Wonderland at ArtScience Museum is an Instagram-friendly, educational trip

Whether you’re a fan of The Matrix, love the Disney adaptation (and re-adaptations), or just love the two novels by Lewis Carroll, the eclectic world of Alice In Wonderland is an undeniable classic. At ArtScience Museum’s latest exhibition, Wonderland, you can now take a step into the looking glass and explore the various worlds created for the story.

At the media preview ahead of the launch on Apr 13, we got to head down the rabbit hole and take a look at what the exhibition is all about.

All About The ‘Gram

For starters, Wonderland is a wonderful hands-on experience. There’s lots to see – with more than 300 artefacts and objects related to Alice to be seen. But what is really going to catch your eye are the multimedia works by digital creative studios, Sandpit, Grumpy Sailor and Mosster Studio.

The adventure starts off true Alice style, with you falling down the rabbit hole. From there, you’ll get to explore 10 different sections, each with their own theme.

There’re a lot of chance for you to take videos or pictures, though you would benefit from taking your time as you explore the rooms. You’ll be armed with a Lost Map of Wonderland that matches your character (assigned via an online quiz), and each character’s map has different secrets and videos to unlock. Kinda makes me wanna try to get all 4 characters!

In Wonderland, you’ll get to explore a hallway of doors …

Stomp on the Queen’s Croquet Ground – where you’ll get to use stickers to create your own Red Knights (complete with your own face!). You’ll definitely need your Lost Map for this. And after that …

You’ll even have some … tea. A very trippy party indeed.

As a survey of Alice on screen and in popular culture, there’s no way an exhibition like this could cover it exhaustively.

In fact, the best nod to how Alice’s story has permeated popular culture is at the very end, where you get to catch a compilation of media Alice has featured in across multiple screens. And there’s so much to feature! There’s a credit list of all the media featured, but even then, it’s worth multiple watches just to catch everything.

Workshops!

ArtScience Museum has developed a workshop, A Hat-trick of Clever Tricks, which aims at disproving three impossible phenomena in Wonderland. Beyond using logic and mathematics, participants will be encouraged to recall the narrative of Alice’s adventures and develop their own ending. A Hat-trick of Clever Tricks will commence in May and runs in parallel with Wonderland.

There’s a list of programmes here. There weren’t any programmes during the media preview, but I think I’ll be headed back to check them out.

Beyond The Exhibition

And if you’re looking for something more in-depth, the exhibition has a companion book that’s on sale at the ArtScience Museum gift shop. There’s a lot more photos and some essays and interviews in there that delve into some things that aren’t in the show. It costs S$69, but I dare say it’s worth it.

As for the rest of us, Wonderland is a wonderful experience, with quite a few things to explore. Or at the very least, you’ll come away with some great Instagram shots.