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Q&A with Honor Harger

Q&A with Honor Harger, Executive Director, ArtScience Museum

As Executive Director of this still-young museum, Honor Harger has helped shape its innovative attitude towards blending the worlds of art and culture with science and technology.

TEN: As Executive Director of the museum, what are your main responsibilities?

Honor Harger: My role is to chart the direction of the museum, and to define our strategic vision. Since joining in 2014, I’ve been reflecting on what ArtScience Museum has achieved in the past first four years, and planning a path for the future. We are defining more sharply what it means to be the world’s only ArtScience Museum. Together with my team, we are working to create a unique space for ArtScience Museum in the Singapore cultural ecosystem – one which really contributes to the coming together of art, science, technology and culture.

My main responsibilities are to set the artistic direction of the museum, shape the exhibitions and other programmes we undertake, ensure that we are always working to our mission as a museum that operates at the intersection between art, science and technology, to look after our team members and to ensure our programmes reach large and diverse audiences.

Dreamworks Animation: The Exhibition

TEN: How does your role at the ArtScience Museum fit into your career background, and how has their influenced your vision for the museum?

HH: My whole career has been at the intersection point between art and science, as well as art and technology. It is where I have been working creatively for the better part of twenty years. I have been a curator for most part of my career, specialising in art and technology, and art and science. The job of a curator is to tell stories through visual means, to get at the heart of what an artistic idea, or a scientific concept, might be. It is about bringing concepts to life in a physical space.

I also have a deep passion for – and curiosity in – science. I occasionally write a blog called, Particle Decelerator, which collects together particles of news and information about the worlds of science and technology, placing special emphasis on the collision between the quantum and the cosmological.
And my own artistic practice, produced under the name r a d i o q u a l i a together with my collaborator, Adam Hyde, often explored science, usually through the medium of sound. One of our main projects was Radio Astronomy, a radio station broadcasting sounds from space.

As such, when I was offered the position at the only ArtScience Museum in the world, I saw it as an amazing opportunity to practice in the two fields that I am really passionate about, art and science, and to look at how to bring the two together. I am thrilled to be at ArtScience Museum and looking forward to charting its future.

The job of a curator is to tell stories through visual means, to get at the heart of what an artistic idea, or a scientific concept, might be. It is about bringing concepts to life in a physical space.

TEN: What are the main aims for the museum? How do you want visitors to leave feeling?

HH: Our aim is to show what happens when you bring art, science, culture and technology together. The place where these areas intersect is where new ideas are born, and where innovation stems from. We like to say that it is at ArtScience Museum that the future is made.

So in the new exhibitions we are bringing to the museum, we want to make this point very explicitly.

We like our visitors leave feeling that they have seen something here that they couldn’t experience anywhere else. We hope all our visitors leave invigorated and are inspired to come back.

TEN: What kind of audience do you hope to attract?

HH: ArtScience Museum attracts a wide and broad audience comprising families, young people and adults, both from within Singapore, and from overseas.

TEN: How many people visit to the museum each year?

HH: We are unable to disclose figures, but we do get a healthy mix of international and local visitors to the museum. We hope that this will continue, if not increase, with our upcoming exhibitions and programmes.

TEN: How does the museum bring art and science together?

HH: We do this in a variety of ways, both with shows we initiate and curate here, by adapting and enriching touring exhibitions, and by staging a wide variety of talks, conferences, screenings, performances and educational activities. The intermingling of art and science cuts through everything we do as a museum.

Watch a film about Da Vinci: Shaping the Future:

A good example of this was our recent exhibition, Da Vinci: Shaping the Future, which presented masterpieces by Leonardo da Vinci in Southeast Asia for the first time. This major exhibition about the most important artist and scientist of all time, Leonardo da Vinci, explored everything from mathematics, natural sciences, painting, architecture, technology and music. It included not only Leonardo’s original works, but interactive exhibits, projections, cutting edge design and five contemporary artworks commissioned specially for the show. The exhibition showed the transformational outcomes when art and science work together. As a society, if we are to solve the major systemic issues which we face now, such as climate change or inequality, it is culture working with science that will provide the best hope of solutions.

As a society, if we are to solve the major systemic issues which we face now, such as climate change or inequality, it is culture working with science that will provide the best hope of solutions.

We recently opened an exhibition called, The Deep, which is a touring show that explores the very deep oceans. The exhibition highlights the fragility of this deep sea, and how urgent it is for us to unite in our efforts to preserve it. In order to address the critical environmental challenges that the ocean faces, we need both the emotional connections created through art, and the understanding generated by science. So we commissioned a contemporary artist, Lynette Wallworth, to create a new installation using the scientific specimens, and her installation will now tour with the exhibition.

Similarly, in our busy programme of events, art, science and technology are presented in harmony. One of our major programmes is Sunday Showcase, which is a pop-up exhibition we stage one Sunday per month with various universities in Singapore, where research from the fields of art, technology or science is presented to the public. It is also a platform for young local innovators to showcase their work.
Last year, we also launched a new monthly programme, ArtScience Late, a one Thursday a month, late night performance programme, for which we commission cutting-edge performances which bring together art and science in innovative new ways.

