Following the groundbreaking two-part showcase of Minimalism, the ArtScience Museum’s next exhibition is a whimsical one sure to be a hit with all audiences. Landing Apr 13-Sep 22, Wonderland celebrates all the intrigue of Lewis Carroll’s timeless universe, and invites you to step through the looking glass for an immersive museum experience.
Developed by the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI), the exhibition will make the first stop of its global tour right here in Singapore. It’s less about recreating Wonderland in a funhouse setup; instead, Wonderland follows Alice’s journey through pop culture, chronicling the evolution of how artists and filmmakers have portrayed the iconic story for over a century. If you need some reminding about her star power, Alice first appeared on the page in 1865, and has since been reinterpreted in more than 40 films and 30 television programmes—not to mention millions of other official and non-official appearances in music videos, fashion, merch and more.
The premiere of Wonderland at ACMI. Photo credit: Phoebe Powell
Look forward to theatrical sets and interactive, audiovisual artworks as part of over 300 artefacts and objects. You’ll get to browse original behind-the-scenes material, first-edition books, drawings, costumes, film props, and animations. We can’t promise an actual rabbit hole to fall gloriously down, but the exhibition has teased that there will be secret doorways to find, mysterious drawers, and reality-suspending experiences.
Your journey begins in Lewis Carroll’s drawing room, and continues through the Hallway of Doors, Pool of Tears, and Queen’s Croquet Ground. Everything culminates in an immersive audiovisual feast at the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, where, seated at a table of plates and teacups, you get to watch the room around you transform in real time via dazzling digital projections.
Pool of Tears. Photo credit: Anne Moffatt
Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. Photo credit: Phoebe Powell
It’s easy to lose the ‘science’ and tech aspect in all the excitement of a pop-culture showcase at the ArtScience Museum, but Wonderland is taking care to highlight it. Aside from the storytelling, the exhibition will prominently focus on film craft and the actual making, charting the evolution of the moving image adaptations from the earliest optical toys to today’s new technologies. For production buffs, that means an in-depth look at the developments in special effects from pre-cinematic entertainment to silent film, animation to puppetry, live-action cinema, CGI, 3D and beyond. That itself is a rabbit hole you could fall through for days.
Wonderland runs from Apr 13-Sep 22 at the ArtScience Museum. Tickets start from $16. More information available here.
