The best things to do this weekend (Oct 22-24)

As The Projector puts it, we deserve a bloody good time this Halloween. And delivering the goods are our favourite local drag queens Vanda Miss Joaquim, ElNina, Lychee Bye, as well as host Becca D'Bus. Happening over Sundays and Mondays in October, expect thrills, laughs and lots of commotion in the Blue Room. 

If you're in need of some quiet contemplation, head down to Pan Pacific Singapore's Public Art Space on level 2 of the hotel to take in the paintings and prints of artist Tsuyumi Miwa. Titled Fleeting Moments, this exhibition from October 16 to January 31 seeks to evoke thoughts and memories of its audience through moments captured from everyday life. Over two weekends in October, you'll also get the chance to meet the artist – to complement the hotel's signature Japanese-inspired afternoon tea, Miwa will be live calligraphing patrons' names in Japanese on a card featuring one of her works. 

The Singapore Games Week (SGW) 2021 is a showcase and celebration of Singapore's vibrant games industries and its communities. In this debut edition, join the SGW Virtual Village from October 11 to 31 – an online world where you can meet the local gaming community, check out screenings, watch gamescom asia STUDIO live and even start a treasure hunt that continues across real and virtual worlds. Those who want to uncover hidden gaming-related talents can also take part in hybrid workshops which cover niches like painting miniatures, game design and tabletop RPGs. 

Taking over a new project space, 136 Goethe Lab, is Soft Realities. It's a site-specific, multimedia installation featuring installation artist and architect Fiona Tan, inter-disciplinary artist and designer Finbarr Fallon, and media artist Ong Kian Peng. The exhibition showcases building materials, light, video and sound elements assembled intuitively in response to the space and its surrounding environment.

The biennial Singapore Garden Festival (SGF) is back this year with the SGF Hort Show with a slew of exciting virtual and in-person events. From October 9 to 31, flower and garden enthusiasts can catch rare and beautiful orchids and show plants at the Horticultural Competition and Orchid Competition displays, held at the Singapore Botanic Gardens and Jurong Lake Gardens. Other competitions include the Bonsai Competition, Nano Tank Aquascaping Competition, Balcony Competition and more. Those who prefer to stay at home can also catch a range of online activities throughout the month, including Facebook Live sessions, Zoom webinars and videos on gardening, floral arrangement, aquascaping and more. 

Get drawn into the eerie halls of Old Changi Hospital to piece together physical evidence and puzzles to solve a chilling murder mystery. Through 360 video footage, flashbacks, and an interactive choose-your-own-adventure format, Murder at Old Changi Hospital is just the virtual escape room activity to dial up the horror this Halloween. Written by award-winning playwright Chong Tze Chien, Murder at Old Changi Hospital invites you to take on the role of paranormal investigators to uncover the events leading up to the alleged murder of a young canteen worker, Farah Aiyah (played by Munah Bagharib) and the disappearance of four Commandos associated with the victim in 1996. Distant cries continue to echo in the abandoned hospital, setting the scene for this augmented reality (AR) and spatial audio surround sound enhanced nightmare.

Mezcla isn't your usual Mexican joint. Instead, this modern taqueria pop-up (every Tuesday) borrows Japanese influences from its sister concept, Rappu, to create a line-up of crunchy and over-the-top tacos. Sink your teeth into eight different choices, including Salmon ($12.50) with battered skin as a crispy shell, stuffed with cubes of sake-cured salmon and topped with ikura; the Unagi ($8.50), an easy-to-love seaweed sandwich layered with chipotle-glazed unagi, tamago, and cucumber. Corn tortillas get a twist too – stained with blue or infused with tomato to go with fillings like edamame refritos and pork jowl or grilled chorizo and chicken. Dress everything in one of three homemade sauces, and end your meal on a sweet note with, yes, more tacos – this time dusted with cinammon sugar with smooth vanilla creme and chocolate. 

This Deepavali, the Indian Heritage Centre (IHC) opens its doors once again with Welcoming Light, presenting a variety of cultural activities and a mini light-up installation to mark the occasion. From now till November 14, visit IHC to check out a mini replica of the street light-up along Campbell Lane and a line-up of free drop-in activities and workshops. Learn how to craft paper lamps, create intricate rangoli and kolam designs, and put together colourful paper garlands. Take in the sights and sounds of Little India as it works up a buzz during Deepavali too, with a 15-minute trishaw trail around the precinct. 

