Singapore Odyssea: A Journey Through Time, National Museum of Singapore
Singapore Odyssea: A Journey Through Time is a permanent, immersive AV-driven experience within the Shaw Foundation Glass Rotunda at the National Museum of Singapore. Opened in August 2025 as part of SG60 celebrations, the installation leads visitors on a time-travel journey through 700 years of Singapore’s history.
Through a carefully orchestrated blend of projection, LED, interactive floors, BLE wristband devices, audio systems, and dynamic show control, the installation marries narrative, technology, and spatial design to deliver emotional resonance and educational impact. The system architecture includes remote recalibration of projections, personalised content delivery via wristbands, and real-time content serving, enabling a future-ready, sustainable experience.
The project was delivered by a consortium of Kin Productions (consortium lead), GSM Project (experience design), and Electronics & Engineering (E&E), the technology integrator. E&E handled the project as a comprehensive design-and-build, collaborating closely with creative and content teams to ensure seamless integration between narrative and technology.
Singapore Odyssea: A Journey Through Singapore Odyssea stands as a benchmark for museum AV integration: it optimises visitor flow, supports narrative layering, embeds interactivity, and maintains system resilience in a highly trafficked environment.
Housed within the circular drum space of the rotunda, Singapore Odyssea guides visitors backwards through time down a spiral ramp, starting from contemporary Singapore, moving through Singapore’s independence, wartime, colonial and pre-colonial periods, with mythological and historical vignettes interwoven. It is designed to be a multi-sensorial voyage, combining visual projection, interactive audio, LED displays and, movement sensitive surfaces.
Visitors are also invited to adopt personalised digital magical companions (via RFID/BLE wristbands), which will accompany them throughout their journey, unlocking bonus content about Singapore’s history along the way.
Photo (left) shows 3 different types of wrist band Courtesy of National Museum of Singapore
Photo (right) orange wrist band chosen at the entrance
LED Globe showing Singapore’s maritime trade routes
Video Courtesy of GSM
One signature element is the suspended LED globe, the first in a Singapore museum, which visualises the maritime trade routes that Singapore has been part of throughout its history, drawing visitors into the narrative. Throughout, mythological tales, such as the stories of the giant tide-moving crab and the magical Pauh Janggi tree are presented to establish a connection to connect Singapore’s early history.
Specific animations are activated through the wristbands
The visitor’s journey ends in the concluding zone where they tap their wristband to trigger a personalised multimedia finale and “release” their digital companion into a virtual “well”, a symbolic act bridging the visitor’s personal experience with environmental and sustainability themes.
The exhibition supports the museum’s broader mission to reimagine how history is told; moving from object-centric displays to narrative immersion and participatory storytelling.
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Singapore Odyssea, National Museum of Singapore