Across Cultures and Spaces: Re-contextualising Children’s Stories
PanelAishwariyah Shanmuganathan, Michiko Matsukata, Wong Swee Yean | Moderator: Ames Chen
Festival Pass| Festival Talk Pass
When children’s content moves across cultures, it is often translated not only through language, but through exhibitions, programmes, and curated public experiences. This panel looks at how children’s literature and content are re-contextualised for new cultural settings, audiences, and institutional contexts. Drawing on their practice, speakers will reflect on how narratives are mediated, adapted, or reframed beyond the page, answering questions of translation, interpretation, and responsibility as stories are presented across cultures and contexts.
This session is supported by the National Translation Committee.
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Aishwariyah Shanmuganathan (Singapore)
Aishwariyah is a drama educator and practitioner with two decades of experience in the arts. She has served as a Board Director at Agam Theatre Lab since its inception, where she developed and now oversees Agam Balar Medai, an initiative dedicated to engaging Tamil-speaking children through theatre. She also serves as President of the Singapore Drama Educators Association. Currently pursuing a doctorate, her research explores how drama-based pedagogy invites young people into intercultural dialogue. Her work spans performance-making, arts education, and community practice across English and Tamil contexts.
Michiko Matsukata (Japan)
Michiko Matsukata is a curator at the Chihiro Art Museum since 2003 and has curated exhibitions such as Contemporary Picture Book Illustrations from Korea, Polish Picture Book Artists, Ib Spang Olsen: The Soul of Denmark, and most recently, Józef Wilkoń, Painter at 96- Master of Poland. She also was in charge of exhibitions of Chihiro Iwasaki and Japanese Picture Book Artists held in several Asian countries. Besides curating exhibitions, her responsibilities include looking after the museum library as well as the educational programmes.
Wong Swee Yean (Singapore)
Wong Swee Yean is a professional storyteller with over 20 years of experience bringing the richness of Asian folktales to life across Singapore and the region. A four-term President of the Storytelling Association (Singapore) and Director of the 398.2 Storytelling Festival, she believes stories are bridges that connect generations, cultures, and hearts. She blends storytelling with playful elements such as paper crafts, music and movement to spark imagination and make traditional tales feel fresh and relevant.
Ames Chen (Singapore)
On the work front Ames is a trained humanities teacher and children’s book author. But she enjoys her job mothering her 3 children most of all. She writes stories for them and other children like them, because she firmly believes in the power of the next generation to effect change.
Programme dates and times are subject to change.