A glimpse into the world of children's stories

Have you ever wondered how folktales came about? This was the question we posed to our children. From readings to plays, to films and storybooks, folktales began as important oral traditions that were narrated from one generation to the next - communicating life lessons, wisdoms and the values one should have to be a good person. In June, Art Wonderland embarked on a journey of folktales through the eyes of our little ones!

Our exhibition titled, "The Stories That Make Us" featured the works made by over 70 of our little artists, over the course of eight weeks. Each of them took on their very own spin on the theme of folktales, be it from what they see everyday, or even from their imagination; reflecting their heroes and warriors, tortoises and hares.

Now how did the creations from the imagination of our little ones be brought to life?

Creative 2D artwork

Using local folktales as an inspiration, we got our little ones to think and ponder about the origins of these stories. We focused on the story of Badang The Mighty Warrior as well as the Singapore Stone, allowing children to use these key elements as focal points for their artwork.

Our little artists were encouraged to brainstorm on their own version of folktale story, the characters and elements, conceptualising their artwork with a focus to their story — a person, a place, or an object. Their source of inspiration could be their favourite Bandung drink, or even their favourite place such as Gardens By the Bay.

We used printmaking techniques to enhance key points of their stories.

Diorama

We started off by sharing the local book 'Tiger Tales', allowing our little ones to discover a menagerie of animals — many native to our land — and learning to appreciate Singapore’s amazing biodiversity past and present.

We then invited our little artists to discuss and reflect on their own animal encounters, what they see in their everyday lives — it could be a cat that they encountered in the void deck, or even a moth seen in their garden.

Upon further brainstorming, we incorporated both real and imaginary elements, resulting in whimsical animal stories of which we brought to life through the form of Dioramas.

Discovering the stories behind the creations through Augmented Reality (AR)

We wanted our visitors to fully understand the stories behind their creations and therefore, we incorporated AR into the exhibition.

Various symbols were found all over our exhibition, and by scanning these symbols on Artivive, visitors were then able to access and read the stories that were written by our children — introducing folktales in the little ones’ perspective!

Fringe Activities

Did we mention? Our visitors could even engage in free activities, and fabricated their own folktales inspired comic strip and paper theatre.

All in all, this showcase was created as an immersive experience, to allow our visitors to understand and appreciate folktales through the form of art.

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The Modern Tales of Waterloo

Our exhibition, The Stories That Make Us, inspired us to curate a June Holiday Programme!

We wanted to allow the public to engage in a similar experience of journeying through the origins of folktales, hence we created the programme 'The Modern Tales of Waterloo'. Following the theme of folktales (where our exhibition dove into familiar aspects of everyday life), this programme challenged our little artists to create a story specifically inspired by the location, Waterloo.

For this special programme, we put together a lineup of immersive and interactive activities; that ranged from techniques such as urban sketching to print-making, and even a guided tour of our exhibition for our little ones, all in 3 hours!

This programme inspired our little artists to create magnificent mixed-media artworks as they experienced the bite-sized historical stories, national anecdotes, and real-time hustle and bustle of the urban landscape of waterloo.

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Good news!

If you did not manage to catch our June showcase and programmes, fret not! We will be having more exciting programmes coming up real soon!

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