SAM Art Garden

For one of our afternoon outings I decided to bring Asher to check out the Singapore Art Museum's children's exhibition.  I had asked Asher if he wanted to go to the park (Botanical Gardens) or go see a big white rabbit.  He chose the rabbit, so off we went!

It took much longer than expected to get there, and as it turns out, it was the day that the tree fell in front of the Istana, forcing the Orchard road traffic to squeeze into 1 or 2 lanes.  But we got there eventually, and it was well worth it. 

The place was empty cos it was a weekday afternoon, so we had most of the place to ourselves :)  First up, Walter's Garden.  It's filled with lots of green tetrahedron cushions, and Asher had a good time arranging and placing them exactly as he liked.  He was quite particular, this cushion had to sit just so, that cushion had to be at that angle.  This green here, that green there; big one here, small one there.  Touch any of them and he would protest.  Watching him made me think of an installation artist at work haha.  Maybe, maybe?  Next time?  Who knows!

Carefully transporting the cushions to fit into his piece of installation art.  He had arranged all the cushions in the picture below.

Further refinements.  An artist's work is never done ;)

Yes, he had so much fun I literally had to draaagg him away from the place lest we end up only seeing that bit of the exhibition.  Next, the Floribots!  These were very intriguing.  The room was filled with these paper flowers on retractable stems that grew/un-grew (if there's such a thing) in front of your eyes.  Asher was entralled, and stood still watching the flowers in action.  Didn't quite realise that the movements in the room affect how the flowers grew, but apparently there are motion detectors that calibrate the pattern of growth of the Floribots. 

There was a little corner with some origami paper for children to fold their own paper flowers, so we had a go at it.  I folded the paper over, and Asher helped to press down the fold to make the crease.  Here he is with his orange flower, which he clung onto for the rest of the visit :)  This boy really likes flowers.

Actually folding the flower also brought back childhood memories of how we used to fold the 'chatterbox', but anyway. 

We then headed to see the Enchanted Forest.  Half the room was illustrated with colourful pictures of a forest filled with characters from all sorts of fairy tales and nursery rhymes, including an appearance by the Merlion.  My favourite bit?  The dish and the spoon!  Here they were having a picnic, there they were going for a walk in the forest, it was adorable :)

Doing some colouring before we explored the forest

There's my dish and spoon!

Asher then displayed more installation art inclinations.  This is actually one of the things he always enjoys doing when we're at houses with stools - arranging them into some pattern or other :)  Here he goes with the IKEA stools.  The caretakers were quite amused, as was I :)  How fitting to be doing such things in an art museum heh.

Getting ready to jump 'into' the pond :)

But the best exhibits had to be the Funky Forest and Daisies.  I think I can safely say that those were Asher's favourite parts of the visit, and mine too.  There were two interactive media displays that respond to the movements of visitors.  The Funky Forest was the one where if you stood along the edge of the wall, a tree would start to grow in front of the spot you were standing at.  It was fun growing trees, but that wasn't all.  You had to keep them alive!  There was an image of a waterfall flowing down one side of a wall, then becoming a river on the ground.  You had to divert water to the trees to water them so that they would thrive.  How to do that?  It was, for lack of a better word, just so cool!  If you kick the 'river' in the direction of your tree, some water would flow there.  You could permanently divert the river using a 'log' (a cushion) to keep your tree constantly watered. 

How cool is that?  An image of a river that responds to your actions!  If you jumped on the river, there would be a splash and water would 'splash' outwards.  You could kick the water about to create some serious virtual water chaos.  And the most intriguing bit, I really couldn't figure out how it was done.  There didnt appear to be visible sensors around.  The ground and wall were just regular concrete.  How did they do it??

Growing trees

See another tree just starting to sprout from where Asher's standing?  And see how the water was diverted to the fully grown tree!  Amazing!

SPLASH!!

At the other end of the room was Daisies.  It was a bed of white flowers on the ground, but when you ran over them, they disappeared, and after a short while would start to grow back again.  It was fun running all around with Asher trying to make all the flowers disappear, but it was impossible cos the flowers grew back too quickly.  I can't remember whether I heard it or read it there, but apparently the piece was supposed to illustrate how fragile nature is and how easily it is destroyed.  But actually, the sense I got was more of the enduring resiliance of nature.  No matter how much you trample over it, it will grow back again.  It felt hopeful.

