities. Scientific knowledge is perceived to be generally superior over humanities or artistic endeavours. But as we look around the world, we notice that countries which place high regard for arts learning, value and preserve their cultural artifacts and historical architecture are continually thriving as the world progresses along the age of technological advancement. These are the "soft power" which keeps the people from other parts of the world intrigued by the glorious past and traditions. And these are the invisible allure and intangible power drawing people from afar to visit and re-visit in order to savour the unique experiences which they might not have experienced back home, nor to be able to find elsewhere except in that particular region.
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The mission to restore people's faith in the miraculous working of arts is challenging. But we believe that we have so far covered more than we originally set out to accomplish in this pursuit. And as the saying goes, ignorance is the pathway to discovery.
Ongoing Projects
Charity & Donation
Over the years, we have found that one of the most effective means of getting exposure and public attention on the subject is through doing charity and donation that aptly fits with our identity of being a non-profit organization. We have consistently been looking for partners, individuals, and organizations that aspired or shared our rationales.
Art Exhibition
Showcasing the talents of young artists is a direct way to reach out to the public and allow the gifted artists the maximum exposure of his or her works. We do not set any limitation as to the genre of the artworks as long as they are authentically created and accomplished through the creativity and originality of the art worker.