They say don't play with your food but at this instant-noodle wonderland, that's exactly what you should be doing. Slurping Good! is a whimsical themed experience playground brought to you by Invade (the same people behind Eatbox) which features thirteen interactive zones over two storeys dedicated to the ultimate comfort food: instant noodles. 

Explore the vibrant and aesthetically pleasing interactive rooms where you will discover murals, installations, games – and even an indoor slide for both adults and kids – revolving around the ingredients that make instant noodles so good – like egg, meat, seafood, veggies, and even cheese. Some highlights include the 1.7-metre-tall instant noodle cup installation which warrants a pic or two. The installation is in collaboration with instant noodle powerhouse Nissin themselves and in that room, visitors can get creative and share their dream Cup Noodles flavour. 

It's not just photos and a sudden appetite for instant noodles you will be leaving with. All visitors will receive a complimentary tote bag containing a Slurping Good! retail voucher that can be at the merch store, an F&B voucher that can be used at the Soul Good Noodle Bar located in Eatbox, a pack of Nissin instant noodles as well as an instant noodle claw machine tokens to try your luck. The exhibition runs daily from 10am to 10pm until January 22, 2022.

The pandemic has got us more than a little stressed. How do we face these difficult times and emerge stronger at the end of it? ThisConnect: What Am I, If I Am Not grapples with these questions and more. From now till October 31 during World Mental Health Month, and in conjunction with the Beyond the Label Festival, local social artist duo Hunny and Lummy will be showcasing five multidisciplinary fine art pieces at 39A Duxton Hill. Masks of Singapore, No Mud No Lotus, How Much Enough Is Enough, What Is My Truest Self, and Trauma Expression Series explore our relationship with our physical, emotional and mental selves, aiming to expose higher truths and foster greater connection and harmony. 

ArtScience on Screen is back this October. This time, ArtScience Museum presents a curated programme of films in conjunction with the Singapore Pavilion at the 17th International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia. The films are selected as a love letter to cities, celebrating its urban spirit, textures, its people, and how we can all build a more inclusive world. Catch seven feature films and three short films ranging from film festival picks, cult classic and verité-style documentaries. These include Roy Andersson's About Endlessness (2019) and the Southeast Asian premieres of 종착역 (Short Vacation) (2020), Taming The Garden (2021), Moriyama-San (2017). Additionally, three short films will also be screened together as part of Textures Of The City (Shorts): Flags & Debris (2020), Architectural Desires (2016), Membrane (2020). 

Whether you're a budding architect or simply fascinated by buildings, Archifest shines a light on the world of architecture – this year with over 100 immersive programmes spread out across the island and online. Organised by the Singapore Institute of Architects (SIA), the annual festival gathers architects and enthusiasts from all over the world, including Singapore, to discover and celebrate design in our everyday lives. Themed 'Evidence Design', Archifest invites all to delve deeper into built environment through five key lenses: arts and culture, community and inclusivity, environment and sustainability, history and heritage, and technology and methods. Happening from October 1 to 31, the programme this year will feature virtual exhibitions, film premieres, outdoor tours, workshops and exciting forums on topics as diverse as urban self-sufficiency and even fengshui. 

Horror junkies, brace yourselves for Universal Studios Singapore's (USS) Halloween Horror Nights, which is back after taking a year off in 2020. This time, instead of the usual haunted houses and scare zones, get ready for a spooky behind-the-scenes look at the past nine years of the annual scare-fest, go trick-or-treating about the park, or indulge in jump scares and ghastly meals after dark. Running from now till November 7, Halloween Horror Nights will showcase what it takes to put together this award-winning showcase. Told through terrifying displays, gruesome props, deadly facts and a line-up of the scare night's scariest icons, this exhibition is still not for the faint of heart – USS warns that it may be too intense for those under 16. 

Art exhibitions by international names may have been postponed since the pandemic, but the spotlight has shifted to emerging local artists – and we're living for it. A new exhibition will open at Objectifs, and it features explorations into intimate spaces by four image-based artists from Singapore. Marvel at works by emerging artists Dylan Chan, Fitri Ya'akob, Masuri Mazlan and Vimal Kumar at With You Here Between: Defamiliarizations. They depict photography in different, more experiential ways, and touch on themes ranging from queer identity and the body, to spirituality and ecology, to yearning for home, and family. A common thread is how their works celebrate living and thriving in the margins. 

