Explore and reflect on what makes Singapore our home at the National Museum of Singapore’s newest exhibition, Home, Truly.
Photo Credit: National Heritage Board
Through five key themes and using the metaphor of a home, Home, Truly is presented in an intimate way that invites visitors to see themselves in the stories presented, and adopts a personal and contemplative tone to encourage visitors to reflect on what Singapore means to them as their home, and their hopes for the home we aspire to be.
Featuring photographs and artefacts, including those contributed by members of the public, as well as audio-visual footage, sounds, scents and special digital features, Home, Truly explores the moments and experiences in Singapore’s past and present that express our identity and collective memory as a people.
Running from 19 December 2020 to 3 October 2021, here's what you can expect at National Museum of Singapore's newest exhibition:
1. Laying The Foundations
Photo Credit: National Heritage Board
Laying The Foundations explores how nation-building looked and felt like to people on the ground, through the laying down of foundational policies in areas, such as housing, economy, defence, healthcare, and infrastructure. Hear the personal accounts of people who lived through the country’s early years as an independent nation, through the events they witnessed or the rites of passage they experienced.
Some of these vivid, first-hand accounts were of moving into a HDB flat for the first time, and from women who entered the workforce during the height of Singapore’s rapid industrialisation. This section also features a specially commissioned soundscape, "A Day in the Life of Singapore", which comprises the distinctive sounds of people, places and experiences that are characteristic of Singapore.
2. Moving In
Photo Credit: National Heritage Board
Moving In features some of the common experiences and memories that breathe life and meaning into a nation, and make a house a home, such as going to school, enjoying our hawker food, or relaxing in recreational spaces.
In this section, visitors are invited to step into immersive spaces that take them back to the comforting moments of celebrating festivities in their living room, or lounging by a jukebox featuring distinctively Singaporean songs, both old and new, that have been part of the soundtrack to our years of living and growing up in Singapore.
This section also features “Let’s Talk at the Tuckshop”, one of three chat corners within the exhibition, designed to encourage reflection and conversation across generations based on what visitors have seen in the exhibition.
3. Living Together
Photo Credit: National Heritage Board
Living Together examines how Singaporeans have worked together to navigate and overcome challenges faced when living together in a shared space, as people settle into a new home. From national campaigns to the clean-up of the Singapore River, to tensions that may arise between communities from time to time, this section also shows have Singaporeans have made an effort to shape and build our home through constructive dialogue and meaningful initiatives.
4. Open Doors
Photo Credit: National Heritage Board
Open Doors takes a look at how Singapore has been shaped by its immigrant and multicultural past through the stories of different groups of people who have made Singapore their home over the years, and their reflections on what home means to them. Hear the intimate stories captured through video interviews in a space designed to evoke a typical HDB void deck, reminiscent of afternoons spent chatting with friends and neighbours.
5. Sturdy through Storms
Photo Credit: National Heritage Board
Sturdy through Storms presents how Singapore has stood united in support and courage through the crises that challenges we have faced over the decades, such as floods, the withdrawal of the British military, financial crises and SARS.
This section also includes a special feature on the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, with a display of artistic works, photos and artefacts, including contributions from the National Museum’s Collecting Contemporary Singapore: Documenting COVID-19 in Singapore Open Call.
6. Coming Home
7. Make Yourself @ Home, Truly: Digital Companion to Home, Truly
Photo Credit: National Heritage Board
The exhibition is complemented by a digital companion to the exhibition, @ Home, Truly, which features an online-exclusive story of a young girl and her grandfather through illustrations by different local artists, interspersed with archival and contemporary images, artefacts and audio-visual material.
The experience includes a chatbot offering games and quizzes. The digital story is released in chapters – each highlights a theme related to the physical exhibition – with three released so far, and more to come, with the fourth being released on 18 December 2020.
8. RFID Reader
Photo Credit: National Heritage Board
To help visitors interact and engage safely with the exhibition in the “new normal”, each visitor to Home, Truly will be given a stylus pen with a Radio-frequency Identification (RFID) tag. A “mediated touch” solution in light of COVID-19 considerations, the stylus tip of the pens enable visitors to interact with multimedia stations without having to touch the screens, and the pens enable visitors to write down their reflections in response to the exhibition’s chat corners and final interactive. Visitors can use the RFID tag to tap on and respond to prompts within the exhibition, and upon “checking out” at the end of the exhibition, they can find out more about what home means to them based on their responses. They will also receive a specially curated list of digital content based on their personal journey throughout the exhibition. Visitors may also bring home their RFID-tagged stylus pen and reuse it on subsequent visits to the Home, Trulyexhibition. Motion sensors have also been used as a way to trigger video and audio content in certain sections of the gallery.
For more information and the latest updates on the exhibition, you may click on the link here.
