ArtScience Museum in 2219

“Daddy, where will I be in 200 years time?” Pangzi asked poignantly one day. I thought a visit to the Futures Imagined exhibition at the ArtScience Museum was inevitable.

“I don’t know where you’ll be, but by then I’ll be long gone,” I replied honestly for once. “Anyway, the ArtScience Museum has imagined it for us already, so we shall see.”

Confusion spread across his face.

“I know this can be hard for you to understand now, but I won’t be around forever,” I tried explaining.

“You mean… you’ll die?” he said quietly.

“Exactly. I will. Maybe you won’t. Someone may invent the elixir of life in your lifetime.”

“You mean… I can live forever?”

At least for the day, there’s only one way to find out.

The Futures Imagined exhibition at the Marina Bay Sands ArtScience Museum contains immersive installations, prints and sculptures to explore what life would be like fast forwarding to 2219.

Admission for school going kids is free, now till Apr 5, 2020.

The exhibition is divided into five stages of evolution, from how humans adapt to scarcer resources, to how future beings will look back upon the civilisation as we know it.

Climate change apparently is the impetus to creating this unique imagined future. Everything will be different once the full effects of it kicks in. Soon.

“Daddy, you mean we’ll all live underground?”

“Possibly, when the surface of the Earth is no longer suitable for habitation,” I noted. “That’s sad isn’t it, having to surface for sunlight only once in a while.”

“What happens to daily activities then?”

“Culture and tradition will evolve too. Maybe sports and music will be all virtual, or totally machine generated.”

“You mean robots will rule the outside world?”

“I knew this will come up. Again, maybe. But I’d like to think we’ll still rule the robots.”

“What do we eat then?”

“That’s another mystery. Perhaps all humans eventually have to grow their own food.”

“How about work?”

“We work from home! Oh, I think that has already started, with the coronavirus situation.”

“Daddy, will I still get married when I grow up?”

“Depends. Do you want to? You have your Siri now!”

The trip to the ArtScience Museum provided a lot of food for thought.

Pangzi had one last question: “Daddy, why are we talking about 2219 when the coronavirus could kill us all in 2020?”

True.

We were here: