If you’ve spent more than you’d like to during the festive season, you may be thinking of more wallet-friendly ways to have fun come January.
Thankfully, you don’t have to splurge to enjoy the Light to Night festival by National Gallery Singapore. This year’s edition is bigger and better – the festival starts from 18 Jan and has an extended run of 6 weeks so you’ll be able to take your pick from over FREE 50 programmes!
Light to Night Festival 2019: Traces and Echoes is themed around the five senses, so you can bet it’ll be extra engaging. Listen to an orchestra in pitch darkness, go on scent-based walking trails and feast your eyes upon the largest-to-date projection show.
Here’s what you can expect at the festival for those who want to have their senses charmed.
Note: The six-week event will be split into two parts with Singapore Art Week from Jan 18-27, and the Singapore Bicentennial commemoration from Jan 28-Feb 24).
Image credit: @fotojoys
From 18 to 27 Jan, the light show that dances across the National Gallery supersized. Instead of just one facade, this multi-media show titled Art Skins On Monuments: The Odyssey will be projected on a whopping 7 building surfaces so you can follow the show’s protagonist on an “Odyssey” around the Civic District.
After snagging your shots, you can also be part of the fun by interacting with this travelling “Explorer” himself via an interactive wall at the Gallery’s Padang Atrium during the Art Week edition.
And once The Odyssey comes to a close, 7 Stories From 700 Years will take over. A light show that reimagines 700 years of Singapore’s history, 7 Stories portrays historical figures like William Farquhar and Zubir Said in a fresh new light, giving us a newfound appreciation of how facets of the Singapore we love today came to be.
Arts Skins on Monuments: The Odyssey
Date: 18 Jan-27 Jan 2019
Time: Sun-Thu | 8-10pm, Fri-Sat | 8pm-Midnight
Venue: National Gallery Singapore, The Arts House, Asian Civilisations Museum, Victoria Theatre and Victoria Concert Hall
7 Stories From 700 Years
Date: 28 Jan-24 Feb 2019
Time: Sun – Thu | 8-10pm, Fri-Sat | 8pm-Midnight
Venue: National Gallery Singapore, The Arts House, Asian Civilisations Museum, Victoria Theatre and Victoria Concert Hall
Visitors during the day can head over to the lawn of Asian Civilisations Museum (ACM) and revisit their childhood with Sebastian Chun’s woody pavilion that looks like life-sized pick-up sticks. Aptly named Sticks, this familiar sculpture is big enough for a literal walk down – or through memory lane.
Sticks by Sebastian Chun
Date: 18 Jan-24 Feb 2019
Time: 10AM-7PM Daily, 10AM-9PM on Fridays
Venue: ACM Green
If you like walking trails, the Sensorial Trail which focuses deeply on smell, sound and touch will take you to a whole new realm of experience. For instance, nosedive – literally – into eau d’you Who Am I – a “scentscape” that allows you to smell the collective scent of Singapore’s youths by touching the exhibition walls.
The trail also takes ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response) music out of your YouTube channels and into real-life through Listening Bodies, where singers lie on benches while being massaged to produce spontaneous, sung dialogues.
Sensory Trail
Date: 18 Jan – 31 Mar 2019
Venue: Various locations across National Gallery Singapore
Give your eyes a break from the festival’s bright installations at Pitch Black, a musical in the dark. With a concept similar to dining in the dark sans the food, your senses will be sharpened as you soak yourself in both sound and silence.
Sit back and be awed the young performers from the Singapore National Youth Orchestra tell a story through the help of mime, LED lights and body percussion – all without a conductor!
Pitch Black
Date: 26 Jan 2019
Time: 8:30PM-9PM, 9:30PM-10PM
Venue: Victoria Concert Hall
History buffs hear ye! Head to the Asian Civilisations Museum and experience Resonance, an experiential installation designed by students from the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. Resembling the mesmerising interior of a kaleidoscope, the Tunnel of Resonance allows you to become one with the artwork by pulling and pushing the metal mesh to leave your trace on it!
Resonance
Date: 18 Jan – 24 Feb 2019
Time: 10AM-7PM Daily, 10AM-9PM on Fridays
Venue: Asian Civilisations Museum
After a night of posing for pictures, it’s time to roll out a picnic mat and rest your feet over at Gallery’s Padang Atrium. Here, you can laugh along with Kumar and Hirzi on Comedy Fridays, or vibe to relaxing music by local favourites The Sam Willows and Charlie Lim on Music Saturdays.
Feel free to stimulate your taste buds with the variety of food and drink stalls available, at Empress Lawn and St Andrew’s Road.
Art X Social
Date: 25 – 26 Jan, 1 – 2 Feb 2019
Venue: Empress Lawn and St. Andrew’s Road
Comedy Fridays X Music Saturdays
Date: 25 – 26 Jan, 1 – 2 Feb 2019
Venue: Gallery’s Padang Atrium
December may be over, but the fun does not stop there. Head into 2019 with Light To Night Festival’s free installations and performances that will light up your January when the sun goes down.
Whether you’re heading down for Singapore Art Week or the Singapore Bicentennial – or both! – you’ll be sure to find yourself looking at the Civic District in a whole new light.
Light to Night Festival 2019: Traces and Echoes
Address: Singapore’s Civic District (National Gallery Singapore, The Arts House, Victoria Theatre and Victoria Concert Hall, Asian Civilisations Museum (ACM) and Esplanade Park)
Opening hours: 5PM-Midnight, 18 January – 24 February 2019
This post was brought to you by National Gallery Singapore.
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