April 26, 2019
Diary of an NUS Museum Intern is a series of blog posts written by our interns about their experiences during the course of their internships. Working alongside their mentors, our interns have waded through tons of historical research, assisted in curatorial work, pitched in during exhibition installations and organised outreach events! If you would like to become our next intern, visit NUS Museum’s student development page for more information.
Nichole Lim is a fourth-year Geography student at the NUS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Together with Stephanie, Nichole has assisted in research and execution of various outreach projects during her time here as our Museum Outreach intern.
No stranger to these material aspects of Singapore’s transformation, I wonder what lies beyond this one-way street towards urban modernity. Ploughing through academic texts (across urban theory, geography and history), literary works, anecdotes and newspaper articles, the task of creating a Gallery Guide for the Radio Malaya exhibition compelled me to consider a wider diversity of voices imbued in the process of urban modernization. More than these uni-directional arrows depicted in the dominant, linear narrative of nation-building, perhaps it would be better to re-represent these arrows as bi-directional and criss-crossing, for further dialogues between past and present (and even future) to be unearthed.
Ilsa Sharp’s newspaper commentary titled ‘Winds of Change Constantly Blowing’ was especially thought-provoking, and here I cite my favourite quote:
“All of Singapore’s experience has been telescoped in time, compared with other countries. And so it is that, at only 13 years of age, Singapore is entering middle age. Having gone through a rugged childhood and a wild youth, it is now a saner, more self-questioning Singapore that we see.”
Fast forward 2019, what more could be said of Singapore that is soon turning 54 years old, if she was metaphorically ‘entering middle age’ in 1978?
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Stephanie and I also assisted in the publication of the Museum’s Anniversary Lecture on William Willetts. Willetts was a lecturer of Art History and curator of the Art Museum (the precursor of NUS Museum) in the then University of Singapore. While Mr Kwa may never read this blog post, I would still like to say a big thank you for your eye-opening lecture because it foundational to our subsequent encounters during the internship such as:
1. Cataloguing books in the Resource Library and freaking out because “isn’t this the publication* Mr Kwa mentioned in his lecture?!”
2. Marvelling at the Resource Library’s collection of books donated by art historian TK Sabapathy, if only to capture a glimpse into the extensive material he has read over the years, after Mr Kwa’s multiple mentions of “Kanaga”
3. Recognizing the Head of a Bodhisattva terracotta sculpture and some mandalas in the Asian Civilisations Museum, then secretly whispering to Stephanie, “haven’t we’ve seen this before?!”
Mini victory (nerdy) moments like these made the internship even more memorable!
*PS: It’s the Foundations of Chinese Art: From Neolithic Pottery and Modern Architecture by William Willetts and we have many other publications in the Resource Library!