Scribbletown
Client: National Heritage Board, Singapore Children's Society
Type: Content Development, Exhibition Design 2020 – 2021
National Heritage Board (NHB) with Singapore Children’s Society approached our studio with a task to develop an educational exhibition on bullying. The task we assigned ourselves: to do so in a manner that avoided the usual pitfalls of being preachy, didactic or condescending.
How can we honour the presence and actual experiences of our youthful audience? How can we present complex social dynamics where the bully is not an external bogeyman labelled in black and white?
A PATH FOR SELF-GUIDED PLAY & EXPLORATION
The exhibition framework developed has children explore challenging, everyday social dynamics. This happens along two parallel pathways: narrative-driven and participative.
HOW The experience is motivated by discovery, role play, and empathy development. The environment created is a fantastical one. This is purposefully done to lift the audience into an imaginary world, and away from expected responses of proper behaviour in schools.
TONE Candid, adventurous, honest, comical, independent. To avoid situations and phrasing that is didactic or shaming.
We used story-telling and characters to encourage these conversations and engage the participation of the visitors. A narrative set in Scribbletown was created to take them through the interactive exhibition.
Visitors are invited to embark on a quest alongside fictional characters – where they could observe the interactions between the characters, hence giving them a better understanding of the different types of bullying, how and why bullying occurs. Each station would also invite them to reflect on their own experiences of bullying through interactive elements, therefore presenting the topic in an engaging and child-friendly manner.
Copywriting: RJ Gao
Illustration: Anngee Neo