Enjoy what the National Museum has to offer during regular open house
Letter from Lee Chor Lin Director National Museum of Singapore
We thank Kog Yue Choong for his feedback in "A true vault of our collective memory?" (March 24). The National Museum of Singapore's core function is to be a custodian of Singapore's history and culture. Five permanent galleries — the Singapore History and the Living Galleries — were designed specifically with this sole purpose in mind.
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The Singapore History Gallery is a 2,728 sq m space dedicated entirely to the presentation of Singapore's history from the 14th century right up to modern time. Using a multimedia guide called The Companion, which is provided upon entry into the History Gallery, visitors can learn about 700 years of Singapore history by selecting either the events or personal path. They can read textual captions, listen to commentaries by historians and curators and oral recordings of individuals whose lives were linked to historical events, watch video clips and enjoy dramatised audio presentations re-interpreted from historical accounts and facts.
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The Singapore Living Galleries re-tell the history of Singapore through the perspectives of Fashion, Food, Photography and Film. They serve the dual functions of preserving and promoting subject matters close to every Singaporean's heart.
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For example, the Film gallery includes a stunning display of artefacts from the well-known Chinese opera troupes such as Sin Sai Le (Hokkien) and Sin Yong Hua Heng (Teochew), among others. These were specially curated to record the dying art. Some of the artefacts you can see here include one of the few standing puppet stages, as well as original robes, accessories and props that were used during street opera theatre performances. There is also a rare footage of a Chinese opera street performance filmed during the 1960s.
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The museum has also commissioned many documentation and film projects on Chinese street opera. One of these is Sin Sai Hong, a short film by Roystan Tan that intimately details the last performance of the local opera troupe. We have also organised Beijing and Cantonese opera performances featuring Phan Wait Hong, Bai Yun and Joanna Wong when the museum re-opened in December 2006, and have collaborated with the Chinese Opera Institute in their recent symposium and workshops for the Chinese opera fraternity this month.
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We are sorry that you did not get a chance to fully experience the History and Living galleries when you recently visited. We learn from your disappointment that we must publicise more widely and diligently the rich contents which the Museum has in our permanent galleries.
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Fortunately, we have regular open house, which is when we offer free admission to our History and Living Galleries. We hope that you will take the opportunity on these days to visit and experience what our galleries have to offer. Above all, we strongly believe that it is through the re-visiting and re-experiencing of Singapore's history that allows the better appreciation of what Singapore has achieved.
