Making museums fun for kids

The job of an art curator can mystify most adults - but what about children?

Come year-end, children visiting the National Gallery Singapore will get a chance to play curator and select artworks for an exhibition, write wall text for the display and conduct tours for their peers.

It is one of the activities on offer at the Children's Museum, part of the new 1,000 sq m Keppel Centre for Art Education, a dedicated space for children in the gallery. The space will recreate an actual artist's studio, complete with his artworks, tools and journals.

Interactions such as these that go beyond the usual child-oriented activities such as colouring seem to be the next wave in how local museums are engaging the young.

"We want children to understand the subtleties behind what they see and what goes on behind an exhibition," says Ms Suenne Megan Tan, director of education and programmes at the National Gallery Singapore, which occupies the refurbished City Hall and former Supreme Court buildings. The gallery will open at the end of this year.

The National Museum of Singapore has a children's playroom, PLAY @ National Museum of Singapore, which has welcomed more than 100,000 visitors since it opened in May last year.

It is the 128-year-old museum's first dedicated area for children and is designed to be fun while teaching kids about Singapore history and culture.

For example, a popular part of the 700 sq m wing is an area for the children to play "masak-masak" or cook local dishes with larger-than-life ingredients moulded out of plastic.

Interactive wall displays allow children to figure out what goes into the making of dishes such as nasi lemak.

Ms Christie Chua, the museum's senior assistant director of audience development and partnerships, says: "It is not just a play space, that's not what we want. We want parents and kids to be together and for adults to guide children through the space."

Engaging the next generation of museumgoers has become high on the priority list of museums in the world's cultural capitals, and museum educators in Singapore say they go on research trips to museums such as the Victoria and Albert Museum in the United Kingdom and Boston Children's Museum in the United States.

The art- and design-focused Victoria and Albert Museum sees 160,000 people attending its programmes for those aged 24 and below yearly, which revolve around the collection and exhibitions.

For example, a recent storytelling session of Little Red Riding Hood was themed Wild Fashion, reflecting the London museum's ongoing Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty exhibition featuring the late designer's outfits.

Ms Sarah Campbell, head of schools, families and young people at Victoria and Albert Museum, tells Life! in an e-mail interview: "We are interested in not just targeting children, but also encouraging children and their parents and carers to discuss what they are looking at and make creative responses together, creating positive shared memories."

The overall trend is for child-targeted spaces in museums to move away from classroom-like settings and towards hands-on learning. Ms Tan says: "We're moving away from exhibits stuck in cabinets. It's a shift that we see happening worldwide."

Parents can now expect a full suite of facilities and programmes for children at museums here. These range from interactive exhibits, workshops and performances - produced by professionals with occasional input from older students and members of the community - to activity sheets downloadable from the museums' websites, all of which are designed to have specific learning objectives and are planned up to a year in advance.

For example, at the National Museum's current Masak Masak exhibition, the installation Hello, Hello? encourages children to match the correct strings in order to communicate with their parents through tin-can telephones.

The artwork was created by students of the School of the Arts. Nur Sabrina Mohamad Suhaimi, 14, one of the creators, says: "We decided to go with this idea as communication is indeed an important building block in a child's growing-up years."

At the Asian Civilisations Museum, an ongoing exhibition titled Once Upon A Time In Asia: The Animal Race revolves around the animals in the Chinese zodiac and is supplemented by five real-life specimens and replicas from the Singapore Science Centre, such as a specimen of a golden monkey and a skeleton of a reticulated python. This collaboration with the Science Centre is a first for the museum.

Ms Lim Chye Hong, the museum's deputy director for audience development, says: "We wanted to inject learning through play."

Referring to a station where fake animal poop is used to teach children about the animals' diets, she says: "We have a 4.8m-long python skeleton juxtaposed against an exhibit of snake poop. It makes the experience come alive for the kids."

The National Museum and Asian Civilisations Museum exhibitions are part of the National Heritage Board's flagship Children's Season, held during the June holiday period and which attracts more than 200,000 visitors yearly.

The eighth edition, which ended on Sunday, offered more than 50 activities at 19 museums.

With such reach, courting the young museumgoer is becoming serious business.

The Keppel Centre for Art Education, which takes up prime space on the ground floor of the National Gallery's City Hall wing, was made possible through a $12 million donation by Keppel Corp.

Once opened, it is expected to serve 250,000 children, youth and families.

The challenge is that there is no shortage of entertainment options for children out there - from shopping centres and live shows to the expansive online world accessible at the touch of an iPad screen.

Ms Anna Salaman, associate director of programming at ArtScience Museum, which is part of Marina Bay Sands, says: "It can be hard work for museums to compete in this crowded market and to persuade parents that their children will have as rewarding a time, in fact more so, visiting a museum than if they went to other attractions."

Two of the museum's ongoing exhibitions - The Deep, about deep sea creatures; and DreamWorks Animation: The Exhibition, which charts the creative journey of the animation studio - have child- friendly sections. For example, in The Deep, visitors can create their own sea creatures using recycled materials.

Parents whom Life! spoke to say that these offerings by the museums are much appreciated.

