Dinosaurs come to life at Singapore's ArtScience Museum

The ArtScience Museum at Singapore's Marina Bay Sands will be ushering in the New Year with the largest dinosaur exhibition in Southeast Asia, 'Dinosaurs: Dawn to Extinction'. Occupying over 3,700 metres of floor space, the exhibition will feature more than 400 fossils and models, as well as over 50 original artworks.

This first-of-its-kind exhibition combining four exhibitions from the renowned American Museum of Natural History, San Juan National Science Museum, SCI! Expo at Monash University and artist Peter Trusler, will open to the public on 25th January 2014.

Curated by paleontologist, Dr. Patricia Vickers-Rich, 'Dinosaurs: Dawn to Extinction' offers a refreshing and in-depth journey into the pre-existence, existence, rise and extinction of dinosaurs. Through a timeline thread, visitors will be transported more than 600 million years back in time to learn the unique story of what came before and after the dinosaurs, and gain a deeper understanding on how these species evolved and adapted to changing environmental conditions.

'Dinosaurs: Dawn to Extinction' will take visitors on a journey from the Precambrian, Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous time periods. The highly interactive exhibition will also feature some of the oldest dinosaurs fossils ever discovered on the planet and many little-known species, some never before seen by the public. These are in addition to over 50 original artworks by Peter Trusler that showcase intriguing species being reconstructed. Key fossils on display include a 18-metre long Apatosaurus, a 17.6-metre long Lessemsaurus sauropod specimen, a 2-billion year old rock (Banded Iron Formation), a new fossil of Adeopapposaurs discovered in Argentina three months ago, as well as the tiny animals that ran beneath the feet of these giants.

Welcoming the event, ArtScience Museum Associate Director Ross Leo explains "we're extremely honoured to work with some of the worlds leading paleontologists, experts in the domain of dinosaurs and the long history of life on planet Earth, to present this first-of-its-kind exhibition, unlike anything seen in Singapore or Southeast Asia.

"The exhibition will shed light on how dinosaurs lived on earth. It will also serve as a window into the past where visitors will have the opportunity to immerse themselves in this prehistoric world."

A segment of the exhibition, specially curated by Dr. Mark A. Norell, Chair and Curator of the Division of Paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History, enables visitors to learn, explore and understand the behaviour and movement of dinosaurs.

To further personalise the overall dinosaur experience, visitors can download a free mobile application for the exhibition onto their smartphones, where interactive and educational features are specially rendered for different segments of the exhibition. Incorporated in the mobile application is also a game component - 'Rex Race', which allows visitors to race their virtual dinosaurs to the museum in the shortest possible time.

The mobile application will be available for download from mid-December.

'Dinosaurs: Dawn to Extinction' is an original and unique exhibition to ArtScience Museum and is seen as being a perfect fit with the museum's mission to tell the long history of dinosaurs through an ArtScience perspective, and to mix art and science to communicate ideas.

Tickets to the exhibition will be available in December.

For more information on 'Dinosaurs: Dawn to Extinction' go to www.marinabaysands.com/ArtScienceMuseum

Lower image shows the exterior of the ArtScience Museum by night.

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