This mid-year school holidays, join us for the first-ever night-themed Children’s Season, titled The Night Is Young. Jointly presented by the National Heritage Board (NHB) and the Museum Roundtable (MR), the annual festival runs from 28 May to 26 June 2022 and aims to provide cultural and educational experiences that will educate and inspire both the young and their families on Singapore’s heritage. Participants can expect to enjoy a range of family-friendly offerings of more than 100 exhibitions, programmes and activities by participating MR museums.
Mr Gerald Wee, Director (International & Museum Relations), NHB, said: “We decided to explore night-time programming for this edition to present another side to museums, offer a different experience for visitors as they rediscover our heritage and culture, and spark their curiosity about museum spaces after hours. At the same time, it can offer families more options to spend time together, especially for working parents, as they can choose to come to the museums for our programmes during the day or at night – or maybe even both times!”
Museums and Artefacts Come Alive after Dark
One such programme where children will have opportunities to explore museums after sunset is Artefacts Alive!, presented by MR in collaboration with The Storytelling Centre Limited. Held across five Saturday evenings from 28 May to 25 June, families can explore the Asian Civilisations Museum (ACM), Indian Heritage Centre (IHC) and National Museum of Singapore through dramatised night-time storytelling and craft sessions, as storytellers regale them with tales of adventure – of majestic birds, royal celebrations, and mischief makers – inspired by each museum’s artefacts. As part of the programme, participants will also get to create a glow-in-the-dark handicraft, tailored to each story and based on the selected artefacts, and take home a memento of their visit to the museum.
Inspired by the abovementioned selected museum artefacts, the three different Artefacts Alive! stories are:
- The Strongest of them All – at ACM, where families will explore the museum’s Court & Company Gallery and within it, hear the story of a very tiny royal princess and her quest to find the strongest suitor, and how she learns that strength can appear in different forms.
- The God of Birds – at IHC, which follows the story of the ancient legend of Garuda, a mighty eagle which protects the birds in the forest from harm, and shows compassion to fellow creatures, large and small.
- The Runaway Kueh – at the National Museum of Singapore. Inspired by the children’s story of The Gingerbread Man, the story follows a naughty kueh who runs away from the kueh seller’s kitchen, and how different personalities like an amah, a night soil collector, and a rickshaw puller help to chase after it. Families can find out more about Singapore’s early settlers included in the story at the installation at the Glass Atrium.
Visitors are also invited to The Gem Museum for a Night at the Gem Museum, held every Friday night from 7pm to 10pm, for the month of June. The lights in museum will be dimmed during those hours, and visitors can explore the museum and discover mysterious luminescent minerals and gemstones, assisted by UV and LED torches.
A Diverse Range of Family-friendly Offerings by the Museum Roundtable
Aside from the night-time programming component, 28 museums island-wide will also be offering a slew of daytime offerings as part of Children’s Season 2022. These include IHC’s Enchanting Forest programme which centres on creatures of the forest, featuring a huge maze, an activity kit comprising two craft activities, a diorama workshop where participants can create a Magical Forest Diorama, a guided tour by students of Nan Chiau High School, and face-painting featuring designs inspired by the enchanting forest theme.
In addition, families and children can head down to any of the participating museums to pick up a Children’s Season 2022 stamp collection “passport” and kick off their journey to collect all 23 uniquely designed passport stamp imprints. While the stamps can be viewed as they are, there will be an added element of surprise as they also glow-in-the-dark under UV light, in line with the night-theme for Children’s Season this year.
Families can visit https://go.gov.sg/nhbcs2022 for more information on Children’s Season 2022 and download the programme e-booklet to view the full listing of programmes, as well as view the details on the passport stamp collection activity and the list of 23 participating museums.
