"Come and look Mummy, look what I created."
I followed him to the living area and saw this,
"Is this known as 'Mess on the floor'?" I asked him.
"No…It is a creation from long time ago, you are not suppose to touch it. Afterwards the people at the counter will scold you."
Then he added, "This is a creation at the museum and I am the artist, only I can touch it."
At least he has learnt the concept of installation art from the Singapore Art Museum. For a while I was starting to think that the only memorable thing that made any significant impact on him from our visits to the museum, is that people are not suppose touch most of the displays in the museum.
Having displays that children cannot touch at a children's exhibition is like putting a piece of cheese next to a mouse and expecting the mouse not to eat it. Maybe it might be better if they hire someone who has early childhood development background to plan the children's programme, and then save the money/effort on hiring people who will bark at the kids when their little hands reach towards the display.
It's interesting how a not so positive norm like, 'See but not touch' will be so memorable for a child. It's just like how negative experiences tend to be a lot more memorable for some us rather than the positive ones.
We are still light years behind for our local art exhibits for children. There were some improvement from the recent 'Children's Season' at SAM but until the day that they totally remove exhibits with the 'See but not touch' element, then it will be taken off my list of "Only if you ran out of places to go to in Singapore with your kids."
Ha! That’s so true, never thought of that, that’s probably the reason why my kids didn’t enjoy museum visits (except the special Arts Garden at SAM)! Funny that they expect children would appreciate art pieces like adults, expect them not to touch anything.
We were at one of the local museums, my kids hadn’t even touched anything, just got near to an exhibit, the guard already barking pretty loudly and said “don’t touch”, soon after that, my son asked to leave the museum
Haha…Looks like the ‘see no touch’ policy not only turn off Kyle, but your kids as well! It’s universal, kids generally hate to be told not to touch…it is in their nature to explore!
Lol, you hit the nail on the head when you said that the ‘see, no touch’ policy is like putting cheese in front of a mouse! I remember thinking the same thing when we went for the recent Art Garden at SAM… I think children are growing up in a rather restrictive environment nowadays, I mean compared to our parents’ kampong era, where kids could roam about and discover more freely.
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I think it is just bad planning…how to have a ‘see and no touch’ policy at a children’s exhibition. Obviously whoever that planned this exhibits have got no insights into the target audience!
haha I know which incident you were referring to…
thought you’d never blog about it!
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Could not help it :P. Even though it has been a couple of months passed since we went for the exhibition…but it seemed to have made quite an impression on Kyle.
I wrote about the exact same thing re last year’s Children’s Season! So many fun things the kids could have played with and touched but so many attendants waving their pointer fingers at them. Luckily this year they made improvements!!
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