I visited a mental health exhibition at Art Science Museum. This is my reflection…
I recently visited the Art Science Museum’s Mental: Colours of Wellbeing exhibition. I came out of it feeling really heard and understood — it’s quite weird. To be frank, my mental health has not been the best in the past few years. It’s something I struggle with and actively work on. So this exhibition felt like a big hug — I knew I wasn’t alone.
I have actually come across the poster for this exhibition a LOT of times before. Near the Shoppes at MBS walk, outside of the museum, online, and even in MRT stations. But I was never really interested in it because I thought… mental health is such a squishy topic — can be a bit bland sometimes (probably just me avoiding talking about it though). I thought, how can a museum turn squishy into something worth visiting and.. enjoying?
Oh boy, I was wrong!
As I walked in, the first question the wall prompted was… Have you eaten? (which I sadly forgot to take a picture of).
I came to realise that especially in our culture, this question packs so much care and love. You ask this synonymously as you would asking if they are okay and if there’s anything you could do for them. That if they haven’t, then you’ll let them have a piece of the meal you cooked earlier that day or accompany them to eat or even share what you have for yourself. This is especially true in my case and the environment I grew up in.
Food is a love language. Eating together is a love language. Wholesome.
Without giving away too much about the exhibition (so you can visit it and enjoy the surprises too!), I really appreciate how it attempts to show the different facets of our mental health, how people cope and try to deal with mental health issues in really different ways, and how technology plays a part in both being the trigger and the solution to the problem. The exhibition also curates art created by Southeast Asian artists — so this made even the little nuances all the more relatable.
Most importantly, I have to give big props to how it attempts to articulate feelings like anxiety, burden, disappointment, and even nothingness, in many ways that really hit home — …at least for me.
It’s also very interactive so you’re not just there walking around reading the descriptions — you get to be part of the exhibition itself. Some of them also gave you pre- and post-participation surveys as part of their ongoing research. Pretty cool!
But that being said, if you’re a bit self-conscious like me you may wanna grab a friend or two to go with you. Hehe.
If you feel compelled to visit this exhibition, it’s located at the Art Science Museum, Singapore (link). You can buy the tickets at Art Science Museum — go down to level B2 (you can pre-purchase it online too). It’s S$21 for tourists/non-residents and S$18 for residents. Be sure to visit it before it closes on the 26th of February 2023. (No I’m not paid to say this hahaha I truly loved the exhibition!)
Final tip — I recommend going there on weekdays. We went on Friday afternoon at about 17:45 (it closes at 19:00) and it was quite quiet — just nice. Sunday, though, was mad! There were simply too many people, so do avoid weekends.
As I said, I have never felt this heard and understood by an exhibition. I even went back for the second time two days after. The staff were really nice they allowed us to revisit without paying extra because we went in near the closing time on Friday so we did not get to try ‘Echo’, one of the interactive exhibitions with a pretty long queue (unfortunately we still did not get to visit it on Sunday because the queue was even worse). You may be able to request a revisit if you ask the staff at the visitor centre at Level 1!
But overall, without a doubt, this one is 10/10 worth visiting.
The following is a bit of my reflection on mental health
“How are you” is such a sad question.
We ask it way too often we aren’t even sure if we’re ready to hear anything else other than “I’m good”, alright, okay-and the other variations. And we also get scared telling people how we really are that we go into the “I’m okay” default.
One time someone asked me how I was. And I randomly blurted this out: “do you really wanna know how I’m doing or is it just a courteous & rhetorical question? I don’t mind answering either.”
Some people, it appears, don’t wanna know how you’re really doing. In fact, sometimes I’m that person — I just don’t have the capacity to wanna know if you’re not okay hahaha “please just say you’re okay and get over with the chitchat”. But I begin to learn that… this is okay too.
We’re all going through something after all.
—
When we walked into this exhibition at ASM and saw this big question on the wall… my heart sank. It’s weird that when a literal wall is the one asking this, I just wanna scream back at it and say that:
I’m not okay. Haven’t been okay in a long time. But I’m used to it. I tried to be okay, but it was way harder than I thought. At one point I stopped trying to be okay — I thought perhaps I could never go back to how ‘okay’ I was so there was no point in trying. But also, maybe I just don’t need to. And that the answer to a “how are you” doesn’t always have to be an “I’m okay, and you?” like how we’re taught in school. For most of us, maybe the answer is simply “I’m holding on”.
And for some of us, we don’t even need any more follow-ups or for people to ask “why” — hell we don’t wanna get into that rabbit hole.
And actually for us, sometimes a hug would do. Or a smile. Or a nod. Either way is okay.. just one that’s enough to let the world stand still for a while.
And we know then, we’ll someday be able to answer “I’m truly doing great” without wondering which “how are you” it is — rhetoric, or not.
🤍
