Singaplural is a pop-up museum that "celebrates design, in all its forms, functions, stories and inspirations." Singaplural has been organized since 2012 by the Singapore Furniture Industries Council. The name Singaplural is actually a combination of the words singular and plural, not Singapore and plural as I thought!
We went kind of on a whim on our way home from Suntec, after Jess got off work early on Friday. There were some really cool things, and some things that we just straight up did not get. Singaplural 2016 was housed in an old police building, and there were about 2-3 exhibits per room, and the rooms seemed to go on forever.
One of the first things we saw and walked through was an outdoor hallway made out of a series of different doors. The end of it lead to another exhibit that was partially edible. One of the cool things about this museum is that a lot of the artists were there and very interested in explaining their work. It also helped that we were there early in the evening, so there weren't many other people there yet.
The edible exhibit was a big garden planted in all recycled containers. We smelled lots of things, but only tasted the wormwood, and it was a very interesting and complex flavor that kept changing... it was pretty good.
Another favorite was this cloud forest. The clouds were made of ceramic pieces of varying sizes and densities. When you run your hands through them they clink together and make sounds like windchimes, and because they're different sizes they produce different tones.
The exhibits were supposed to stimulate different senses. The garden focused on sight, smell, taste and touch. The clouds were touch and sound (I guess all or most of them were sight as well!), and the next couple were very smell oriented. This one had a wall of viles with little bits of dried flowers and herbs... they were labeled, but it would have been neat to have to guess what they were!
When we walked into the next room it smelled SO GOOD. I recognized the smell, but didn't realize what it was until I got closer to the fountain, at which point my brain said "is that... whiskey..?" It was whiskey! A fountain if whiskey. Unfortunately this exhibit was not taste oriented... nor would I want to since there wasn't anyone monitoring it, but that would make a great exhibit.
Then we got into a human sized kaleidoscope! Part of the point was to get inside of it... but I think it looked cooler from outside, once you were inside you just saw lots of reflections of yourself, not so much of the display in the background.
I read the plaque about the blocks of wood above, and I really don't remember what it was about. It was interactive, you were supposed to write something on a block (about being green or something?) and then add it to a string.
Two of my favorites were back to back... First there was a room with 2 shelves, and they were lined with polaroids in frames. Each one had a switch, and when you pressed it a light would come on revealing a hidden drawing!
The next room was 3 different artists takes on Aurora Borealis. I only took pictures of the one though... which was laser cut pieces of opal/pearlized plastic with a swinging light over top... it made a really cool reflection of the walls, and I want it in a room in my house.
Then was one of Jess' favorites, which was just these ticking pieces on a board on the floor.
Then there were lots of colors and some weird and scary things. One room smelled strongly of cotton candy, but had flashing lights and loud sounds and I Could not hang out in there. Another had white button down shirts tied together and hanging from the walls, and pieces of paper asking you to pull off your emotion.
And we visited the gift shop where I got this super cute plushie merlion. As I mentioned in the previous post, the shopkeepers here tend to follow you around and explain things to you. No different here. The two employees followed us to each item and explained it in detail; what it was made of, what it's used for, what it represents, it's origins...whether or not it was allergy tested...? One of the employees made a point to let us know they paid extra to have the merlion tested for allergies.
Jess got a really cute little pixel-y squid pin... that I also wanted, but I couldn't be greedy and have two things. Then we were just exhausted and hot, as usual, and headed out. The cost of admission (which was free for current students) allowed you to reenter any other day of operation if you brought your wrist band with you, which we thought we might do, but we did not.
...the end.