The Living Galleries
A Report on the Interpretation Strategies
The National Museum of Singapore
“Before you discuss your future remember how you got there…”
Museums are sites for scripting authoritative narratives about a nation’s history and developing a national identity. The National Museum of Singapore has attempted to control the meaning and interpretation of history by using numerous strategies to cement a national identity. The Living Galleries at the museum showcase multiple perspectives and preferences of various ethnic groups for everyday activities and objects – what they eat, what they wear and how they spend their leisure.
The galleries in the museum display ‘selective material artefacts, mythologies, memories and traditions that become resources for the present’, to carve a strife-free future.
The galleries in the museum display ‘selective material artefacts, mythologies, memories and traditions that become resources for the present’, to carve a strife-free future.
Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew’s statement “before you discuss your future remember how you got there”, seems to signify a recognition and celebration of the nation’s entrenched ethnic identities; the perception of the past changed from being a threat, to having the potential to create harmony.
The report examines how the Living Galleries invoke personal memories and emotional responses using everyday, iconic themes that are part of Singapore’s popular culture. It further examines how the strategies used in the galleries are aimed to help visitors understand and promote a collective identity more effectively than a factual and didactic rendering of history.
