Date night at the museum: NHB youth panel gathers ideas on making heritage appealing to young people

SINGAPORE – Opening up museums after hours, creating more volunteering opportunities and collaborating with influencers and international brands to spotlight heritage businesses are some ideas young people have floated to get their peers engaged with Singapore’s heritage and museums.

The ideas were captured in the National Heritage Board’s (NHB) first youth heritage blueprint – a document containing ideas and insights that were canvassed by

the board’s youth panel.

 

Launched on March 29 at the Punggol Regional Library, the blueprint is the product of

about 1½ years’ work by NHB and the 36-member panel,

which comprises students and working adults.

Ideas fell into five focus areas – museums and programmes; physical touchpoints and digital content; marketing and communications; access and participation; and collaborations and partnerships.

NHB deputy chief executive for policy and community Alvin Tan said these areas were decided by the board and the panel after panel members met staff of NHB’s various divisions, and visited its museums to understand the scope of the board’s work.

While doing research for the blueprint, the panel surveyed about 1,000 young people online, and held discussions with youth on each of the blueprint’s five focus areas.

One of the blueprint’s strategies is for museums to provide young people with novel experiences “that go beyond what they typically associate with museums”.

These could include trivia nights, light installations and “date night” experiences, said the blueprint.

Panel member Alex Foo, 28, who led the committee looking into ideas for museums and programmes, told The Straits Times he had previously attended Date Night at The Met at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

For the event, the museum stays open till 9pm on Friday and Saturday nights, and features live music, special programmes and food.

“It was just a totally different atmosphere because you see the museum at night,” said Mr Foo, a public servant.

“It feels like attending an event, and the conversations flow a lot more freely just by virtue of it being at night.”

He added that one thing that stood out to him while working on the blueprint was the experiences young people had while visiting the museum with their parents and grandparents.

In particular, they had discussions about various artefacts on display at museums that their older relatives previously used.

“They found it to be an extremely worthwhile experience because of all the kinds of personal narratives that they discovered,” said Mr Foo.

“There were otherwise no avenues for these kinds of conversations – so the museum became a great facilitator and sparked interest in what was on display,” he added.

Ms Tricia Wee, 23, who co-led the team that looked into collaborations and partnerships, told ST the team suggested that young people get acquainted with local heritage businesses through more collaborations with influencers and international brand names.

Ms Wee, a production coordinator, cited a collaboration between home-grown chain Ya Kun Kaya Toast and Japanese snack brand Pocky, which produced Singapore-exclusive biscuit sticks with kaya toast and kopi-o flavours.

She said the young people who attended a focus group were very receptive to such products, which are relatively affordable and can be made widely available, helping to raise the profile of local businesses.

The panel also found that heritage narratives are more likely to attract young people when they are relatable and personal.

To that end, the NHB and the panel on May 29 launched a travelling exhibition at Punggol Regional Library that showcases stories submitted by the public.

Titled My First Love, the exhibition featured stories of people’s first love, categorised into three sections – people, places and passions.

Ms Yeong Ann Ying, 21, a youth panel member who contributed to the exhibition, said the exhibition resonates with her because the stories “are by regular, day-to-day people like me and you”.

“You see the names, you don’t think of big stars or influencers that we know in Singapore, but this is their first love – whether a pet or a first passion – and we are recognising that such small experiences are important to people,” said the NUS undergraduate.

Mr Tan said he hopes the blueprint will inspire more museums and heritage organisations – including institutions not managed by the NHB – to kick-start and support more youth-related collaborations. NHB said that it will review the recommendations in the blueprint and “assess how to best adopt them”.

The blueprint is slated to be refreshed once every five years, said Mr Tan. It can be downloaded

on the NHB website.

My First Love travelling exhibition