My Perfect Weekend with museum curator Jackie Yoong

Who: Ms Jackie Yoong is a senior curator at the Asian Civilisations Museum (ACM) and Peranakan Museum, and is in charge of the fashion and textiles gallery. The Singaporean curated the successful Guo Pei: Chinese Art And Couture exhibition in 2019 and the ongoing Andrew Gn: Fashioning Singapore And The World show, which is on till Sept 17. The 39-year-old is married to Ray Tan and has an 18-month-old son.

“Weekends are a time to unwind with my family and friends. I have an 18-month-old toddler. We want to instil an appreciation for nature and culture in him from a young age, so we theme our weekends accordingly.

We live near HarbourFront, so on some nature days we start off with a weekend breakfast at the Ya Kun Kaya Toast at HarbourFront Centre. That’s my son’s favourite place and it gets him in an excellent mood for the rest of the day.

Then, we will go for a cable car ride. My son is learning to see colours now and he enjoys pointing out the colours. After a frantic week on my feet, I’m grateful to have quality time with my son sitting in the cable car and enjoying the sounds of nature.

We’ll catch the monorail and head to Siloso Beach, where we’ll build sandcastles or play with a beach ball. We’ll round it off with lunch or dinner at Trapizza restaurant near Shangri-La Rasa Sentosa. We always get the house salad, the seafood pizza, which has an amazingly thin crust, and pistachio gelato.

On other nature days, we head to West Coast Park, Hort Park or Labrador Park for a picnic. We go to Gardens by the Bay if it’s a rainy day. I especially love the Flower Dome and its seasonal flowers because I get to see my son grow with the changing seasons in photos.

Nature helps us to be present in the moment. Though my son is a very active toddler, being surrounded by nature brings out a calmer side of him.

Culture, on the other hand, is important for understanding the self and the world. I was born in the 1980s when there was no culture of museum-going. My friends and I who work in museums want to change that. We believe in starting the children young so that museums don’t feel like a foreign place to them. So, on culture days, I like to take my friends and family to museums.

My parents are very supportive. They’re my No. 1 fans and have gone to see the Andrew Gn exhibition twice. Because my weekdays can get quite hectic, I like that on weekends, I get to show them around at a more leisurely pace.

I’m biased towards exhibits on fashion and design – I really like the Sneakertopia exhibition at the ArtScience Museum – but I do go to all kinds of exhibitions to see how other people curate.

Next on my list is the travel exhibition Now Boarding at the National Museum of Singapore.

For more child-friendly activities, I look out for festivals at museums. Jian Yang, Singapore’s Barbie doll collector, recently led a paper outfit-making workshop inspired by the Andrew Gn exhibition at ACM two weekends ago. I went with my 12-year-old niece and she loved it.”