Louise

From the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, we move to Sarawak Museum where we are designing a gallery to exhibit the life and work of Alfred Russell Wallace whose theories about evolution pre-date Darwin's.The 'site' is in one wing of the Sarawak Museum and this temporary gallery would last 2-3 years targeted at the general public especially children.
We were interested to explore a different way of exhibiting the artifacts while keeping in view the educational intent, flexibility and cost effectiveness.

We thought to create a series of rooms using his 'moth-nets' as a homage to the man and also to prolong the journey through the relatively small space. The displays will be then printed or mounted on the 'walls' which can be actual fabric or some form of semi-rigid translucent panels.

We will design some new furniture and props to complement the existing cabinets - one of the ideas was to re-create Wallace's jungle room where the moth-nets were used. Wallace's moth-nets were essentially three bedsheets hung like a three sided room with a hurricane lamp in the middle to attract insects which, we then collected

section of the gallery

the 'walls' hover above the ground and sway gently when people walk by

view of the gallery entrance

We made a 1:50 scale cardboard model to convince the client as our scheme was 'not even close to the original brief' and thankfully it worked and our ideas were accepted.

The 'kacang-putih' man

For those of us who grew up in Kuching, the Sarawak Museum Garden is certain to be part of our childhood memory - the swings, the 'kacang putih' * man, the Royal Navy band rehearsing at the bandstand. Years later and many changes after, we still gravitate to this place of our memories as we did this Saturday afternoon before dinner at Ivy's.

The change is not for the better; the playground is dissected by a pompous Heroes Monument - no landscape architect worth his salt would have designed this so one suspects a politician must have done. Perhaps this is why I visit every so often; a sub-conscious need to ensure that enough of this place remains intact, along with my memories of it.

My Kuching skyline with the bottom half of the building cut off reminds me of old photographs taken with Instamatic cameras - often what the lens captures is not what is seen through the view-finder.

The porch of one of the small office buildings that line the driveway to the Museum

* roasted or steamed chick peas sold in rolled newspaper cones by (usually) Indian vendors