On May 30th the Cultural Counsellor and Cultural Attaché had the pleasure and privilege of meeting with Ms. Chang Hwee Nee, CEO of Singapore’s National Heritage Board, on the occasion of the visit to Singapore of Dr. Yannick Lintz, President of Musée Guimet in Paris.
The meeting took place at the Singapore Asian Civilsations Museum, which according to Dr. Lintz is a « sister institution » of the French Musée Guimet.
The Musée Guimet was founded by Emile Guimet, a passionate collector and scholar in Oriental studies, born in 1836. Emile Guimet travelled to many Asian countries and developed a passion for Far Eastern civilisations. He wanted to share his art collection and his fascination for these cultures with the general public, and created a museum that he described as a “laboratory of ideas” or “a philosophical science factory”. Today the Guimet museum is the largest collection of Asian art in Europe, and third in the world.
Yannick Lintz has been President of the Guimet museum since September 2022 ; previously she was Director of the Department of Islamic Art at the Louvre. Her conversation with Ms. Chang Hwee Nee was indicative of the strong ties and cooperation between French museum institutions and Singapore’s National Heritage Board and arts community.
