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Home, Truly: Growing Up with Singapore, 1950s to the Present

19 Dec 2020 - 03 Oct 2021
Exhibition Gallery,
Basement Level
Daily from 10am - 7pm
Last admission at 6.30pm
Free Admission
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.

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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!

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Laying the Foundations

Laying The Foundations explores how nation-building looked and felt like to people on the ground, through the laying down of foundational policies in areas such as housing, economy, defence, healthcare, and infrastructure.

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Moving in

Moving In features some of the common experiences and memories that breathe life and meaning into a nation, and make a house a home, such as going to school, enjoying our hawker food, or relaxing in recreation spaces.

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Living Together

Living Together will unpack how Singaporeans have worked together to navigate and overcome challenges faced when living together in a shared space, as people settle into a new home.  

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Open Doors

Open Doors will take a look at how Singapore has been shaped by its immigrant and multicultural past through the stories of different groups of people who have made Singapore their home over the years, and their reflections on what home means to them.

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Sturdy through Storms

Sturdy through Storms presents how Singapore has stood united in support and courage through the crises that challenges we have faced over the decades such as floods, the British Military Withdrawal, financial crises and SARS. 

Coming Home

Coming Home

Home, Truly will conclude with a reflection space that invites visitors to contribute to a live collective response on what “home” means by writing or drawing on a response card, and seeing it projected on a screen. Visitors may also choose to respond via a special recording device designed for the visually impaired.

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Join us for a series of Home, Truly programmes to relieve the nostalgic moments and shared experiences, in complementary to your visit around the exhibition.

Click here for our programmes!

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Have some memorable inter-generational conversations and keep the children engaged with the help of these resources, including My Photo Scrapbook which can be picked up at the gallery entrance, and a fun crossword activity for slightly older children!

Recommended for families with children aged 12 and below.

Click here for full details!

Home Truely

Make Yourself @ Home, Truly: Digital Companion to Home, Truly

Home, Truly: Growing Up with Singapore, 1950s to the Present is complemented by a digital companion to the exhibition, @ Home, Truly, that was launched in August 2020. @ Home, Truly features an online-exclusive story of a young girl and her grandfather through illustrations by different local artists, interspersed with archival and contemporary images, artefacts and audio-visual material.

The experience includes a chatbot offering games and quizzes. The digital story is released in chapters – each spotlights a theme related to the physical exhibition. 


Click here to visit @ Home, Truly: A Digital Experience!

HT Digital Resource

Digital Component

To enhance your visit to the special exhibition, the Home, Truly Investigator’s Journal brings visitors on a journey through the Home, Truly exhibition and parts of the Singapore History Gallery. Choose from two possible routes as you discover the historical context that framed Singapore’s road to independence and the formation of our national identity and citizenship through an inquiry-based approach.

 

This booklet was developed in collaboration with the Academy of Singapore Teachers.

 

Recommended for visitors aged 13 and above.

Download the Home, Truly Investigator Journal here!

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The Mama Shop of Memories

Take a trip down memory lane and get your childhood treats, simply by exchanging a fond memory of growing up in Singapore.

You don't need your wallet, only your childhood memories. 

Click here to head over to our Mama Shop of Memories!

Family Time

Visit our permanent galleries with your little ones and play spot-the-artefact! Our colourful Early Learning Resources introduce pre-schoolers to our artefacts according to the themes of Numbers, Colours, and ABCs. Available at $8 per set from the Museum Label shop. For more children's activity booklets, click here.

Museum guide

Download our museum guide (English, Chinese, Bahasa Melayu, Tamil) to find out about the many treasures in our various galleries. In this guide, you will also find the floor plan for easier navigation. Enjoy your visit!

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