Designer and museum lover Little Ong, 44, heaped particular praise on Imaginarium: A Voyage Of Big Ideas at the Singapore Art Museum, for exhibits that enthralled not only his one-year-old son, Luca, but also him and his wife.

The exhibition, which revolves around the themes of discovery and imagination, is inspired by the crescent moon on the Singapore flag.

Mr Ong says: "It was really artistic in unexpected ways. For example, there was a huge fish puzzle with scales made of graphic shapes. It was not very easy even for adults to find shapes that fit.

"It's great that our museums have thought about creating exhibitions for children. I don't take this for granted."

Making play is serious work

Bouncy castles - those inflatable fortresses that can propel you into the air with one swift jump - seem to be the epitome of fun for kids.

Visit the front lawn of the National Museum of Singapore before Aug 10 and these giant blow-up playgrounds, part of the children's exhibition, Masak Masak, will welcome visitors in colourful designs that recall the mosaic playgrounds from the 1970s and 1980s with their trademark dragon, watermelon and elephant shapes.

Ms Christie Chua, the museum's senior assistant director for audience development and partnerships, tells Life! that behind all the fun lies some serious planning.

Firstly, the bouncy structures had to be created from scratch - these are not the regular castles you see at your neighbourhood market.

The museum team sent images of existing Housing Board playgrounds dating back to the 1970s to its vendor to recreate.

The design of the bouncy castle "had to still retain the original look and feel of the actual mosaic playgrounds", adds Ms Chua.

"So if the playground design incorporated a slide, we wanted the bouncy castle to have a slide."

This included choosing colours which closely matched those of the old playgrounds. There were several revisions before they settled on the final designs.

And then on to the fun bits: The team got to decide what kind of obstacles each castle would have, such as a ladder or a slide.

There was also the very serious business of "stress testing" - the museum staff got a chance to test out the castles before they were officially opened to the public.

Of course, safety was still of utmost priority. For example, Ms Chua reveals that the height of the dragon playground is made lower this year compared with that last year, to make it easier for younger children to clamber onto it.

Also, access to the bouncy castles is restricted to weekends from 10am to noon and 4 to 6pm, as the material the castles are made of can get quite hot in the afternoons.

The response has been good - last year's inflatable dragon playground drew long queues of children - prompting the museum to introduce a new design this year, that of the dove playground.

Adults are also drawn to these inflatable playgrounds on the front lawn of the museum for the pure nostalgic appeal, although the recommended age range for those getting onto the inflatable structures is three to seven years old.

But it is not all fun and games. Ms Chua hopes that the playground designs will spark conversations between parents and their children.

"With only a few of these mosaic playgrounds remaining today, we hope that our visitors can share their treasured memories of these playgrounds with their young ones," she says.

Kids Stuff

MASAK MASAK

What: Create your own puppets in Singapore artist Jeremy Hiah's Queen Of The Forest installation, or play a game of giant Flag Attack!, based on the childhood game using country erasers. These are among the 10 engaging installations in this exhibition, recommended for children aged three to seven.

Where: National Museum of Singapore, 93 Stamford Road

When: Till Aug 10, 10am to 6pm daily. Playgrounds on the Lawn are open on Saturday and Sunday, 10am to noon and 4 to 6pm.

Admission: Free

Info: www.nationalmuseum.sg

ONCE UPON A TIME IN ASIA: THE ANIMAL RACE

What: Engage your five senses and learn more about the 12 Chinese zodiac animals in this exhibition, which comprises exercises and games inspired by objects from the museum's collection, and specimens and replicas from the Singapore Science Centre. For children aged five to 12.

Where: Asian Civilisations Museum, 1 Empress Place

When: Till Aug 16, 10am to 5pm daily

Admission: Free

Info: www.acm.org.sg

IMAGINARIUM: A VOYAGE OF BIG IDEAS

What: Inspired by the crescent moon on Singapore's flag, this exhibition aims to spark children's imagination, with artworks such as Kiko's Secrets by Vietnam-based artist Kumkum Fernando, which allows children to enter magical secret worlds in three giant boxes themed the woods, the city and the sky. Suitable for all ages.

Where: SAM at 8Q, 8 Queen Street

When: Till July 19, 10am to 7pm, Monday to Sunday, till 9pm on Friday

Admission: Free for Singapore citizens and permanent residents

Info: www.singaporeartmuseum.sg

THE DEEP AND DREAMWORKS ANIMATION: THE EXHIBITION

What: Dreamworks Animation incorporates 400 displays that shed light on the creative studio's 31 animated movies, including favourites such as Madagascar and Shrek. The Deep gives visitors a rare glimpse of the creatures that lurk deep in the ocean, with photographs and more than 40 animal specimens displayed in an all-black room. Suitable for all ages.

Where: ArtScience Museum, 10 Bayfront Avenue

When: Dreamworks Animation runs till Sept 27; The Deep runs till Oct 27; 10am to 7pm daily

Admission: Dreamworks Animation, $15 and $10 for Singapore resident adults and children aged two to 12, $22 and $14 for standard adult and children; The Deep, $12 and $8 for Singapore resident adults and children aged two to 12, $15 and $9 for standard adult and children

Info: www.marinabaysands.com/museum

This article was first published on June 30, 2015.
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