From Singapore To Singaporean

The 10th of July, 2019, is when I first heard about The Singapore Bicentennial Experience, attending Mr. Gene Tan's; the creative director of the Bicentennial, seminar, as he talks about his story on how this project was born. He explained that this project is so big that it took him about 5 years from the first time he started planning the project until how you see it today. He also said that one of the most important keys of his research is to read a lot of books about Singapore's history from local and global historians to accurately develop the narrative of the showcase and look for other installation as an inspiration/reference. He jokingly said to be successful is to copy other people's work that is already successful and make it better.

After listening to the seminar without having any clue on what even is The Singapore Bicentennial Experience  and what to expect, I heard that our class managed to snatch several tickets for the 23rd, and we were very lucky to get our hands on them because, after all, the tickets are limited and very hard to get as everyone wants to experience this as well. The site even stated that the tickets are all booked for the whole month of August.

So the day comes for me and my friends to take another trip to Fort Canning (other than attending the seminar) and experience the Bicentennial in real life.

And it was. AMAZING.

First, we went into a room with a screen resembling a circular table in the middle, with a waterfall trickling down, and drapes made of strings as the medium where the projector hits. The volunteer working there starts telling the basic story of the whole experience, how it is divided by several acts and how each act is going to tell a different era of the Singaporean history.

Then, we continued to another room consisting of a stage covered by a see-through screen that can be projected by a projector. Behind the screen are actors representing famous (and infamous) characters that help mold Singapore as it is today. The actors actually perform as if they were performing in a theater stage with treadmills as floors.

We then are ushered to the next room which is located a floor above us. In this particular room is where I would say, piqued my interest the most, because this room uses a very interesting digital media which is a huge LCD screen that fills half of the spherical room, and we sat in the middle of it, watching the story unfolds about the British coming to Singapore and introducing trading ports that changed Singapore into a bright, happy and successful country. The story was beautifully told in such a way that after watching the first part of the act, another curve screen narrows the room until all the wall of the circular room is filled with another screen. Since all the animations and videos are going all around us, instead of the screen moving and going in a circle, our floor turns 360 around the room to let the audience watch everything peripheral.

After that, we moved on to a bunker-like room, which represents the moment when Singapore was under Japan's attack. The room doesn't have any visuals or such, it only has the narrator's voice and sound of airplanes and bombs and guns. The room was left dark with only a slit of light, as to let the audiences feel as if they are seeking for shelter during the war.

Going out of that room, we walk slowly along a hallway with walls with several build-in screens. The narrator's voice echoes loudly along the hallway, explaining how the Singaporeans felt that there's no hope left since the British loss to the Japanese. At the end of the hallway, is a small room with a screen. It tells a story about how a lot of people were captured along the beach and soldiers are going to do a mass execution. This particular video tells a story about an individual that actually made it out of the execution and gave his own story about how he felt and how he hid underwater and how he almost got caught but managed to escape at the end.

The last room we entered was one of the most fascinating exhibitions I've ever seen. We were given umbrellas before entering the room and once we enter, the room is raining. It explained that during those hard times, Singapore was raining and the people who believe and fought for Singapore are standing together under the rain for the people who had fallen. With everything that had happened, the Singaporean never gave up and fought hard to where they are now. Halfway of the act, the narrator told us that we can close the umbrella, indicating that Singapore's long-running rain has come to an end. The edits of the visuals changed as well. It became modern and bright and happy. It also touches upon historical moments like how Singapore's national soccer team won its first international title in 1995.

At the end of the exhibition, a quote was written; From Singapore To Singaporean.