Gallery Children’s Biennale Returns in a First-ever “Phygital” Format

National Gallery’s popular Gallery Children’s Biennale goes global for its third edition!

Venue: Online and Onsite
Date: 22 May – Dec 2022
Hours: Varies
Fee: Free (Online experience)

For the first time this year, National Gallery will be presenting its well-loved Children’s Biennale in both virtual and physical format. 

The online experience will launch on 22 May 2021 and will be available till Dec 2022 while the physical art installations are expected to open to the public from 4 Sep 2021. 

Through the 9 commissioned artworks, the Biennale aims to inspire children to learn through play and discover important values through their interaction with the artworks. 

Featuring in the Biennale are works by Singapore-based artists Jeremy Sharma, Nandita Mukand, Sandra Lee, and Speak Cryptic X ADDADDADD as well as international artists Dinh Q Lê (Vietnam), husband-and-wife duo Isabel and Alfredo Aquilizan (Philippines/Australia), Joyce Ho (Taiwan), Khvay Samnang (Cambodia), and Nona Garcia (Philippines).

Details on the physical experience will be released later. 

Gallery Children’s Biennale Digital Experience

This third edition of Gallery Children’s Biennale is guided by the inquiry “Why Art Matters”. Categorised according to the themes of Home, Time, Diversity and the Environment, the works look to inspire children to embrace the values of acceptance, openness and diversity, in addition to providing them with a space to unleash their creativities. 

Not only will the online experience allow children to co-create with established international artists but it will also allows them to connect with peers around the world through the artworks. 

On top of the 9 digital artworks, children, aged 0 to 3, 4 to 7 and 8 to 12, will also be able to participate in other online activities such as tutorials, sonic and somatic workshops, storytelling sessions and games inspired by the artworks as part of the digital experience.

Home

Artworks under the theme of Home will explore the notions of home and community, and what it means to be working together for a greater good.

An artwork under this theme is Speak Cryptic X ADDADDADD’s collaborative artwork, BEHOME, which is a series of games and stories revolving around the humble bee, and how bees work and care for each other within their hive community. The game grants children a better understanding of how every individual can make a positive impact on the community around them, regardless of their size.

Diversity

Children are empowered to creatively express themselves and tell their personal stories through artworks that touch on the theme of Diversity.

In Dinh Q Lê’s Voices From The Centers, children will learn to create a 60-second video in response to an artwork from the National Collection, using digital weaving techniques inspired by Lê’s signature photographic weavings. Not only children will be empowered to build their own stories and explore image-making practices but they will also be introduced to selected works from the National Collection in a playful manner!

Time

Children will also gain a better understanding of the concept of time through artworks such as Joyce Ho’s A Day’s Book. The work invites children to share their stories on the microsite by signing up for 30-minute timeslots to access the artwork page and share their anecdotes of the day in a digital diary. At the end of each day, the ‘diary’ is completed, documenting a full 24-hour day through an amalgamation of 30-minute snippets contributed by young participants. Young ones will be able to discover what a particular time of the day looks like for other children and learn about how the passage of time is experienced differently around the world.

The digital contributions will be transformed into physical books available for browsing as part of Ho’s complimentary on-site installation at the Gallery in September 2021. 

Environment

The artworks under the theme of Environment will touch on the pertinent issues of environmental damage, such as climate change, and how the use of plastics affects our environment.

In Sandra Lee’s Conversations With An Octopus, children will get to immerse themselves in a beautifully illustrated interactive story about a girl and her wise old friend, the Octopus, as they go on various adventures such as sailing through the ocean and exploring an underwater library. Along the way, children will get to learn about environmental problems facing our world today, such as plastic litter in the oceans, and what they can do to play a part in tackling the issue through interactive elements in the story.