But anyway, it was great that it was so empty cos Asher could run from Funky Forest to the Daisies over and over to his hearts content, and I didn't have to follow him so closely.

We said our goodbyes to Walter who was visible from every floor, and headed home for a much needed dinner :) 

Brick Lane, Geffyre Museum & White Cube

I went to wander through parts of the East End, taking in Brick Lane and two small museums in one day.

I have actually been to Brick Lane once before, on the night Jon and I first arrived in London, but I thought I'd explore the place in the day time to see what it was really like. On the North end of Brick Lane, it's a bustling place with cosy cafes, vintage shops, and specialist stores. Quite young and trendy. Then as you progress Southwards, the place is fringed on both sides with restaurants - the Brick Lane I met on my first night. In the day time that area is much less bustling as the touts are not on duty; and the streets are filled mostly with locals going grocery shopping at the local store (which stocks all types of South Asian supplies) or emerging from the mosque after prayers.

The colours of Brick Lane










I had heard that the Brick Lane Beigel Bake had the best bagels in London, so since I was there I had to try it didn't I? I was happily munching away while wandering about the place. But I have to say, I think the best bagels I've had are still those from New York! Mmm...










I then head to the Geffyre Museum which traces the changing styles of interior design in London.







It's like peeping into people's houses cos it's basically a series of spaces decorated in the style of various periods, from 1600s to the present. Fairly interesting to see the change in styles - from simple and functional, to ornate and flowery, then on to minimalist and modern.



















The museum also showed the evolving style of chairs over the centuries.










This chair is, I think, the most comfortable of the lot :) When you sit in it you really melt into the cushion and feel like you've become part of the chair.










The Geffyre is a small museum and quite off-the beaten track. Not really a main attraction for a passing tourist unless they're particularly interested in interior design. So having walked through the entire place without taking too long, I moved on to the last destination for the day, the White Cube. It's a minimalist art space that has changing exhibitions. The day I went there were two photography exhibitions of mild interest. I think there are probably more interesting exhibitions at other times.










Anyway, having covered everything I wanted to during the day I went home feeling mighty pleased with myself :)

Reunion at Forest Hill

What a lovely weekend!

Jon & I met up with Uncle Chacko and Sheela at their cosy Forest Hill home. It was a nice Saturday afternoon excursion for us since we had not yet gone to that part of London, which also turned out to be nearer than we expected (in terms of transport links at least - just 45mins away)!

A good hearty and healthy lunch of roast chicken, lots of veggies, super tasty potatoes, and Sheela's fantastic brownies with toasted buttered coconut and nut topping! No pictures, sorry, I kind of forgot about my camera :) But I assure you, it all looked great!

It was good to catch up. Jon hadn't seen Uncle Chacko for almost (or more?) than 10 years, I hadn't even met him before, and we last saw Sheela only last year (which was also my first time meeting her). So it was a lovely time of getting-to-know-you, and getting-to-know-you-more; sharing our lives and personal experiences.

I was quite stuffed after lunch, and so I was glad when Uncle Chacko suggested we all go for a walk - I could walk off some of the fullness ;) The neighbourhood is peaceful, calm and has great views of London City. From the top of the hill (Forest hill rem?) you can see the dome of St Paul's, the London Eye, BT Tower, Barbican, and all the way to Canary Wharf. Actually, it's like the view from Primrose Hill but inverted horizontally. Whereas from Primrose the view of London is from the north, here it's from the south.

Uncle Chacko then led us to the Horniman Museum, and what a little gem the place was! The first thing we saw were the sprawling green fields of the museum that are open to the public. Reminded me a little bit of Fort Canning park, but think wider expanse of space.

We explored the museum's natural history exhibits and the surprising section on aquatic life. In the natural history section were thousands of stuffed animals such as the Dodo bird, rabbits, foxes, fish, and most interestingly a gigantic walrus! Lifesize might I add! It's full dimensions are approximately 1.5m tall, 2m long, and er..at the widest point maybe 0.6m in radius? :) LIFESIZE! Sheela and I were laughing at the mental image of a herd of those things flopping towards us...bizarre!

Other interesting exhibits included insects in such wild colours like turquoise and shimmery violet, giant crabs which feed on coconuts (just try to imagine how it would open that hard fruit!), and sharks teeth (a full 5 rows of it on both the upper and lower jaw!).

