LKY: The Experience is an immersive tribute to the late Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s longest-serving prime minister and, arguably, its most famous personality. But it bends and stretches the usual definition of “tribute” by being playful, irreverent and unconventional.

There are more than 20 interactive rooms across the 17,000 square foot space, with each room dedicated to a facet of his life and values.

In one room, visitors are encouraged to step up to a podium and shake their fists in the air, triggering a digital crowd of avatars in front of them, all chanting: “Merdeka! Merdeka!” (“Independence! Independence!”).

In another room, there is an office space with large filing cabinets. Each drawer bears a label highlighting a critical issue Singapore faced in its early years: housing shortages, poor sanitation, limited foreign investment, ethnic tensions, labour strikes and more.

Rather than providing information on each topic, the drawers are designed to be smacked, Whac-A-Mole style, each time they randomly light up. If you successfully smack a drawer, you have “solved” the issue.

Another room, titled Follow That Rainbow, invites you to walk across a rainbow-lit installation, which changes its colours as you move. At the end of the path, you’ll find a quote from Lee’s influential 1996 speech at the Singapore Press Club, inspiring Singaporeans to dream big: “Not all will be rich; quite a few will find a vein of gold, but all who pursue that rainbow will have a joyous and exhilarating ride.”

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These gamified interpretations of Lee’s life may feel somewhat disrespectful, because they distil a lifetime of blood, sweat and tears into simplified activities.

But Tan Weiting, chief executive of Lucid Experiences, the creative firm which mounted the exhibition in partnership with TRCL and the Community Chest, says: “Many important stories and messages can be overlooked when we stick to conventional, tried-and-true methods. In today’s fast-paced world, we must make these meaningful stories engaging and enjoyable, so that people are eager to come and learn from them.

“Singapore’s museums and libraries are very good at documenting and narrating the nation’s history. We thought there’s a gap in the market to make history more interesting by capturing people’s attention first, and letting them immerse in the story while having fun.”

LKY: The Experience is the second large-scale, independently-produced, immersive exhibition in two months centred on Lee, after Now Is Not The Time, which ran in September in a Pasir Panjang former power station.

Unlike Now Is Not The Time, which relied on augmented reality, artificial intelligence and virtual production to tell a tech-laden story of Singapore, LKY: The Experience relies on slightly more traditional fun-house methods of optical illusions, nonsensical rooms, prankish installations, video game booths, as well as Instagram- and TikTok-friendly settings to draw visitors.   

Various episodes from Lee’s life have been transformed into vibrant dioramas, some cheesy, some poignant.

His budding romance with Kwa Geok Choo is evoked in a stage setting involving a vintage car surrounded by greenery; you’re welcome to climb into the car. Their official wedding ceremony at Raffles Hotel in 1950 – they had already married secretly in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1947 – is recreated here, complete with the four-tier cake that looks like it’s about to topple. There’s even a conjuration of a bedroom of their home on Oxley Road, where Lee cared for Kwa when her health was failing.

Tan says: “The average age of our creative team is late 20s. I myself am 36. So we have a lot of young people who want to pay tribute to him in their own way. We don’t want to glorify him in the way the museums already doing, and we felt that the only thing that’s better than being the best is by doing things differently.

“Sometimes, it’s best not to compete in the same pool; it’s better to get out and play in a different pool.” 

LKY: The Experience runs at 11 Prinsep Link from now till Dec 31. Tickets for adults are S$18.