Happy International Museum Day!

To tie in with the occasion, I thought today would be a perfect time to talk about an incredible exhibition I recently went to and absolutely loved! This is the Wonderland exhibition, an Alice in Wonderland themed exhibition by ACMI (Australian Centre for the Moving Image), which has arrived in Singapore and is ongoing till September 2019 at the ArtScience Museum! :)

The exhibition was created by ACMI (they are Australia’s national museum of film, TV, videogames, digital culture and art, located in Melbourne) and was first shown in Melbourne in 2018. I’ve yet to visit Australia, but if I do one day, I definitely have to pop by ACMI for a visit, because based on Wonderland, their work is amazing. 

The majority of Wonderland‘s research and content is focused on Alice in Wonderland productions across film and tv, including works from varying decades and across cultures. I enjoyed exploring this presentation of the Alice in Wonderland story, especially since Alice is so iconic in pop culture.

However, what elevated this exhibition to the next level for me was the incredible design and creativity that went into bringing this exhibition to life. I don’t want to give too much away in photos, as this exhibition is touring, but I loved that wandering through this exhibition felt like you were supposed to be wandering around the imaginary world of Wonderland, from picking different doors to walk through to opening drawers to discover a video playing – I mean, it’s really no surprise that this exhibition is incredibly popular.

Wonderland is also promoted as an interactive exhibition, filled with visual or written elements and technology enabled add-ons to the exhibits, allowing visitors to scan our individual character maps to get fun visual content or look for extra details and info to read about. I really like what ACMI has done with this, as it changes the more “traditional” museum visit experience for visitors.

I watched this video from ACMI on the making of Wonderland, and I really enjoyed hearing about how the different teams put the elements of the exhibition together and I truly admire their creativity and hard work in putting together such a fun and inspiring exhibition. At the 8 minute point of the video, they are talking about creating the multiple screens playing a montage of the different Alices found in pop culture – that 18 screen montage was my personal favourite part of the exhibition! It was really awesome to watch it in person. :)

To me, museums are a wonderful way to continue learning and discovering new perspectives and ideas on a variety of topics. While I’ve already graduated from university, I want to try to keep up that curious sense of discovery even though I don’t spend my days in my wonderful campus anymore. Two of the major ways I try to do so is via reading books and visiting museums. So here’s wishing you a happy international museum day and I hope you will have fun visiting a museum this weekend! :)

Note on Wonderland: The exhibition is currently showing in Singapore’s ArtScience Museum from April to September 2019, I’ve linked the webpage below for all the details – this is a paid exhibition and prices vary depending on the type of ticket you buy.
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As stated on ACMI’s website, this is a touring exhibition but the details on its upcoming locations are not updated yet, so if you’re not/won’t be in Singapore, I hope it reaches your city or a city near you soon!)

Wonderland – An ACMI Touring Exhibition
Exhibiting from 13 April – 22 September 2019 at ArtScience Museum, Singapore

– Wonderland/ArtScience Museum webpage
– Wonderland/ACMI webpage