1. Education and social
engineering: Museums
in Singapore
Can-Seng Ooi
Associate Professor and Director
Center for Leisure & Culture Services
Copenhagen Business School

2. Agenda
• Setting out the issues
• Examples
• A fledging Occupy
Museum moving

3. The Main Museums
in Singapore
• The National Museum
of Singapore (NMS)
• The Singapore Art
Museum (SAM)
• Asian Civilisations
Museum (ACM)

4. Main museum issues
in Singapore
• Political pragmatism
• Research
– History and identity
• Education
– National education program
– Gracious society
• Industry
– A Renaissance City
– Creative industries

5. Political pragmatism
• Economic development
above ideology
• Citizenship: Rights
versus privilege
• Freedom and
responsibility
• Identities: Descriptive
and normative

6. Research role of the
Asian Civilisations
Museum
• Chinese, Indian, Malay
and Others (CMIO) model
• Singaporeans’ ancestral
cultures
• Ancient “Asian values”
Official’s hat armchair Huanghuali wood Ming dynasty

7. Educational role of the NMS
The Singapore Story
• Colonial period (1819 – 1945)
• Political awakening (1945 – 1955)
• Communist threat (1955 – 1961)
• Battle for merger (1961 – 1963)
• Merger years (1963 – 1965)
• From survival to progress
(1965 – present)
• Future in our hands (future)

8. Industry and the
Singapore Art
Museum
• 20th Century Southeast
Asian visual art
• Move to contemporary art
• Move towards “community
participation”
• Market definition of value

9. Occupy Museums
• New anti-CMIO
identities
• Contemporary art and
its discontents
• Internet, social media
and independent art
spaces

10. Thank you for your attention!
• www.ooi.dk
• ooi@cbs.dk