TEN: Is it a challenge to find parallels and relationships between the different worlds of art, science and tech?

HH: I believe that art can articulate scientific ideas, and science and technology can often be at the forefront of creativity. There are many more parallels and connections in these two fields than what there might appear to be on first glance.

Ever since C.P. Snow’s famous call, fifty years ago, for a “Third Culture”, where art and science, music and mathematics, could work in tandem, there’s been a greater awareness of the impact that the sciences can have on art, and that art can have on the sciences. Our job at ArtScience Museum is to look for examples of connections between the fields. And when you start to look, you see parallels and resonances everywhere.

We also see that as the new generation of practitioners starts to emerge, the distinction between artistic creation and technological experimentation is not nearly as distinct as what it may once have been. More and more young artists are constantly pushing technological boundaries as they experiment. The ubiquity of digital technology, the internet, and new developments such as 3D printing and even DIY bio, have made science and engineering the domain of artists and designers, as well as scientists. On the flipside, it’s now common to see scientists and technologists in cultural contexts. Just look at the work of Lisa Randall for instance; a world-renowned theoretical physicist, who is now writing operas. Or Lucianne Walkowicz, who worked on the Kepler mission, hunting for exoplanets, but creates sound installations in her spare time. Hence we see that the divide between artists and scientists has been breaking down for some time.

I believe that art can articulate scientific ideas, and science and technology can often be at the forefront of creativity. There are many more parallels and connections in these two fields than what there might appear to be on first glance.

There is currently no other museums in Southeast Asia that is dedicated to showcasing innovative new work, which emerges from both science and art. This is the space that ArtScience Museum occupies. We see great interest in the exhibitions and programmes that we present at the museum, and from this we conclude that we may be entering the era of art-science as a form of cultural production.

TEN: What have been some of the most significant or popular exhibitions at the museum to date?

HH: I would say that our recently concluded exhibition, Da Vinci: Shaping the Future is one of our more significant shows – mainly because it is the first exhibition that we curated from scratch. The exhibition was based on Leonardo da Vinci’s notebook, the Codex Atlanticus. It was a historic moment for ArtScience Museum, as original work by Leonardo had never been exhibited anywhere within this part of the world before.

Moreover, Da Vinci: Shaping the Future was the perfect representation of ArtScience Museum’s ongoing efforts to showcase the creativity and interrelation of art, science and technology. We had the opportunity to present an exhibition that was forward-thinking and pioneering, just as Leonardo himself was.

We are now actively working with our partners on the exhibition – the Ambrosiana in Milan – on plans to tour the show.

Dreamworks Animation: The Exhibition

TEN: What have been some of your favourite exhibitions at the museum so far?

HH: It’s hard to pick a favourite – all of them are my favourites! Every exhibition is beautiful, unique, thought-provoking and resonant in its own way. All the exhibitions that we have had at the museum give our visitors a unique perspectives on the subject matter, and I really like that.

Every exhibition is beautiful, unique, thought-provoking and resonant in its own way. All the exhibitions that we have had at the museum give our visitors a unique perspectives on the subject matter, and I really like that.

TEN: What’s coming up in the museum’s calendar for the next year?

HH: We have two new very different but exciting exhibitions which have just opened this June. The Deep, focuses on the deep oceans, and presents the largest collection of scientific specimens from the deep seas ever shown in Southeast Asia. Many of the highly unusual and fascinating sea creatures are on show for the first time.

The other show is Dreamworks Animation: The Exhibition. This exhibition is all about both the art and the science involved in creating the stunning animation films that DreamWorks has become known for.
The show reveals the creative processes and technical ingenuity that go into making the story worlds at the heart of the films. It spans the 20-year history of DreamWorks Animation, which encompasses 31 films. The show is making its international debut at ArtScience Museum, following its premiere in Australian Centre for Moving Image last year.

In July, we will launch an exhibition called Singapore STories: Then, Now, Tomorrow, which ArtScience Museum is co-curating with The Straits Times, Singapore’s leading newspaper. The exhibition will chronicle Singapore’s development through powerful images and stories and significant moments from the country’s history, whilst also keeping an eye on the future.

TEN: What are the broader aims for the future of the museum?

HH: ArtScience Museum is viewed as a cultural icon and has become part of the visual identity of Singapore. That means the museum has a big responsibility to continually deliver on its mission to bring art and science together, through rich visitor experiences that reach as wide an audience base as possible, both locals and international tourists.

We will continue to provide a platform that stimulates dialogue between artists and scientists working in Singapore, and their counterparts internationally. We will continue to tell compelling stories about the interrelationship between art and science, and be recognised as a world-class institution for our interpretation of concepts.

We will constantly be looking to new ideas within technology, design and architecture to present stories about both art and science in cutting edge and innovative ways. So as we go forward, ArtScience Museum will become the place to go to get a glimpse into how the future might be shaping up.