The hightlight though, was the Apostle's Clock, an old wooden clock decorated with different sections depicting different scenes. At the top was Christ on the throne. At 4pm everyday figures of the apostles would enter from a door, bow before Christ, and exit through another door. All would bow except for Judas. Well..this happens almost everyday.. we waited eagerly for 4 o'clock to arrive. And when it did...nothing happened. How anti-climatic :) Apparently it worked the day before! I guess the apostles must have had a bout of stage fright that day. Well, we'll just have to make another trip down to the Horniman another day! (And this time, I'll bring my camera!)

The aquarium was equally engaging. I found the jellyfish, with their almost glow-in-the-dark quality, very intriguing and beautiful. The particular breed we were looking at were the Moon Jellyfish, distinguished by the 4 glowing rings in their heads. A cute find were tiny tiny starfish, about the size of the head of a nail! If you don't look carefully you'd not even notice them!

Well, we head back and spent more time in conversation on all sorts of topics. What a time! I love such good conversation :) We didn't think we'd stay so long, but my, times flies when you're enjoying yourself :) Forest Hill certainly won't be a one-off stop!

Piccadily Market & Sir John Soane's Museum

I had read about Piccadily Market in the London Planner - a free local tourist guidebook of sorts. It sounded interesting, but in the end the place was a bit of a disappointment. Not as exciting and interesting as the other markets I've been to. It was set in the churchyard of St James' Church which is along Piccadily Road. There was one thing that I found out from there though. There was a picture of a monument I had seen on the cover of one of the tourist magazines in October, and I saw it again on a postcard at the market. I had been wondering where to find that monument cos it looks quite grand, so I decided to ask around. A few of the shopkeepers weren't sure where it was, but finally one person solved the mystery! It's the Albert memorial and is found at the south end of Hyde Park. I'll go by there one day to take a look! I was feeling so pleased that the mystery was solved :)


Anyway one of things I like about the old buildings in London are their glass windows. They tend to be made out of many small pieces of glass, and I like how the glass pieces capture and reflect images differently. St James' Church had these windows. It's just one of those small pleasures that I enjoy :)







Having some time on my hands I decided to go check out Sir John Soane's museum at Holborn. John Soane was an architect who decided to establish his home as a museum to 'educate and inspire amateurs and students in painting, architecture and sculpture'. He collected numerous pieces of random fragments from as far as Rome and Greece, and even possessed an Egyptian sarcophagus! In accordance with his wishes, the house/museum has been kept in essentially the same state as when he left it.












It's a fascinating place to wander about. It has to be seen to be believed. To see how Sir John collected everything and took care to display everything in the house. At some places you can hardly see the wall because there are so many marble fragments. He also left a huge collection of books on all topics - history, natural history, philosophy, architecture, etc. Very inspiring to browse the titles on the shelves. And I loved that all the books were old and worn. I love the look of old books :)

London Excursions Part I

I've been slack in updating the blog! Between planning for holidays, running around London, and reading some super engrossing books (more on all this later), there hasn't been much time for blogging!

There've been several visiters to London! Ganga came up to visit Sathia, and together we've been wandering some bits of London that we've both not seen (she's visited before) :) We explored places like Petticoat Lane, Spitalfields Market, Leadenhall Market, British Museum, Victoria & Albert Museum, the Natural History Museum Christmas Market, and a spot of shopping (well maybe several spots, heh) at Oxford Street :)


The visit to Petticoat Lane was unplanned, but a good find! I managed to find some good buys there :) I had thought it'd be mostly household items and bric-a-brac, but the part that we came across was like high street but half the price :) Didn't go crazy shopping (I seldom do), but did get two really good fitting pants there! I was so pleased! :)

Sculptures outside Liverpool Street Station


Some British Museum exhibits:


An interesting piece. Turning weapons into works of art, this chair is made from machine guns!


Like the Taoists, the ancient Egyptians also believed in providing for their dead by making replicas of houses, food, providing servants, etc. But instead of burning these, the ancient Egyptians left these replicas in the tombs of the dead.


The Rosetta Stone! This is a really important piece of history! This stone bore the inscriptions of the same message in three languages - Egyptian hieroglyphics, Demotic, and Greek. Because of this stone that the ancient hieroglyphic script was deciphered.















850BC relief of Osorkon II



















This is one grumpy bird. C'mon, give a smile!! :)


Ancient sculptures belonging to the Babylonian Empire. These used to stand at the entrance of city gates, their respective pairs being located at the New York Metropolian Museum.




























