Exhibitions

Held since 2010, i Light Singapore is a sustainable light art festival showcasing installations created by artists from Singapore and around the world. This year’s setup, i Light Singapore — Bicentennial Edition, comes much more eventful than the last, consisting of thirty-three art installations in multiple locations including Marina Bay, Civic District, Singapore River and Raffles Terrace. In addition to sustainability, the passage of time is explored as an additional central theme in this year’s exhibits. Visually rich, and infused with diverse meanings, I was blown away by the complexity and originality of many works. I have narrowed them down…

Taiwanese visual artist Nien-Ting Chen presented “Collecting a Little Shimmer in Life” at Goodman Arts Centre from 10 to 16 January 2019, featuring a series of works inspired by the intriguing discoveries she made from day-to-day proceedings. The materials used to create her works were all taken from stunningly ordinary items. During the closing reception on 16 January, we got to sit down with the artist herself to gain insight into the meanings behind her experimental art works. In the process, Nien-Ting Chen also opened up about her observations of the art scene in Asia as compared to that in…

Most of us probably remember the Asian Civilisations Museum (ACM) from school trips. In my impression, the ancient history of the exhibits is easily lost on the young audience. Recently, ACM has underwent a major change in curation, with its management choosing to organise artifacts based on themes rather than chronology. This is a welcomed change — for me anyway — as I find it easier to remember the historical significance of the artifacts better by grouping them with themes in mind, rather than having to recount which the year it is associated with. Since 27 November, three new permanent…

Join Alice in her journey into a land of peculiar characters and magical adventures at ArtScience Museum’s new exhibition, Wonderland. Held from Saturday, 13 April to Sunday, 22 September 2019, the exhibition celebrates the titular heroine of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson’s – better known by his moniker ‘Lewis Carroll’ – timeless tales and presents the first ever survey of Alice on screen and in popular culture. The exhibition’s opening in Singapore marks the first stop of the award-winning exhibition’s global tour. Wonderland invites visitors to take a trip through the looking glass into an immersive, enchanted world, where a remarkable selection…

Singapore Design Week (SDW) – one of Asia’s premier design festivals – celebrated its sixth edition with a robust line-up of programmes. Held till 17 March 2019, SDW 2019 highlighted how good design impacts the economy, environment, society, and culture. Held at the National Design Centre (NDC) and various locations island-wide, SDW included over 80 programmes by more than 70 partners that brought attention to the impact and value of design in everyday living. SingaPlural 2019 The first day of SDW 2019 also saw the launch of its first programme on the list – SingaPlural 2019. A strong advocate for…

The Singapore Philatelic Museum (SPM) and the Peranakan Museum under the National Heritage Board (NHB) will be closed for redevelopment later this year to refresh the museums’ infrastructure and content. The former will be closed to the public from 18 March 2019, and is expected to re-open to the public in end 2020. The latter will be closed from 1 April 2019, and will re-open in mid-2021. These are major redevelopment projects since SPM’s opening in 1995, and the Peranakan Museum’s launch in 2008. Here is a summarised list of some of the most memorable exhibits – both permanent and…

The #DontTellMeHowToDress (DTMHTD) exhibition makes a stop at Singapore from 28 March to 21 April 2019. Held at NomadX in Plaza Singapura, the exhibition aims to prove that sexual violence may be inflicted on anyone, regardless of how they are dressed. This questions the societal stance that a survivor is somehow responsible for instigating sexual violence because of the way she acts or dresses. The DTMHTD exhibition also serves as a platform for survivors’ stories to be heard, and an avenue to show that help is available. The DTMHTD exhibition in Singapore showcases eight sets of clothing worn by survivors…

Documentaries such as the Planet Earth and Blue Planet have enthralled viewers with its stunning footage and imagery of living and breathing cycle of nature. With that same vision in mind, the same team behind those series set out to make Our Planet, a documentary series in the same vein as its predecessors. The Netflix series, which launched all its episodes on 5 April 2019, gives us a peek at how our actions are affecting the planet and its inhabitants that roam the wild. To go one step beyond in educating the public about the protection of our environment, Netflix…

What do we really know about Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles and his role in 19th-century Southeast Asia? What else was he doing in the region, beyond establishing a British East India Company outpost on the island of Singapore? The Asian Civilisations Museum (ACM) seeks to answer these pressing questions with Raffles in Southeast Asia: Revisiting the Scholar and Statesman. Director of the ACM, Kennie Ting, explains, “There are two main intents for this exhibition. The first is to objectively address the figure of Raffles, presenting him as a complex and multifaceted personality, rather than the mythical, one-dimensional ‘founder figure’ most…

For the first time ever, National Gallery Singapore has collaborated with the ArtScience Museum at Marina Bay Sands to launch Minimalism: Space. Light. Object. on 16 November 2018. The five-month exhibition will be the first survey of Minimalistic art held in Southeast Asia, and the first major Minimalism exhibition to include artists from this region as part of an expanded global perspective on the movement. Dan Flavin’s monument for V. Tatlin Minimalism has contributed to the transformation of how artists use materials and space, and how they involve the viewer. This has been fundamental to the development of contemporary art…