I want the National Museum to be the first stop for families: Museum Director Chung May Khuen

SINGAPORE – Visitors entering the Play:Date exhibition at the National Museum of Singapore are greeted by a wall of McDonald’s toys on the right and rows of Barbie dolls on the left.

These toys may seem familiar to millennials who played with them as kids, but younger visitors, like Gen Z and Gen Alpha, may find them strange and foreign.

The idea, said museum director Chung May Khuen, is that the sight of these toys will become a topic of conversation between parents and their children, and even grandparents and their grandchildren.

“If you look at some of the toys that kids are playing with today, they might not be able to understand how to play with a Game Boy or how to play with other toys, but they are a fantastic starting point for conversations,” she said.

Ms Chung wants the museum to be a “first stop” for families looking to take their grandparents somewhere, and such exhibitions from recent history are relatable and provide an opportunity for different generations to interact and talk about their own experiences.

Ms Chung, who became museum director in September 2019, sees this as one way to ensure the National Museum remains engaging for Singaporeans – one of her key tasks as director of the 136-year-old museum.

Ahead of her fifth anniversary as museum director, she spoke to The Straits Times about those efforts and the ongoing revamp of the museum’s permanent galleries.

Another exhibition that showcased contemporary objects and showed how they can connect generations was Off/On, a technology exhibition in 2022, Ms. Chung said.

The museum has put on display items such as a Creative Technology MP3 player and the coinaphone, a once-ubiquitous orange payphone.

“It was a classic example of a very successful case where different generations came to the National Museum, went to the galleries and had a great time talking about their different experiences of using different gadgets, like a pager versus today’s mobile phones,” Ms Chung said.

He believes this is a key way to increase the museum’s attractiveness.

Under her leadership, the National Museum also intensified its activities aimed at collecting or documenting contemporary exhibits and history.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the museum and the National Library Board launched the Collecting Contemporary Singapore initiative, which launched a public call for objects and stories related to the pandemic.