Natural History Museum
News //
Last Saturday, we celebrated our fifth anniversary during the ‘LKCNHM5 e-Celebrations’!
The event was months in the making, and our staff successful hosted a suite of digital activities from 10 am to 3:30 pm over Zoom. It comprised a line-up of web-talks by our research and education staff, as well as a live cast of celebratory activities held at the museum.
We are honoured to have Professor Tommy Koh (Ambassador-at-Large and Chairman of the museum) grace our event, along with Professor Tan Eng Chye (President of NUS), and Professor Tan Chorh Chuan (former President of NUS) and a few guests.
Held in splendour at our museum lobby, the celebratory activities commenced with a welcome speech by our museum head, Professor Peter Ng Kee Lin. He recounted the challenges the founders faced to establish the present Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum. “Amazingly, the journey ended up where we are today. It was a long journey, and it involved a lot of work from Prof Leo Tan and his team… And this place—this construction, this establishment—together with the fact that we are here today, is testimonial to all the hard work that has been put in,” he expressed.
In a speech delivered by Prof Koh, Chairman of the museum, he highlighted the importance of a natural history museum in facilitating, as a laboratory for research, the study of specimens and literature by scientists from around the world, in advocating the value of research and scholarship, and in instilling in people the appreciation of nature.
Prof Koh also presented our new exclusive book titled ‘L: 50 Stories of Labour and Love’, produced in commemoration of our fifth anniversary. The book title L, the Roman numeral for 50, alludes to the fiftieth year since part of our museum’s collection was handed down from the Raffles Library and Museum, and the 50 stories of specimens from our collections contained within its pages.
The joyous day also marked the official launch of our museum’s Google Arts & Culture page, making LKCNHM the first natural history museum in Southeast Asia to partner with Google Arts & Culture, and “cementing a joint venture between our two institutions,” Prof Koh announced.
Ms Rachel Teo, a representative from Google Singapore, introduced the inaugural exhibition on the online platform, titled ‘ASEANA obscura’. The exhibition features 135 lesser known species found across Southeast Asia, showcasing the diverse ASEAN biodiversity through 20 thematic stories: the Acrobats, the Enigmas, the Otherworldly, the Comic and more.
The page is now live and can be publicly accessed here.
In appreciation of the generous donations from the museum’s donors, partners and supporters, a new plaque was unveiled by Prof Koh and Prof Tan Eng Chye, together with donors Matthew Teng of The Silent Foundation, Tan Hsuan Heng, and Von Lee from Expand Construction Pte Ltd. The new plaque, shaped after the Malayan tapir, now hangs at the museum lobby.
No anniversary celebration is complete without a cake, and guest-of-honours Prof Koh, Prof Tan Eng Chye and Prof Tan Chorh Chuan were presented with a cake sponsored by Bengawan Solo.
Prof Koh was also presented a token of appreciation, a clay model of our three sauropod dinosaur exhibits reimagined outside our museum building sculpted by Mr See Toh Sheng Jie, a long-time friend and supporter of LKCNHM.
All the web-talks by our speakers, Dr Gwynne Lim, Dr Wan Faridah Akmal Jusoh, Mr Foo Maosheng and our Education Officers from the Outreach and Education Unit, are now on our website here.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more media content, and all videos from the event are also available in the ‘LKCNHM5 e-Celebrations’ playlist.
In conjunction with the celebrations, an article written by Marcus Chua, Curator of Mammal & Bird Collections, and Associate Professor Darren Yeo Chong Jinn, Deputy Head of LKCNHM, was published in The Straits Times on 5 September 2020. In it, the authors pen their thoughts on the museum’s way forward as it continues to seek answers to nature’s mysteries in museum’s vault of life. Read it here.
We thank all the donors and sponsors of this festive event for supporting the museum’s vision over the past five years, as well as our partners for celebrating with us and sending us well wishes.
