Beyond the Board: Curating Let’s Play!
Clement Onn

Focusing on four Japanese traditional games – ban-sugoroku, shogi, go, and karuta – the talk explores how objects of play were made, collected, and circulated, and how they serve as a lens for examining artistic exchange across Asia.
Reflecting on the curation of Let’s Play! The Art and Design of Asian Games, Clement also discusses key curatorial issues, including how rarity and condition shaped display, and how interpretation was developed to encourage us to see games as expressions of creativity, social life, and culture.

About the speaker


Clement Onn is the director of ACM and the Peranakan Museum. His research focuses on cross-cultural exchanges between Asia and Europe in the 16th to 18th centuries, with an emphasis on trading networks and the spread of Christianity across Asia. He has curated major exhibitions such as Christianity in Asia: Sacred Art and Visual Splendour and Manila Galleon: From Asia to the Americas.

^{Image: Scenes from The Tale of Genji (detail). Watanabe Hiroteru (1778–1838). Japan, early 19th century. Hanging scroll: ink, colour, and gold pigment on silk. Asian Civilisations Museum.}

Organised by the Friends of the Museums (FOM) with support from ACM