Image source: Ashley TanĪnother simple yet meaningful exhibit is Singaporean artist Lee Yi Xuan’s ‘State of Mind’.įrom afar, the circles look neat, round and seemingly perfect. The images were simple but powerful, and also insightful because of how real these scenes are. The Burmese artist’s images of her sister living with schizophrenia gave me a unique perspective of living with a loved one dealing with their mental illness. Perhaps it’s a reflection of myself, but away from the colour and chaos of the rest of the exhibits, I love the quiet impact of ‘Noise and Clouds and Us’ by Shwe Wutt Hmon. Noise and Clouds and Us (Source: Ashley Tan) Other visitors were just sitting on the cushions or walking past them. Placed inconspicuously at pillars, I almost missed out on it because I initially thought they were just decorations! The installation itself was so innocuous that it barely resembled an exhibit.
The metaphor is pretty easy to get once you see it… that is, if you do see it. Nearby, some cushions lay, knitted in the shape of pills and embroidered with names of common medications.Īrtist Emily Fitzsimons’ ‘Cushions?’ does make perfect sense - medications in mental health treatments provide protection, relief and comfort to those who need them. Zhou Xiao Hu’s ‘Even in Fear’ gives an insight on how a person with anxiety would feel on a daily basis - that feeling like something is going to happen, growing and gnawing on you until you feel like it’s going to pop.Ī friend of mine who has been diagnosed with anxiety disorder says that it is a good reflection of how she feels on a daily basis. Right after you walk past Emanuel Gollob’s ‘Doing Nothing with AI’, a giant translucent balloon in a large pink cage sits ominously in a corner. With so many exhibits to take in, here are some that stood out for me: Even in Fear. TL:DR? I was conflicted over how I felt about MENTAL by the time I left the exhibition. Taking ArtScience Museum’s advice on making it a “personal journey”, I pulled a couple of friends along to experience the exhibition firsthand. So, how do we draw the line between trivialising mental wellness conversations and taking it so seriously that we forget to enjoy ourselves? No doubt, there are articles that explain the exhibits in layman terms, but most of the visitors (no thanks to the social media marketing) probably were just doing it for the Gram. The deeper meanings behind the installations may have flown over visitors’ heads, much like the kites from Singaporean artist Alecia Neo’s mixed media installation ‘Between Earth and Sky’. Many posts and videos on social media talk of MENTAL as a place that is “IG worthy”, “aesthetic”, a date idea and a place for kids to have fun at. Yet, as much as the exhibition is to normalise conversations about mental health and wellness, many visitors seem to have taken the exhibition at face value - pretty artworks and nothing more. It encourages us to “embark on an intimate and personal journey that explores the many different ways of being, surviving and making connections, that have become of increasing importance to us all”. Instead, it aims to be a welcoming place where visitors can confront societal bias and stereotypes around mental health. To be fair, the exhibition explains that it is not a showcase about mental illness, treatments or cures. Yet, in focusing too much on the “fun”, would visitors end up missing the point of the exhibition entirely? Is ‘aesthetics’ all that matters? Many of the walls in the exhibition had such questions for visitors.
And a cool exhibition at a hip museum, coupled with attractive easy-to-access exhibits sounds like a great idea.
However, there is still much to explore.Īrt, with its ability to speak to each of us subjectively, is a great way to introduce the topic. Mental health awareness has become a much-talked about issue, especially in the past two pandemic years. Called MENTAL: Colours of Wellbeing, it has 24 interactive exhibits, artwork, large scale installations and aims to normalise and paint mental issues in “a brighter and more colourful light”. Turns out, there’s a mental wellness exhibition at the ArtScience Museum on till Feb 26. I couldn’t guess what it was referring to at first, then I saw: “NEW EXHIBIT AT ArtScience Museum”. I was scrolling through TikTok when I spotted some videos with these tags.
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