Inventing a Peranakan museum
This talk is free.
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How did Peranakan art emerge as a distinct category? Organised in conjunction with the opening of Exceptional/Everyday: New Acquisitions, New Perspectives at the Peranakan Museum, this talk traces changing understandings of Peranakan material culture and the eventual founding of the Peranakan Museum in 2008.
Drawing on their experiences at the former National Museum and the Asian Civilisations Museum, the speakers consider the roles of museums, private collectors, writers, and dealers in shaping this process, as well as the influence of popular culture in constructing and disseminating ideas of Peranakan identity. The talk will also examine debates around cultural ownership and representation before looking to the museum’s future.
About the speakers
Kenson Kwok is the founding director of the Asian Civilisations Museum and the Peranakan Museum. As director of ACM, he made the case for establishing a separate museum dedicated to Peranakan culture in Singapore and subsequently helped to build its collection. He retired shortly after the Peranakan Museum opened in 2008 and remains active in the museum sector through local and international committees.
Kwa Chong Guan was the last director of the former National Museum, which he led through a strategic planning process that transformed it into the Singapore History Museum (now the National Museum of Singapore), the Asian Civilisations Museum, and the Singapore Art Museum. He was concurrently assigned to reorganise the Oral History Department at the National Archives of Singapore. He continues to be associated with these institutions in various advisory roles.
About the moderator
Alan Chong was director of the Asian Civilisations Museum and Peranakan Museum from 2010 to 2016, where he developed a range of cross-cultural projects. At the Peranakan Museum, these included Sarong Kebaya: Peranakan Fashion in an Interconnected World, 1500–1950, Great Peranakans: Fifty Remarkable Lives, and Emily of Emerald Hill: Singaporean Identity on Stage. He is now working on a catalogue of Chinese export porcelain and an exhibition on the blended cultures of Batavia.
Image: The Straits Chinese Gallery at the National Museum, Singapore, 1985–89. Singapore Tourism Board Collection, courtesy of the National Archives of Singapore.
