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Singa Merlionus is one of the installation exhibits celebration the reopening of National Museum of Singapore's re-opening. Created by David Chan, it was on display from December 2, 2006 to January 31, 2007. Singa Merlionus, the assigned technical name for this new Merlion model, is the project’s title. It draws on cultural heritage in the form of the Merlion, a local icon in Singapore, and reinvents or renews it as a genetically modified animal, thus imbuing it with new forms, meanings and identity.
In this version, the gap between fantasy and reality is finally bridged. The creature is realized, suggesting its implication from symbolic to subsistence. Giving the creature a realistic form, somewhat detaches it from the folklore, making it even more independent and less enigmatic. The sculpture though realistic is nonetheless inanimate. It does however, provide intimate suggestions of what it could have been if it was truly alive. Combined with the head of a lion, a mane similar to a pangolin’s scales, the body of a seal, tail of a shark and patterns from a whale, Singa Merlionus is a mammal designed to glide in the water and still survive on land. This is inspired by the latest folklores being promoted where it is supposed to come up to rest on Sentosa now and then.