Singaporean officials bring precious artworks to Christchurch

Friday, 26 June 2026

Popcorn-smelling Bearcats, tree-climbing fish, and the world’s only venomous primate will make their New Zealand debut on Friday.

Singaporean museum representatives have travelled to Christchurch for the launch of an exhibition featuring precious 200-year-old artworks loaned by the National Museum of Singapore, which are on display at Canterbury Museum’s Pop-Up at CoCa until November.

The series of watercolours forms the centrepiece of a travelling showcase commemorating more than 60 years of diplomatic relations between New Zealand and Singapore. National Museum of Singapore director Chung May Khuen Khuen, who is in Christchurch for the launch, said the exhibition signified “a growing relationship between both countries”.

Chung May Khuen, director of the National Museum of Singapore, left, with Jan Yap, assistant curator at the National Museum of Singapore, in the Tails From The Coasts exhibition at the Canterbury Museum Pop-Up at CoCa.

Tails From The Coasts: Nature Stories of Singapore features 36 artworks on loan from the overseas museum. The historic pieces were selected from a larger set of 477 watercolours commissioned in 1819 by Singapore’s first Resident and Commandant, William Farquhar, and painted by Chinese artists.

“The collection is one of our national treasures,” National Museum of Singapore assistant curator Jan Yap said. It was amazing that the original collection of 477 paintings remained complete, she said, although at the time they were created they were probably considered more working documents than works of art.

Red Giant Flying Squirrel, William Farquhar Collection of Natural History Drawings, Collection of the National Museum of Singapore. Gift of Mr. G.K. Goh.

Farquhar’s project was initially conceived to create a scientific record of wildlife on the Malay Peninsula. There is “a merging of styles in the drawings,” Yap said, combining 19th century scientific cataloguing with the Chinese artists' process of the time.

There is no record of who the artists were, although differing styles suggest there were probably two painters involved.

The 200-year-old watercolours are on loan from the National Museum of Singapore.

Chinese stylistic methods at the time emerge in the almost human-like faces of some of the animals and the inclusion of landscapes, which Yap said was another recognisable trait.

The resulting paintings are more whimsical than standard biological drawings, and the subjects include creatures that would have seemed astonishing to Farquhar’s British countrymen.

Dark-handed gibbon. William Farquhar Collection of Natural History Drawings. Collection of the National Museum of Singapore. Gift of Mr. G.K. Goh.

The Moonrat, for instance, is a black-and-white relative of the hedgehog that smells of rotten onions. It was first described in 1822 by Sir Stamford Raffles, who established the first British East India Company outpost in Singapore.

Another painting portrays the Slow Loris, an endangered nocturnal primate that mixes venom from an elbow gland with saliva, to deliver a deadly bite. A depiction of Red Giant Flying squirrels — that can glide across the forest — is among the most memorable paintings, sharing space with a Dragon Mudskipper Fish and a Reticulated Pufferfish, containing enough toxin to kill 30 people.

The exhibition also features an immersive digital experience, Voyage – Experience the William Farquhar Collection of Natural History Drawings of Southeast Asia. Museum visitors can step into a darkened pod to take in the extraordinary creatures, depicted within a lush forest setting. Visitors can also view the full collection of 477 watercolours on a touch screen.

The exhibition marks the first time the paintings and digital experience have been displayed outside of Singapore.

Tails From The Coasts: Nature Stories of Singapore runs at The Canterbury Museum Pop-Up, 66 Gloucester Street from June 26 to November 1. Entry free, donations appreciated.