Who misses travelling? I sure do! and with the pandemic still going strong (sadly) it doesn’t seem that travelling will be in our calendar anytime soon. As someone who takes inspiration from travelling, I have recently found myself struggling to create. So, a few weeks ago I decided to take some time off of work to “travel”! I decided to visit the Art Science Museum with a friend of mine. After living here for almost a decade, I surprisingly had never stepped foot inside the lotus shaped building before this trip! Oh and yes, I had only just realised that the Art Science Museum is shaped like a lotus while I sat waiting for my friend! And it all made sense, why it was surrounded by lotus flowers!
There are a few exhibitions that you can visit inside the museum – “Future World – Where Art Meets Science”, “Digital Light Canvas”, “Planet or Plastic?”, and (at the time of this writing) “STAR WARS Identities”. We decided to go to the “Future World – Where Art Meets Science” exhibition and we had free access to the “Digital Light Canvas” exhibition. The ticket price was $19 per person, though we went on a Friday and I saw tickets for other weekdays were on sale for $16. Bear in mind this ticket price is per exhibition. I really recommend going during weekdays when there are less people, that way you can really take in the ambience and enjoy the artworks presented there.
Entering the “Future World” exhibition was no doubt exciting, you are greeted with gorgeous artwork of fluttering butterflies illuminating in the darkness. It’s really something special especially for art and nature lovers. Walking through the exhibition you can definitely feel the theme of the exhibition is how science and art unites! One installation I enjoyed was the “100 Years Sea” which shows how the sea level changes in 100 years, it’s on a timer and it’s now on its 9th year!
Another installation I absolutely loved was the one titled “Proliferating Immense Life – A Whole Year per Year” which depicts how nature changes with the coming and going of seasons. I sat and watched how the flowers changed, how the colours shifted from season to season, it was definitely something worth admiring.
However, my favourite installation has got to be the “Story of the Time When Gods were Everywhere” installation. This installation was fun and inspiring! It’s a series of characters and symbols floating on the wall, where when touched will turn into elements of the earth or animals. I turned into a kid again chasing after the symbols to see what they will turn into.
Speaking of turning into a kid again, these installations aren’t just for admiring from afar. It’s also very interactive and child-friendly. There’s an installation where kids (and adults I’m sure :P) can slide down a slide that illuminates fruits! A game room, where you can play with drawing with lights. My ultimate favourite was the “Sketch Aquarium”! Yep it’s an installation of an illuminated aquarium, but the best part is that the contents of the “aquarium” are sketches made by the visitors (mostly children, but who doesn’t like crayons?!). There are drawings of fishes and other sea creatures that you can colour (crayons are provided!) and scan so it appears in the aquarium. You’ll see your sea creatures swim around in the aquarium, it was such a fun activity, even for us grown ups! Truly a nostalgia from colouring exercises we had as a kid!
The last installation was quite unique. Titled the “Crystal Universe”, it’s an installation of strings of LED lights made to look like shiny crystals. You walk through it and it feels so posh, like you’re walking through crystals :D. We also had the opportunity to visit the “Digital Light Canvas” exhibition for free. It was a collection of crystal clear, microscopic focus images taken by the Oppo phone. Though it felt more like an advertisement for Oppo (hence why it was free admission, probably :P), it was quite enjoyable to see all the unique and pretty photos taken by merely a phone.
Again, going when there are less people around really paid off. I couldn’t imagine how it would be had I gone on the weekend where there is usually an influx in visitors. The problem being the small space of the exhibition. I can’t help but be a little disappointed by how small the exhibition was. However, all in all I enjoyed the installations and definitely did not regret going.
Our Little Canvas 