Last week I had a chance to catch a few exhibitions at the ArtScience Museum, Marina Bay Sands, Singapore. They are: Leather Forever by Hermes exhibition, Ideas Changing The World (about the Nobel Prize) and Collider (yep, the Large Haldron Collider built by CERN… if you read Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons before, this thing was a major element in the plot, and it is real…). Anddd… it is free admission for the first two! (check out the museum site for the ticketing and opening periods http://www.marinabaysands.com/museum.html)
I had looked forward to visiting all 3 of them so much, as someone interested in leather, art, science and in general stuff and affairs…
We all know and have heard about Hermes, the household brand of luxury leather bags (as someone who is not really following haute couture, I could even vaguely mention the names of the bags… like Birkin, Kelly…). I kinda had some expectations about the exhibition… lines of its famed bags… some history…
True, it is like that – and so much more. The historytelling is packaged in the 12 rooms that take place in the fingers that lend the museum its famous lotus shape. As we move from one room to another, we transcend to another realm that emphasizes on a particular aspect/ feature/ philosophy of the company, thanks to the thoughtful space design, innovative exhibition design and apt (hint: fun) interactive parts 😆 all these help create an immersive world for the audience who want to get more of the taste of Hermes – the high-rank fashionistas and the fashion noobs alike. True enough, I saw an impeccably stylish female tourist taking pictures of every single bag on display (forgive me for the stereotyping, but this is the first time I saw someone who might rather spend time shopping at Marina Bay Sands being too engrossed with specimens in a museum). And I have enjoyed it myself as well.
Here is a teaser photo from the exhibition. I should not spill the beans too much, as it takes away some of the delight derived from unexpectedly seeing something for the first time😆
A glimpse to the quirkiness of the display
The Nobel Prize exhibition showcases the history of the prize and its recipients over the year – the notable ones that we read in the encyclopedias when we were young (Marie Curie, Guglielmo Marconi…), and the relatively less heard or more recent ones (Francis Crick, Sydney Brenner…). I came to admire the vision of Mr Nobel, who included literature and economics as two of the fields to be awarded along side physics, chemistry, medicine and peace-making. Scrolling through the interactive monitor, I also marvelled at how people dedicated their lifetime for a cause, something that has brought significant impact to the world.
The 4-page (real?) Alfred Nobel’s will on display. Standing in front of it, I was overwhelmed with a moment of immediate reverence.
Coincidentally, Collider seemed to be like the extension of the Nobel one, as it starts by showing the big figures of the modern physics like Niels Bohr and Schroedinger… (who also received a Nobel Prize each). To put the collider in my own inept words: it is a ring-shaped tunnel in which electrons are accelerated to a very high speed and by doing that, more sub-atomic particles are generated, and then examined. This project has led to the confirmation of the existence of Higgs bosons, or what commonly dubbed by the popular media as ‘the God Particles’ and are believed to be the particles which give mass to matter.
Unlike the first two exhibitions, Collider gives a more toned-down display, purposefully giving a sense of being in its lab in Geneva to the audience. The passageway is recreated like that of the corridor of the office. It’s humanizing one of the massive, pivotal projects in the human history.
Interesting trivia facts found in the notice board of the ‘office’:)
It was indeed a good afternoon at the museum:)
christy kabul 