17 feb 2009

On tuesday, we went down to the peranakan museum for a talk by the educator of the museum. At the beginning she wanted us to explore like a visitor can state our questions about the exhibit on a big piece of paper. First we are not allowed to touch the exhibit then we are allowed to touch the exhibit. At the beginning i was wondering why we are not allowed to touch at first then the 2nd time we are allowed to. Then after the whole thing, i then realise that how interaction with the exhibit is different from unable to interact with it. The questions stated out are different. For example, we may think that this particular object looks like it is made of metal and its very heavy but till we touch it then we realise it is not and the next question will be what is the object made of then. After observing other groups on did they state about each exhibit, we realise that most of them will talk about the motif on the object, material used, what is it for.

The presentor stated out a few practical problem they have met when doing the exhibit and told us how the museum exhibit actually works. We always need to assume that all visitors come in a blank mind and knows nothing about the museum, the exhibit show case need to be simple and clear for the people to understand. Level of language used need to engage the right age group, lauguage used need not to be too difficult because children do visit museums. We need to select the informations we want to highlight to the visitors, which are educating and which are not. Exhibits for not allowed to touch usually is because it will leave a mark behind and most of the exhibits are very expendsive. Those that can be touch usually are fake ones. When show casing exhibits, we need to consider whether to put 2 or more similar objects side by side because this will lead visitors to compare and leave more questions behind. We also need to consider that do we state the exact time the object is made or do we just need to state how long it is. It will usually be easier for children to understand " 10 years ago" than " made in year 2000". We need to consider what baba malay to put in and how much of baba malay to put in because most visitors do not know all this lauguage. Why do we want to put baba malay then? It is to have a little knowledge on baba malay as well as to put in more feel and depth of peranakans.

We are also told that the curator is someone who finds all the information and exhibit, he/she will then come out with themes on the exhibit. A designer is someone who creates the feel/ atmosphere of the exhibit. An educator is someone who moderate the exhibit provided by the curator. She/ he will discuss with the curator what have educational value, what level of lauguage,what type of lauguage to use, whether it can be expose to the public, how much will visitors learn from the exhibits.

She also pointed out to us the morderate experience for the visitors to absorb and how to engage all the senses. With many informations and interactive elements will it be too much for the visitors? How much is too much then?

After the talk, we went down to katong and find "Kim choo"a peranakan shop that sell kebayas and wedding gown. We interviewed Mr Raymond, the owner of the shop and asked him serveral questions on the wedding gown as well as the kebaya, motifs on it and from the answers we realise that the bride actually not only wear one layer of clothes outside shown in the museum but they do wear other clothes underneath.This includes the white clothes which reprents purity and peranakan also believes that after they die they will put on the white clothes again so that they will be able to meet at the underworld again. They will also put on alot of different jewelleries and head dress that made the whole gown with all the jewels weigh almost 20 kg. We also took some pictures and know the different type of clothes peranakan wear and where it orgins as well as what did they wear at the very beginning.

Wendy