Art appreciation is an important way to develop critical and innovative thinking and that is why yours truly Queen Bee and I do set aside some time in our fast-paced lifestyle to do that.
Floating Utopias is one such exhibition that promises to evoke consciousness and playfulness, while at the same time provides the educational value not just about the history of inflatables but also the invisible power that it has wielded by men since its creation.
While we could debate on whether there was link between King Louis XVI decree of the first human flight in a hot air balloon in 1783 and start of the French revolution 6 years after that led to his execution, inflatables have since been used for propagating different idealism, from Macy's use of enormous inflatable cartoons and caricatures during its Christmas Parade in 1927 to promote consumerism; to Soviet Union using it in 1937 to mobilise sentiments against the rise of fascism in Europe.Likewise in Singapore, inflatables are often used in big parades like NDP and Chingay, such as the recent use of a life-size Formula One car replica during Chingay Parade 2019 to engage the youths.
Whether it's a public space or private one, inflatables do take up spaces but in today's increasingly scepticism sentiment among people, due to security concern and rapid urbanisation, space itself has becoming a premium and hence the use of space by inflatable can act as a barometer to measure people's tolerance towards space.
Walter, by local artist Dawn Ng, is originally created in 2011 to re-examine overlooked and over- familiar spaces around Singapore, has re-emerged as an exhibit at Floating Utopias to test audience's comfort level of personal space by having them housed in a small room with the colossal bunny.
The highlight of the exhibition for me is definitely the Museum of the Moon by Luke Jerrram where a floating sculpture of the Moon, made using state of the art scientific images from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Oribiter Camera! Spanning 6 meters in diameter and is a 1:600,000 scaled replica of the actual moon, I bet anyone will share some sort of an extraordinary experience by simply admiring the exquisite detail of the lunar surface so close up.
Outside the exhibition, there are also public activities such as Speak Out Stand Out hands-on workshop for children at SGD$5 per participant and the free screening of icon Up and Away animation for the family to enjoy.
A visual experience that features more than 40 objects and artworks, including eight large-scale air-filled sculptures, by more than 15 international and local artists, Floating Utopias is currently running at ArtScience Museum from now till 29th September 2019. Limited daily guided tour in English, Mandarin and even Japanese are available at selected day and timeslot.
Explore Floating Utopia as a couple with an open mind, allows this invention of inflatable shaped the way we understand the world, our place in it and a memorable time drifting in time and space together.
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