Diary of an NUS Museum Intern: Dana Chan

Note: Diary of an NUS Museum Intern is a series of blog posts written by our interns about their experiences during the course of their internships. Besides working hard and fast in their cubicles, our interns have travelled to Bandung and Malacca, organised symposiums, waded through tons of historical research and pitched in during exhibition installations. At NUS Museum, each internship is as different from the last. If you would like to become our next intern, visit our internship page for more information!

For the month of January 2013, NUS Museum is hosting 3 interns as part of Temasek Junior College's WOW! 2013 Attachment Programme where students are given the opportunity to engage in real world situations and to provide insights or solutions. Each week, each student will take it in turns to blog about their experience and give us a little glimpse into their world.

Dana Chan shares with us about her second week at the museum.

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During the second week of our attachment, we first consolidated our research we had gathered from the National Library regarding the mural and sculpture in Temasek Junior College done by Ng Eng Teng. The research mainly included various articles found in our school’s very own student publication – Temasek Times. Looking through the publication over the years, I have not only learnt more about our school’s culture and heritage, but also gained a deeper insight with respect to the mural and sculpture done by Ng Eng Teng found in our school.

In addition to our findings from the National Library, we also included our research we had found in our school’s yearbooks. All in all, the process of digging up through our school archives and discovering new bits of information here and there was truly an enriching and fun-filled experience.

On a side note, I too have gained more knowledge on the artist himself. Ng Eng Teng would often express his despondency in regard to the arts scene in Singapore in various interviews. It sure made me in awe of his devotion and commitment to his art.

With that, we then had to brainstorm on the outreach activity revolving around the sculpture and mural for the TJC Community. We considered various options such as games that would appeal to our fellow schoolmates. One of which was the ‘snakes and ladders’ adaptation. We had originally wanted to create a life-size board out of corrugated plastic resembling that of Studio 106. Though the idea was fresh and creative, one major difficulty faced was space constraint. (Also, we then decided to scrape this idea as we felt that it might be too ‘lame and uncool’ for some.)

Alongside the help we received from our mentor, we settled on writing and publishing an article in our school’s very own student publication. As we could infer from our research, Temasek Times sure did serve as an effective platform to reach out to our student community over the years.

Soon after that we were tasked with the cataloguing of various articles, including that of Ng Eng Teng’s house, Studio 106 and more. Through this process, we have not only learnt about the importance of documentation but also became best friends with the office photocopier.

On Thursday, the 17^th of January, we helped out with the opening night of Curating Lab: Phase 03 as ushers. As we were only required in the beginning of the event, we had ample time to explore the various exhibitions. Attending this event was truly an eye-opener, not only have I gained further insight on the arts scene in Singapore but I have also learnt about the process to set up such exhibitions.

Overall, being attached to the NUS Museum has been indubitably a sublime experience and I sure am extremely grateful and thankful for this opportunity given.