[ps: will add more comments and photos when we come back from our trip! we're going away for Christmas!!]

National Portrait Gallery

I've visited the National Portrait Gallery twice now, and have seen practically the entire permanent collection (it's not a very big museum) :)

It's an interesting place, especially if you take time to read the history of the people painted. I especially enjoyed the older portraits from the time of the Tudors to the early 19th century paintings.


I found it thrilling to walk among these great people - kings, queens, princes, princesses, mistresses, advisers, etc., of a by-gone era. There was this one room where I felt especially small. It was a section on the theme of scientific discovery, and there staring at you were the likes of Joseph Priestly who discovered oxygen, and Robert Boyle who came up with Boyle's law (P≈1/V). All these brilliant brains in one room.

Also interesting was to see the real faces of Elizabeth I, Robert Dudley, William Cecil, and Sir Francis Walsingham, especially after having watched the movie "Elizabeth" on tv during our Cornwall trip. So the reality of the tv characters was emphasized by seeing these portraits of them, portraits which were present at the time of Elizabeth's reign, portraits which were only a few metres away from these famed people!

There was a painting of Elizabeth I the illustrated the importance of images as propaganda even at that time. She was in her late 40s or early 50s, but in order to sustain her 'Virgin Queen' image the painter smoothed out her wrinkles, and painted her in a low cut dress - the kind of neckline that only younger women wore. Also to give her a more authorative presence, the dress she wore was extravagant and over-the-top, with huge shoulders and an immense skirt. I thought she looked a little bit preposterous, but well, who's to say anything about the Queen's choice of attire? And yet more propaganda: she was pictured standing on the map of England, with her back turned away from the dark storms and facing the bright blue skies, illustrative of the still positive times ahead.


Anyway the funniest thing that happened in the museum was this. I was in one of the rooms, and as I glanced across to the other side of the room at one of the paintings, the first thought in my head was "Sir Stamford Raffles!!!". And true enough, when I walked over to read the tag, it said "Sir Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles"! My history teacher/s will be so proud of me. He wasn't even in his famous standing, arms crossed pose, like the sculptures you see in Singapore. He was just sitting down. And I couldn't see any distinctive features that made me know it was him. I think maybe his face is just imprinted in my mind after all those lessons on him since primary school during Social Studies classes, all the way to secondary school history lessons. Anyway, kudos to me! haha ;)

Portobello Market & Tate Modern

Went to check out Portobello Market on Fri. Quaint little place, known mainly for its vintage shops. Here are some pics of the place:












































A 1960s super retro shoe










(Mee: The little toy soldiers!)







Met Jon in the evening for a date at the Tate Modern :) Friday's it opens late (until 10pm).



The Tate Modern from the Millenium Bridge









Twilight over the Thames (the British pronounce it as "Tams")

















There was an interesting piece of work at the Tate Modern called Shibboleth by Doris Salcedo. It's basically a crack down the entire ground floor space of the museum. In the crack she has carefully embedded wire fencing. I really wonder how the work was done in the first place, and if they will ever patch it back up.Anyway Shibboleth according to the Oxford English Dictionary is "a word used as a test for detecting people from another district or country by their pronunciation; a word or sound very difficult for foreigners to pronounce correctly". In Salcedo's conception then, Shibboleth is intended to depict the separation between people. Interestingly this word refers to an incident from the Bible. The Book of Judges describes how the Ephraimites, attempting to flee across the river Jordan, were stopped by their enemies, the Gileadites. As their dialect did not include a "sh" sound, those who could not say the word "shibboleth" were captured and executed.

Some pics of the crack:
























Besides that, we only saw the fifth floor collection. Some of the pieces was er..not quite to my taste. But there were some rather interesting pieces. There was this room with various takes on square and cubiod figures that I found rather intriguing. In particular was a painting that looked completely black from a distance, but on closer inspection there were actually squares of different shades of black - some with blue undertones, some with red or green.

There was also a video installation that was quite interesting. Confetti that is used for Mardi Gras celebrations was strewn among leaves in a forest, near an ant nest. The little ants started to pick up the colourful confetti and drag them into their nest. On first glance, it looks like the confetti is moving on its own. Then later you realise these ants are carrying them. It made for very interesting viewing to see the shiny colours flickering with the movements of the ants. Like they are having a celebration of their own as well. Their nest must look really beautiful after that exercise.. :) Free redecoration.