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| Wassup
at NHB museums? |
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| One of
the Heritage Express advertisement panels
that was featured on MRT trains. |
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More and more Singaporeans are visiting
local museums these days. If you haven’t been
to one lately, you’re missing the action!
Read on to find out about the many exciting, new
programmes that have been drawing huge crowds.
Total visitorship of National Heritage Board (NHB)
museums in FY2004 exceeded 822,000. That was a 70%
increase over the previous year’s 480,292
visitors and the highest in the Board’s 12-year
history!
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| The MUSE
fashion models parading innovative designs. |
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| Youths learnt
more about Japanese animation at Anime@ACM. |
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What is most remarkable is that even disinterested
youths are making NHB museums a “must-stop”.
Surveys reveal that while they previously regarded
the museums as places that are boring, old, behind
the times and unfashionable, they now find NHB museums
interesting, relevant, exciting and even cool.
Central to NHB’s successful outreach efforts
is its drive towards innovation. Said NHB CEO Mrs
Lim Siok Peng: “Heritage and museum-going
are still at their infancy in Singapore. As such,
refreshing and radical ideas are needed to challenge
the status quo and change the mindsets of the masses.
Unconventional approaches are also needed to stretch
our limited resources for maximum impact.”
A prime example of a recent innovative initiative
that reached a new target audience was Project M.
In July 2004, NHB launched the nine-month initiative
involving all the NHB museums, the National Library
Board and partners from the private sector.
Project M, which leveraged on popular youth culture
to woo teenagers, comprised 42 events and programmes
that combined heritage and fashion, media and lifestyle.
The highlights included:
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Inspired Designs!:
an exhibition where Temasek Polytechnic students
transformed ancient museum artefacts into
chic, contemporary fashion pieces |
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Opera Fashion:
a display of winning T-shirt designs bearing
cool Chinese opera motifs from a competition
held in conjunction with a Singapore History
Museum exhibition on Chinese opera costumes |
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The Muse: a fashion show-cum-exhibition
that featured red-hot fashion inspired by
photography exhibitions at two NHB museums |
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Anime@ACM: a festival
celebrating Japanese animation that included
drawing and animation workshops, a cosplay
event, anime film screenings, meetings with
manga artists and J-pop performances |
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Fly By Night: a 24-hour,
short-film competition with screenings of
the winning entries |
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Wunderpark: a funky, interactive
15-day event at the Singapore Art Museum where
visitors enjoyed graffiti artworks and band
performances, and caught breakdancers in action |
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Cambodia Experience: an
adventure for eight Singaporean teenagers
who shared their travel tales through video,
photographs and journals |
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Dancember: a dance contest
held at Zouk which saw participants fusing
traditional dance steps with modern dance
moves |
To draw the crowds, NHB embarked on an aggressive
integrated marketing and communications campaign
that included advertisements in the media, a dedicated
website, e-newsletters, brochures, onsite banners
and public relations efforts.
Results showed that Project M achieved its aim of
developing a new museum-going audience. It successfully
attracted 174,000 youths from July 2004 to March
2005, far exceeding its original target of 70,000
youths.
Furthermore, a free e-Museum card membership drive,
the first of its kind for the Board, recruited more
than 20,000 youth members. The e-Museum card, which
plugs youths into the heritage and museum scene
through regular newsletters and emails, presents
opportunities for them to encounter heritage and
museums in refreshing ways.
“We are delighted that Project M has raised
awareness among youths. Through popular culture,
we created channels for them to see that heritage
and museums can be cool, refreshing and enriching,”
said
Mrs Lim.
“NHB will continue to cultivate
younger audiences through innovative programming,
experience-rich exhibitions and unique events. We
hope these channels will continue to help our youths
better appreciate museum-going and heritage.”
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| Upper primary
students had fun learning about war
history by playing mathematical games. |
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NHB also explored new ways to reach out to schools.
For example, the National Archives of Singapore
(NAS) developed an interactive trail for upper primary
students dubbed “Operation Maths Defence”.
The programme, which received overwhelming response
from schools, was held at Reflections at Bukit Chandu
(RBC), a World War II Interpretative Centre. Students
had a fun time learning about Singapore’s
war history through mathematical games.
Said Ms Stella Wee, Outreach Educational Services
Officer at NAS: “The idea for Operation Maths
Defence started with our team feeling the need to
integrate history with English and Mathematics.
The centre is ideal for students to get away from
the confines of the classroom and experience learning
in a refreshingly different environment.”
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| One of the
architectural models of Singapore circa
1910 created by students. |
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Another initiative was the Heritage City Design
Competition held early this year. Some 238 participants
from various schools created architectural models
of their vision of a heritage city circa 1910. Drawing
inspiration from what they had seen and learnt during
workshop sessions and museum field trips, the students
enjoyed the hands-on approach to learning about
Singapore’s heritage.
To reach out to the masses, NHB launched Heritage
Express, a project that transformed two MRT trains
into “moving museums”. On display were
more than 100 specially curated museum-style panels
that presented lifestyle themes (home, transport,
leisure, communications, fashion and food) in a
modern and witty fashion.
Said Ms Tan Huism, Senior Curator, Asian Civilisations
Museum: “Heritage Express was an interesting
experiment to bring heritage closer to the masses.
This followed an earlier project where we displayed
historic images at Dhoby Ghaut MRT Station.
“For Heritage Express, we decided to
take over entire trains to bring to the commuters
bite-sized information about heritage. The project
was quite successful in capturing the interest of
many MRT commuters.”
Members of the public can look forward to even more
exciting programmes at NHB museums. Said Mr Walter
Lim, Acting Director, Corporate Communications and
Industry Promotion, NHB: “We will continue
to introduce innovative measures to promote heritage
appreciation and museum-going on a national scale.
An example is a national museum-going campaign,
which involves various lifestyle oriented activities
targeted at specific audiences like young ladies,
e-savvy youths or senior citizens.” |
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Next: Bringing
out the best in staff |
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