Open House and Beyond

Srividya Balasubramanian | sribalan88@gmail.com
the ridge transmedia
A NUSSU Publication

Feb. 19, 2008

The NUS Museum’s vast spaces and archival collections were a stark contrast to the clutter and claustrophobia of my hostel room. In its first Open house held on last month on Thu, 31 Jan, the NUS Museum served a tastefully selected set of visual, aural and gustatory platter to the NUS staff and students. Rightfully dubbed as a ‘Back to School’ party by one of the organizers, the Open house was an attempt to reach out to the NUS community and make its presence known amidst all the pandemonium (presentations and group meetings!) that shrouds us.

Located in the University Cultural Centre (UCC), and with research and education as its guiding light, the NUS Museum came under the purview of the NUS Centre for the Arts (CFA) in 2004. A bellwether of culture, the Museum aims to use entertainment to inspire a deeper thinking and broaden perspectives.

With an effective campaign and the promise of free flow of beer and food, the NUS Museum Open House was the perfect evening for the art aficionado. Featuring guided tours of selected exhibits and experimental music, this evening had a lot to offer for the senses.

The first part of the evening were exhibition tours of the art pieces, conducted by the curators and had much to offer to the untrained eyes with their expertise. Most intriguing were two exhibits, Reconfiguration and the Ng Eng Teng collection.

Reconfiguration, a collection of contemporary Chinese pieces was a refreshing change to the Chinese landscape paintings our eyes are trained to see and was a tongue-in-cheek to most of the happenings in modern China. The exhibit included video installations and anarchistic art pieces, definitely a progress over mono-sensory artworks.

Photo credit: NUS Museum

The Ng Eng Teng collection, featuring some of his sculptures and sketches donated by himself to the museum was arresting Ng’s emblematic life forms wrenching and almost succumbing to the agony of the humdrum of life communicate effortlessly to the viewer.

Photo Credit: NUS Museum

As the night wore on, visuals made way to sounds and came as a pleasant surprise. Keeping up the experimental spirit of the Open House, the performers Circadian, NUS Electronic Music Lab and Sidd & His Self Esteem were masters of their music, their machines and the crowd too.

To keep hearts and minds light-hearted, there was food and the free flow of beer, offered by pretty ladies, of course (bonus!). Whether this actually inspired the students to come, we definitely know the answer to; but the teeming life in the Open House is a sure indication of the Museum’s success in getting their intended message across:

NUS Museum is not your conventional museum. It is definitely forward thinking and in-sync with the youth and exuberance of its prefix (NUS, of course!). The Open House was a perfect mix of art meets experiment – a well-executed ‘pilot’ performance.

The museum is definitely worth a visit. What’s more, it’s just a bus ride away.

P.S: The author made a mistake of stopping only to stare at the silver piano that guards the museum. Next time, go a good half hour before an event at UCC to see what the museum has to offer.

Watch out for the Museum’s next focus, the Baba House – the last surviving Peranakan-style house in its original state in Singapore