Singapore Art Museum

Hello again, everyone! I haven't posted in several days for two reasons: 1, I thought I broke our camera lens but luckily once we had time to really look at it, we discovered it was only a filter--easy enough to swap out and get back to taking cool photos; 2, I started reading The Art of Fielding and couldn't put it down long enough to think about posting.

The camera filter broke when I took the kids to the Singapore Arts Museum. They have a whole building dedicated to a collection of temporary exhibits for children. It was spectacular. I ended up not being to take any pictures though because I didn't know how to shut the flash off. So the camera was broken for nothing. Sigh. The first thing we did at the museum was put on slippers to walk into a room that was covered in once-brightly-colored stenciled designs, floor, walls, everywhere. You walk on the art. You participate in changing the art. It is near the end of the exhibit so the floor was pretty faded but it still looked cool. It was easy to see where traffic flowed, the stencil designs being bolder nearer to the walls and pillars, making me think about all the other people, kids, who had passed through there earlier. Here is a short video of the making of the exhibit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EERq1U5kdb8&list=UUak8zXyFxu_j11RDB8FlOIA&index=8&feature=plcp

There were other fun things there too. We watched a collection of video shorts that was beautiful. The kids got to make some stamp pictures, color flowers to hang on the wall, make a design with a clay flower that we were able to bring home to use as a refrigerator magnet, and color on a recycled cardboard cube to add to an exhibit. I enjoyed the voice-activated art display. It involved a screen with a bunch of black-and-white pop art pictures piled onto the bottom. There was also a microphone. When the kids spoken slowly and softly, the pictures slowly multiplied and filled the screen. When the spoke loudly, the objects grew in size, filling the screen quickly and overlapping. Beyond that was a small curtained room a family could go into and push play on an ipod. Music started blaring ("Moves Like Mack Jagger", sigh) but we boogied our butts off then got to watch it on a big screen where maybe 25 different families were dancing at once. Cool. Also, slightly embarrassing, but cool. The kids liked meeting this electrical squid. The exhibit was set up as though he were visiting the museum and we were the exhibit. When you approached him, motion detectors caused him to light up in rainbow colors. They also enjoyed the glow-in-the-dark garden where they were able to make origami butterflies to add. Here is a video showing several of the pieces: http://www.youtube.com/samtelly

Rather than make one huge blog about everything we have done the last several days, I think I'll divide it up so it will be easier to pick what you'd like to read about/see and easier for us to follow years from now when the kids want to remember this adventure. Next up, the train park! Lots of pictures!