Celebrate innovation and creativity this Children’s Season with Children’s Museum Singapore (CMSG) and the Museum Roundtable (MR)! Helmed by CMSG for the first time, this year’s festival is anchored on the theme of “Innovation”, inviting young ones to explore various inventions, and inspiring them to think creatively. From 25 May to 23 June 2024, families will enjoy exciting programmes across 21 participating MR museums and galleries. In conjunction with Children’s Season, CMSG will launch a new hawker-themed exhibition titled Into the Hawkerverse.
Mrs Wai Yin Pryke, Museum Director of CMSG, said: “Children have some of the most imaginative minds out there, and there’s no better way to celebrate Children’s Season than to encourage this creativity. This year, we are focusing on the theme of innovation to inspire children to think outside of the box and become pioneering changemakers. We have lined up exciting programmes for Children’s Season with the launch of our newest exhibition Into the Hawkerverse, to engage children in joyful learning and instil in them a love for our museums from a young age.”
Launch of Children’s Panel for Children’s Season
In collaboration with The Artground, Singapore’s first multi-disciplinary children’s arts centre, CMSG has formed the inaugural Children’s Panel for Children’s Season. The panel consists of 15 children between the ages of eight and 12 and aims to provide a range of arts and cultural experiences in various venues. Through this, CMSG hopes to provide children with autonomy, while tapping on their creativity and insights to shape the offerings for Children’s Season.
The Children’s Panel was involved in curating the line-up of Signature Programmes for the festival, where they reviewed and selected four out of seven shortlisted works to be further developed as the Signature Programmes. The Children’s Panel will also experience running the festival with a “takeover” of programme registration at select museums, making this Children’s Season truly for children, by children.
Children’s Season 2024 Signature Programmes and Partnership Programmes
The Signature Programmes for Children’s Season 2024 comprise a series of four interactive performances hosted across four participating MR museums and galleries, namely the Asian Civilisations Museum, CMSG, Former Ford Factory and Singapore Maritime Gallery. Each Signature Programme is site-specific to the presenting museum, making the content and experience unique.
For example, CMSG focuses on food innovation, which relates to its new special exhibition Into the Hawkerverse. Complementary to this, the Signature Programme at CMSG is Oodles of Noodles, where families can join a roving performance along Armenian Street, and help the main character Izzy invent new recipe ideas through a food trail. Participants will also create their fusion laksa craft at the end of the trail through a craft session.
Over at the Singapore Maritime Gallery, which showcases Singapore’s rich maritime heritage and industry, young explorers can embark on an adventure with a pirate crew while learning about Singapore’s development as a maritime nation.
CMSG has also joined hands with numerous MR members to bring Partnership Programmes to Children’s Season 2024. Partnership Programmes are free activities organised by participating MR members and hosted at CMSG, helping MR members tap into a new audience of children and families while creating fun experiences for them to enjoy. These
programmes either fall under the theme of innovation or are in line with CMSG’s Into the
Hawkerverse exhibition.
For example, the Eurasian Heritage Gallery will introduce a series of cooking workshops on Eurasian dishes for participants to get hands-on experience in cooking and trying dishes that they may not be familiar with. There will be three different workshops, where they will learn how to cook dishes from chef Mary Gomes, such as Curry Debal (also known as Curry Devil), Pang Susie (a savoury bun) and Kueh Kochi (a chewy kueh).
Into the Hawkerverse Exhibition
In conjunction with Children’s Season, CMSG will launch an all-new exhibition
titled Into the Hawkerverse. The exhibition aims to introduce Singapore’s vibrant and indispensable hawker culture to children and deepen their understanding of hawker culture in a fun, immersive and interactive way.
Covering various aspects of hawker culture from street hawkers and hawker culture
heroes to hawker dishes and hawker centre design, Into the Hawkerverse, will feature hands-on activities, multisensory exploration, and object-based learning. Children will be engaged across three galleries and Play Pot, a dedicated playspace designed for children below four years old – featuring a masak-masak playspace with a mee goreng pool, and more.
Children’s Season Stamp booklet activity
In addition, Children’s Season’s well-loved stamp booklet activity will return this year! Families can visit any of the 21 participating MR members to get a stamp booklet to collect unique museum stamp imprints upon completing a simple activity. Stamp collectors also stand a chance to win Children’s Season 2024 exclusive prizes once they have completed any of the three-tiered milestones in their stamp booklet, based on the number of stamps collected.
Details on Children’s Season 2024 can be accessed at https://www.nhb.gov.sg/childrensmuseum/whatson/childrens-season-2024. Tickets can be
purchased via https://childrensseason.peatix.com/events.
