Into Narnia… Or Adventures with Sarah

Note: Hey, if you don’t want to be surprised or fascinated on your own, do NOT click to read more. These exhibitions will last till the 27th December 2009 at SAM 8Q. Go to it without clicking below if you’re the sort that would appreciate FUN exhibitions where you can interact with stuff! If you click more, then you’ll know what’s there (duh) without going through it yourself. It’ll still be fun to go to but you won’t be surprised.

This is the post where you can click the pictures to see a larger version because the details are SO needed to be seen! Have you been to the Singapore Art Museum at 8Q lately? There’s one exhibition that will last until the 27th December that you need to go to if you like going to arty places or pretty much fun things. It features the President’s Young Talents 2009.

I went there on a Saturday for Fleatique, some flea market thing, waiting for one stall to open and it didn’t. At least from what I saw, the table was still unoccupied by the time I left there at around seven with my friends from the Nanowrimo write-in. Anyone who joins me for a walk around tends to land themselves in adventure. See the tank behind there? Well, some SAM ladies (volunteers, I think?) handed us some pamphlets of the programme for the next few months and told us that we could actually control the WATER on the fourth floor.

And so we did.

Oh yeah, the pics taken are both on Saturday and Sunday. I went on Sunday with the rest because I needed to show it to more people.

Woo, woo. The room actually reminded me of that Dead or Alive scene where “Eins” was being cloned or something and tubes were in the background with bodies floating in it. Or I could be mistaking it for the later sequel where his sister had clones and stuff. OR as Joelyn would say, maybe Wolverine floating in it.

The water actually comes from the Singapore river and there was a “in the making” video I saw on the tv screen near the reception that showed how they pumped water into the tanks and stuff outside.

You can actually push the lever about to control the water. When we pushed it to one side and left after going through the exhibitions, we realized we did stop the water outside and the tanks looked half empty when it had been full before. Thus, you could say you controlled the waters from the Singapore river! OhohOHoHohohohoHo!

Okay, this was done by Tzwardzik Ching Chor Leng. It’s called Lifeblood and if I were an “arty” critique person, I would say more about the significance of the symbolism of water and bla bla bla, the water is from the Singapore river and thus it was once the waters of where our immigrant forefathers landed etc but this is going to be a “nanowrimo writer’s” perspective post because we went there after a write-in session. Needless to say, we thought it looked so sci-fi and that’s really cool.

Oh sure, we do understand the rationale and stuff there because we read the descriptions and all but we like to imagine more! So this is like ADDITIONAL commentary to the real meanings of the exhibits.

Okay this is Felicia Low’s exhibition. It’s more like half exhibit, half art class because there are timeslots and stuff to learn.

Just remember to remove your shoes first if you’re going to the left side of the exhibition since it’s carpeted and all.

We actually found it pretty interesting since some of the art are done by kids and we loved their rationale or how they drew things in their way like, there was one drawing where a kid was being chased by a strawberry monster. Yeah, we like things like that. Don’t ask. Her stuff is about family and education and what do certain things mean to people stuff.

Yep, it’s like the kids who did this share the sentiments with us who went there that day or something. Heh.

Okay, this is pretty cool since there’s a story to this. There’s a little plaque with text on that says this:

A Fable

There was once a kingdom whereby the king was able to turn the knowledge of the young into gold. The kingdom understood that all that was to be treasured was gold. This was all that mattered. Essentially so.

The children of the kingdom carried gold upon their backs. They did not suffer any loss, did not weep for any stolen stores of childhood exchanged instead for a gold bag the size and weight of stone. Indeed they did not know what hit them for upon their backs was gold.

Cool huh? We totally went all, “Oh yeaaah, tsk, tsk etc, etc” because of how our education system was and the story could be taken two ways since gold can be awesome but do we truly need gold? Or if gold was good and that the children will understand it later. Anyway, besides that we found ourselves into Donna Ong’s exhibition in another side.

Nur, nur, nuuuuuuur. There was some soundtrack of ambience playing too.

The sides were lined with these things there. It would be kinda creepy if you were the only one in that side of the exhibition there.

In the middle of the room was this long landscape of Chinese art. It is done in layers of acrylic and on the opposite side of the room facing it were three monitors. You can note the little cameras in front of it. They can be angled around and then you can watch the monitors to see the little details or how the picture would be like when it is painted “flat”.

Yeah, something like that but in black and white instead.

On the other end of the room there was a black room with a shelf of glasses. The lights followed the rhythm of the music that was played.

Considering I went with Nanowrimos, they could explain the sign in front of this exhibit, Vertical Submarine. The sign is actually from a folktale ((SUPER SUMMARIZED VERSION) about a guy who did a sign like that and buried his gold at a cemetery, naturally he found it was dug up when he went back later to get it again. Anyway, Vertical Submarine is a collective of 3 members consisting of Joshua Yang, Justin Loke and Fiona Koh. THIS, this was so awesome in a literary way.

Firstly to the left, we called this the mirror room. There were assorted books with amusing titles and that one in the middle in white was written in mirror. You had to hold it up to the mirror to read the whole book.

This locked book had the title that went along in the lines of a menopausal sixteen year old. The other books had punny titles and reading the info of Vertical Submarine, yeah, they DO delight in puns and literal meanings.

And to your right into the main room is a freaking huge book that’s locked and chained. I saw another post where someone went to the opening of the exhibits and that the book actually has words printed in it! Now, looking around you can see posters and cabinets.

Heh there was template for a suicide letter too which was amusing and a poster saying that publication is prostitution. Which is pretty amusing when you look at it that way about libraries and such letting people read books to satisfy themselves etc.

But did you notice the wardrobe in the corner there? YOU COULD OPEN IT… AND STEP INSIDE INTO NARNIA. No, seriously. If you’re at the exhibition, DO IT. Get into the wardrobe.

You’ll end up in a world of stories!

Really, it’s a different pages surrounding the walls, ceiling and floor.

Journey further down this world of stories and you will end up in a world of black and white. The only colours there were reflections from what we wore! I found it cool since EVERYTHING was in monochrome.

The scene left in place was someone’s room and oh there was a black and white tv playing on that was half buried into the wall along with the sofa. The clock in the room was also going backwards. It’s the little details that make the whole thing really cool. The various titles on the table along with messages typed out…

We also found a skeleton in the closet once we opened it! It’s headless though. Heh, try to get the puns and stories once you’re in the world of the Vertical Submarine. And then we had to go home so out of the closet we went and THE END.

Come by the Singapore Arts Museum at 8 Q before 27th December to catch all this! It’s very, very fun.