International Museum Day (IMD) ’09 ended with a big bang last Sunday, 31^st May 2009, with many of Singapore’s museums offering free admission to the public. Over the past week during IMD ’09, many interesting activities at these museums had also been organized for families and children. With all the huge crowds drawn to the museums and their activities, how can IMD ’09 be anything but a resounding success? Just look at the crowds at the museums!

Crowd at Asian Civilisations Museum

children and their parents at the colouring station of the National Museum of Singapore

crowd at Singapore Art Museum

Not only were visitors granted free admission to the smaller but equally interesting museums such as red dot design museum, Healthzone and Republic of Singapore Air Force Museum; certain museums even offered access to exhibits that we may never get to see usually! Take for example, Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research opened up their archives to bring their visitors on an archives tour! Baba House, where one usually has to make an appointment before being granted access to, also brought their visitors on a trail along Neil Road before guiding their visitors around the Baba House.

Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research - archives specimen

Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research - archives specimen

Raffles Museum of Biodiverity Research - archives specimen

Even more exciting was that at least four museums had carnival-like activities for its visitors. National Museum of Singapore held a carnival on the 24^th May 2009, and if you have read the newspapers, you would have known that a dinosaur was spotted crossing the road from the museum! Talk about a huge shock! Bus passengers were so stunned and surprised; they simply had to take a photo of that dinosaur with their handphone cameras! Last Sunday, Asian Civilisations Museum, Singapore Art Museum, Singapore Philatelic Museum and the Peranakan Museum also had fascinating and fun gifts for the public, ranging from flea markets, Chinese opera performances, Peranakan choir, comic bazaar, cooking demonstration to youths who showed off their wushu skills!

Chinese Opera performance at the Asian Civilisations Museum

Peranakan Choir

cooking demonstration at Singapore Philatelic Museum

Wushu at Asian Civilisations Museum

Just look at how much fun each and every visitor had at the museums!

@ Asian Civilisations Museum

Ice-cream making workshop @ Healthzone

If IMD was an opera performance, the audience would be giving a standing ovation at the end of the show and yelling, “Encore! Encore!”. But sorry folks, there sure wouldn’t be an encore performance this year. But with this year’s blast of a time at the museums during IMD, the public is sure to be expecting even more from next year’s IMD programmes! We hope to see a bigger, bolder and a better encore performance next year. With that, we bid farewell to IMD ’09 and look forward to May next year!