As the title speaks for itself, Lost in the City is by five local rising talents – Justin Lee, Genevieve Chua, Michael Lee, Joo Choon Lin and Chun Kai Qun – reflecting upon Singapore’s rapid modernisation.
There are altogether four exhibits. The first installation, From Green to Brown to Black to Brown to Green (ok, it’s really mouthful!) by Joo Choon Lin and Chun Kai Qun features a combination of stop motion animation and diorama (a miniature scene used in the animation). The film shows the plight of two funny, fuzzy looking creatures as their habitant is heartlessly destroyed by humans. While I couldn’t quite comprehend the entire animation, I did enjoy studying the creatures and diorama. Through my camera lenses, the diorama seems amazingly real. It made me start to wonder, were recycled materials used?
Next, there are Justin Lee’s figurines that fuse traditional and modern elements beautifully together. Being strategically position between the old architecture and the new extension of the National Museum, his entire theme stands out even more. In my opinion, this idea of old-meets-new is relatively common. However what caught my attention was the smart move of placing a porcelain-white figurine amidst the numerous cement-coloured ones. National Museum of Singapore’s friendly staff, Steve explains that the artist did that intentionally to arrest attention from passer-bys. If every piece looked alike, then it wouldn’t be that attractive. He is very right indeed!
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- Diorama by Kai Qun
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- Porcelain White ‘Jing Ma Yong’ by Justin Lee
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- Suspended Buildings 2 by Michael Lee
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- Suspended Buildings by Michael Lee
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- National Snow Factory
The most eye-catching exhibit is definitely the large scale suspended buildings by Michael Lee. Well, I gave it this name since I could not find the exact one, but I’m sure there’s a better, more artistic name to it! Each building represents pieces of important heritage that have been long lost and forgotten. Places like the old National Library, old National Junior College were featured. What surprised me most were structures I never knew existed! Take for example National Snow Factory (1979 – 1993) at Bedok North Road and Singapore Cloud Forest Centre (never built as the architecture was deemed “too modern” for its time). Walking up the stairs, taking a closer look at each exhibit was like attending a history tutorial to me, albeit a more visually appealing one. I took a moment to wonder, why is it suspended in the mid-air? Here’s my novice and humble opinion. Singaporeans are the world’s fastest-walkers. Pace of life is so quick that we are almost certain to miss objects that are not at our eye-level. These buildings, being suspended express how easy Singaporeans have forgotten them. Nostalgia will hit you only when you take 100 steps back to enjoy the full view of the buildings and start to recall the many things that once made up part of our lives
Finally, there is Genevieve Chua’s 15 min video installation, Full Moon & Foxes which tells a dark story of foxes (portrayed by very pretty young ladies) who have lost their innocence. Their expressionless faces are quite haunting at times. To be honest, the video seemed incoherent to me, perhaps due to an error in one of the projectors (there are three projectors). All in all, it failed to stir my feelings as I was trying to decode it throughout the film.
Overall I spent about an hour viewing in the Museum. If you have an hour to spare, I would certainly recommend you to make a trip down!
National Museum of Singapore
21 Aug – 3 Jan 2010
Free Admisison
For more details, visit: http://www.nationalmuseum.sg/nms/nms_html/nms_content_6c.asp?content_template=4&content_id=11&tab_id=11&cine_id=1598&fest_id=0
A Lefthander's Writings 