Diary of an NUS Museum Intern: Wan Bo

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. Working alongside their mentors, our interns have waded through tons of historical research, assisted in curatorial work, pitched in during exhibition installations and organised outreach events! If you would like to become our next intern, visit our internship page for more information! 

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Wan Bo is a year 4 NUS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences student, majoring in Mathematics and Philosophy. During his time here as our Museum Outreach Intern, Wan Bo has assisted in research and review of the NUS Museum's film programmes.


Despite majoring in Mathematics and Philosophy, I am always attracted to local art scenes and art museums in Singapore. To me, arts reveal deeper truths and inspire me to reflect on a sometimes chaotic world, to confront my individuality and to seek resolution with both the external world and my inner self. I am really grateful that NUS Museum offered me this three-month internship last summer although I do not come from a particularly artistic background. Although the internship only lasted for twelve weeks, I was greatly exposed to how an art museum worked out its exhibitions and planned relevant educational programmes to engage the public. I was given the chance to fully appreciate the sheer amount of work and thought behind an exhibition.

Working with Mary Ann Lim, the executive of Museum Outreach, I first reviewed the latest film screening series titled Two Sides of the Same Lense. The series consists of five documentary films featuring geographically displaced people and political refugees. Writing a review for the series was both challenging and rewarding. It was a great opportunity for me to broaden my interests in films and at the same time improve my writing skills. Through several drafts, I gradually learned to differentiate film analysis from cosmetic descriptions or paraphrases of a film. I also reflected on the role of a film viewer and the extent to which she is allowed to comment on a cinematic work. 

I eventually wrote an essay titled Camera and Moral Imagination. I realised that every documentary director wants to re-present reality as it is, or was, but she could not never achieve so given the staged nature of documentation and the living, conscious subjects being documented. This struck me as the inherent dilemma of shooting a documentary film. In my review, I seek to reconcile the value of documentary with this dilemma.  I argue that instead of visual realism, documentaries probably commit to a form of moral realism that invites us to reflect on what has been done and could be changed. These documentary films seem to imply the existence of universal values that should be upheld regardless of one’s socio-economic background. That sparked me on a reflective journey thinking of my own moral responsibility for the less well-off too. 

I also remember attending panel discussion But… Is It Dance? at the Art House. That short event might well be the highlight of my internship. Several choreographers and dancers shared their experiences and thoughts working in dance. The focus of discussion, however, very often covered issues such as cognition, mind-body duality and identity. I remember debating these issues rigorously in my philosophy classes, although those discussions were often contextless. But those dancers just offered their opinions almost effortlessly. Using relatable everyday experiences, they demonstrated to me that these issues did not have be contextless or full of jargon. They showed me a different lifestyle, a life in dance and treat life as philosophy and philosophy as life. 

Lastly, I want to thank Mary Ann for guiding me through this internship and Michelle for always being so supportive. My internship also would not be this memorable without all the friends and CFA staff who accompanied me through this journey of discovery.