Art Garden Exhibition 2013

Yay, Walter is here!

This year, the Art Garden Exhibition stays at the 8Q SAM. It was pretty much the same set up, where the movie was in the 3rd floor, the activity rooms were in the 2nd and 3rd. This time, though, I forgot to bring my camera, so all of the pictures were from the iPhone... so they're kinda grainy.

On the outside of 8Q SAM, there were boxes stacked up with things in it. It was one of the exhibits called Landscape in a Box, by the NUS studens. Some of the boxes were interactive and the kids can play with it, some were kinda like dioramas, where you could only look but not touch.

After that, we entered the premises. It turned out that this year, all citizens and PRs of Singapore are free to enter! So we put on our stickers and off we went to the first room on the first floor: The Enchanted Garden City, by Sandra Lee.

During the original Art Garden 3 years ago (back in 2010), Sandra Lee had The Enchanted Forest room, where the theme was the forest. this year, it was a city... and I thought it was even cooler than the first one!

There was the asian version of goldilocks and the three bears (but a black-haired girl and 3 pandas instead), a little red kebaya and the wolf... bean stalks, and even HDB trees!

This year, it seems like almost every room had an activity table, including this room. It was crowded when we got there, so we skipped the table. Aina had a blast in this room, even without the activity table. The rainbow bridge was great!

Then, we went up to the second floor. There was this Cat Room, called Around the Day in Eighty Worlds. It felt like going into an Alice in Wonderland movie. so weird and cool at the same time. I think Aina spent most of her time in there....

She loved playing toss the rings in that room, despite the dizzying surroundings.

And then, she made an artwork for Ari (he didn't come with us, since we went there during a weekday, and Ari was at work) for Fathers' Day.

Her favorite exhibition was about Nightmares... It's called Les Rêves Engloutis - Glossy Dreams in Depth by Stéphane Blanquet. First, we got into a cut kid's room, bright and cheerful. There was a bed... Aina was given a pair of 3-D glasses to wear, and was told to sit on the bed. The wall of the bed then rotated, sending Aina to the other side of the wall.

On that side, there was a similar room, but everything else turned dark. A lot of pictures of demons and monsters. there were similar furnitures in the dream world, but they were all in black and had morphed into something more sinister (i.e, the stuffed animal turned to a stuffed monster)...

There was a big three-legged elephant monster that, for some weird reason, Aina grew fond of.

So during the activity time, she decided to make a mask in the shape of the elephant monster.

I'm sure she was a bit scared in there, but i think she was very intrigued with the concept. So after we left, I asked her which room was her favorite, she said it was the dream room. She said it was interesting and she liked the mirror image between the real room and the dream room.

She had a nightmare that night, though.

After that, we went to see the light and sound area.

The light room was interesting... it's called Stellar Cave II, the artist, Julien Salaud, used strings to form glowing animals. It was very beautiful... we sat in that room for a while, watching the wall of many deers and buffalos... (you can click here and here to see the panorama pictures of the room).

And then, Aina got to try something similar :)

Before we went home, we visited the short films room. Last year, Aina couldn't stay long in that room. She got bored watching movies. But this time, she actually stayed until the museum closed! A lot of the short films were made by university students in Singapore, and they were very cool. Aina enjoyed them very much.

I'm thinking of visiting again before the exhibition is over...

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Art Garden
Contemporary art fun for children
17 May to 1 September 2013

SAM at 8Q
8 Queens Street
Singapore 188535

Opening Hours:
Daily 10am-7pm (last admission 6:15pm)
Till 9pm on Fridays