The National Museum of Singapore presents Home, Truly: Growing Up With Singapore, 1950s to the Present in collaboration with The Straits Times, as part of the newspaper’s 175th anniversary. Featuring photographs and artefacts, including those contributed by members of the public, as well as audio-visual footage, sounds, scents and special digital features, Home, Truly explores the moments and experiences in Singapore’s past and present that express our identity and collective memory as a people.
Through five key themes and using the metaphor of a home, Home, Truly is presented in an intimate way that invites visitors to see themselves in the stories presented, and adopts a personal and contemplative tone to encourage visitors to reflect on what Singapore means to them as their home, and their hopes for the home we aspire to be.
As part of the special exhibition, “Home, Truly: Growing Up with Singapore, 1950s to the Present”, the Museum is happy to launch a pilot experience specially for visitors from the visually impaired community. In conceptualising the exhibition, the curators met with members of the Singapore Association of the Visually Handicapped to better understand how visually impaired visitors may experience the exhibition meaningfully, and identify important non-visual aspects of Singapore as our home.
Following these engagements, the Museum has jointly developed a “smart cane” pilot with Nanyang Polytechnic and Guide Dogs Singapore. Visitors with visual impairments are invited to try out the “smart cane”, or a white cane attached to a wheel with sensors, to take them through the exhibition. The cane is paired to a web application that provides a customised descriptive audio tour coupled with navigational instructions. This experience is supported by Temasek Foundation Cares.
The Museum also welcomes feedback from users to further develop and improve the experience.
The pilot smart cane experience is available on Thursday, Saturday and Sunday mornings, from now till 3 October 2021.
We invite interested visitors to make a booking to use the smart canes at this link: http://tiny.cc/smartcane or learn more about available programmes here.
The Museum’s volunteers, including Care Facilitators who are trained to support the museum’s access programmes, will be around to provide support to visitors who have made a booking. Alternatively, visitors can email the National Museum at NHB_NM_Hospitality@nhb.gov.sg.
Click here to download the Mandarin exhibition text!
Click here to download the Malay exhibition text!
Click here to download the Tamil exhibition text!
