expiration date 

with so much kid-related activites in Singapore for this month and the next, ari and i have been populating our schedule with visits to many exhibitions and shows. the first one is a visit to the Art Garden at 8Q SAM. we were greeted by a huge blow-up bunny named Walter.

aina immediately ask if we could bring Walter home. no. sorry, aina. even though they sell the smaller version of Walter, mommy and daddy think we have too many blow-up animals at home.

the first room was the best room; i’m thinking of changing our living room to look and feel like it. it was full of stuffed triangular pyramids in various sizes, resembling grass. the floor was covered with soft astroturf… and the room name is Walter’s Garden. aina spent so much time rearranging the triangular pillows and hopping around, as if she was a rabbit. i felt so relaxed just by sitting in that room, barefoot.

the second room we entered was The Enchanted Forest… one part of the room is a floor to ceiling illustration on the forest with some cut-out trees and other things in the middle. aina was rather mesmerized with the amount of detail in there… she even tried to interact with tiger and the wolf drawn… i personally thought the jumping merlion was hillarious :)

under one of the trees, aina found a book titled “The enchanted Forest”.when she opened it, there were pages of other kids drawing. aina, of course, went straight for a blank page and started drawing.

on the other side of the room is a wall of butterflies. it turned out that kids can color various sizes of butterflies, cut them into the shape and stick it on the wall… any wall. how fun!

on the next room was rows of mechanical flowers called Floribots. these robotic origami flowers grow and die systematically, putting aina into this hypnotic state. she just couldn’t stop staring… i knew that she really wanted to touch the flowers, but of course she can’t.

there is a wall of kids’ made origami flowers, and if we wanted, we can make some too (piles of papers were available on the side), but aina was more interested in the rythmic sound of the growing flowers. so, we didn’t stay as long as on the two previous rooms.

the fourth room we visited was pretty cool… it’s one of those interactive projections that you sometimes can find in malls, but this one is much larger. there are two installation pieces in this room. one is the Daisies…

and the other one is the Funky Forest.

aina couldn’t get enough of the latter. there was a stream of water that she can “splash”. there were trees that we can grow… and there were so many little things to see.

by the time we got to the last room, STOP in here and get into the MOTION!, aina was exhausted. i think this one is for bigger kids, because we’re not supposed to touch the installation at all, so no interaction whatsoever. aina got bored real quick, so we left.

there is actually another room for movie showing, but i think if we had stayed, aina would’ve fallen asleep instead of watched the movie. so, we’ll be back to watch them some other time.

and as we guessed, aina fell asleep as soon as we got on the bus. exhausted but super happy :)

more photos at the art garden exhibition 05.10 photo album.