Skip to main content

Advertisement

Advertisement

New exhibitions at National Museum’s revamped rotunda will relook at history

SINGAPORE — If history seems remote and irrelevant to you in these technologically advanced times, think again. According to the National Museum of Singapore, the past is in the present.

SINGAPORE — If history seems remote and irrelevant to you in these technologically advanced times, think again. According to the National Museum of Singapore, the past is in the present.

In a bid to make history relevant, the museum is looking towards contemporary interventions such as commissioned works by popular Japanese digital art collective teamLab and a photography exhibition by acclaimed local photographer and artist, Robert Zhao, which will be displayed in the revamped Glass Rotunda set to reopen this December as part of the museum’s final phase of permanent galleries revamp.

Iman Ismail, 35, the curator who is working on the contemporary installations at the Glass Rotunda and who also curated the recently opened contemporary art exhibition What is Not Visible is Not Invisible at the National Museum of Singapore, shared his insights about the use of contemporary art within a history museum. “We feel there is a need to have the conversation between history and the contemporary ... Contemporary art allows you to investigate further, to have a different angle, giving us the opportunity of different possibilities of relooking history, which is a bit more exciting.”

Both the works at the Glass Rotunda, though contemporary and largely digital, are inspired by the museum’s beginnings when its collections were focused primarily on natural history.

Based on the historic William Farquhar Collection of Natural History Drawings, the commissioned work by teamLab titled Story of the Forest promises to wow visitors with an immersive experience within a massive digital installation using 59 projectors and encompassing the 15m high circular drum of the rotunda with a reconstructed dome and an 80m passage way.

Visitors can walk into the circular space and watch the 3D animated flora cascade on them in slow motion in the mesmerising and hypnotic manner of a snow globe. The flowers may be familiar to some, as they are based on the drawings of distinctively local flora from the Farquhuar collection, such as the Hibiscus and Oleander.

From the circular drum, visitors can move into the passageway where they will spot equally familiar local animals such as mousedeer and the Malayan Sun Bear — these interactive illustrations react to visitors’ proximity, guiding you in your journey through the passageway, leading you to the foot to the rotunda where you can observe how the plants and the trees there respond to your presence, growing and coming alive.

Once you exit the rotunda, at the bottom of the Glass Rotunda, visitors encounter the Singapore, Very Old Tree exhibit by Zhao. Inspired by one of the oldest postcards found in the National Archives of Singapore depicting an unspecified tree dating back to the year 1904, the exhibition was first commissioned as part of the Singapore Memory Project and held at the National Library Singapore in May last year as part of the nation’s SG50 celebrations.

The exhibit will showcase 17 images of trees around Singapore and highlight intimate stories of the trees, such as the old tree which used to be The Substation icon for local artists or the locally hyped Monkey God Tree in Jurong West. The photographs set in light boxes gives visitors an alternative perspective of Singapore’s history and the personal connections that Singaporeans have with our local trees.

Jervais Choo, senior assistant director at the National Museum explained how the museum uses these contemporary works to make history relevant. “All the contemporary artworks that we present here (the museum), it is very deliberate, as a response to the architecture, a response to the collection, (and a) response to the historical aspects that the museum does want to talk about, and we have even extended this to include the Singapore Biennale works which will be exhibited here as well.”

Read more of the latest in

Advertisement

Advertisement

Stay in the know. Anytime. Anywhere.

Subscribe to get daily news updates, insights and must reads delivered straight to your inbox.

By clicking subscribe, I agree for my personal data to be used to send me TODAY newsletters, promotional offers and for research and analysis.