If there's one thing that the pandemic has brought to light, it's the need for us to build a more sustainable future. STEAM education – consisting of science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics – are increasingly seen as essential subjects to help kids of today master the challenges of tomorrow. If that sounds a little dull, then Science Centre Singapore is back with UNTAME, a 3-month-long festival that aims to bring STEAM topics alive through engaging games, activities, exhibitions and tours in both physical and digital formats. 

Running from now till December 5, UNTAME: Rebooting the World takes inspiration from the reset that the pandemic has triggered. The first phase, UNTAME STEAM Festival, brings together a slew of educational and sensorial activities for children to explore ways to build a more sustainable future. Expect trips to intertidal zones, art and craft workshops, fun programming activities and more at this onsite festival.

For those who prefer online activities, tune in to UNTAME Online from October 29 to December 5. Enter a dystopian digital world, ruined by mankind's unsustainable practices. Form the perfect duo with your child as your embark on a series of missions across six habitats to restore the environment – picking up lifelong habits about conscious consumption along the way. 

UNTAME Day takes you to Singapore Science Centre – and it actually takes place over a week. Running from November 20 to 28, this phase includes 10 fun hands-on activities and a Farmer's Market. Participate in sustainability-themed activities to turn trash into treasure, or contribute to the Centre's CAPtivate – a project to form Singapore's largest bottle cap wall mural. 

Finally, UNTAME is reaching out to all night explorers with After Dark. The Centre will be extending its opening hours to 10.30pm from December 3 to 5 only, so you can experience some of its most iconic installations – think Phobia2: The Science of Fear, and more – come to life after dark. There will also be a special Dazzling Light Installation, a project done in collaboration with Very Small Exhibition, that will mesmerise with its riot of lights and colours. 

There's no time like now to get your children dreaming about a better future, and to get them excited about STEAM subjects. For the full list of exciting events, visit science.edu.sg.

It's a new beginning for The Substation, after moving out of their iconic Armenian Street digs earlier this year. This contemporary arts centre is back with SeptFest 2021 (the second one this year) – this time in a completely digital format. Running from now till October 31, the festival is happening in two parts. This month, revisit SeptFest 2020 through four full-length documentation videos of previously showcased multidisciplinary performances. In October, we delve deep into this SeptFest's theme of Alternative Voice(s) through intimate Sunday Morning Conversations with selected artists on Facebook Live, who will talk about their challenges and accomplishments with supporting alternative voices in the community. 

Horror junkies, brace yourselves for Universal Studios Singapore's (USS) Halloween Horror Nights, which is back after taking a year off in 2020. This time, instead of the usual haunted houses and scare zones, get ready for a spooky behind-the-scenes look at the past nine years of the annual scare-fest, go trick-or-treating about the park, or indulge in jump scares and ghastly meals after dark.

Running from now till November 7, Halloween Horror Nights has been refashioned as an exhibition. Learn about what it takes to put together this award-winning showcase. Told through terrifying displays, gruesome props, deadly facts and a line-up of the scare night's scariest icons, this exhibition is still not for the faint of heart – USS warns that it may be too intense for those under 16. 

For something a little sweeter (and less lightly to give you the chills), embark on Trick or Thrills, a trick-or-treating adventure down the freshly returned Trail of Treats at USS. Collect delectable confectioneries from Candy Ambassadors and meet Illumination's Wolfman Minion as well as other Minion Monsters along the way. Don't miss out on the new Minion Monsters Bites food cart with Minions-inspired sweet treats, and a Halloween meet-and-greet with the characters of Sesame Street, Kung Fu Panda and more. 

As day turns to night, the monsters emerge from the fog at Universal Monsters Scream Alley. On Friday and Saturdays especially, keep your eyes peeled for The Wolfman, Dracula, Frankenstein and his bride. Guests can also dine with the dead – so to speak – at DIEning With The Dead, a special three or four-course gourmet meal complete with drinks and a side of the ghastly. 

Ready for the chills and fun at USS this Halloween? Get more information and your tickets (from $69) at rwsentosa.com. 

'Complex, messy, raw' – that's the Jalan Besar that you're invited to explore on this mini art walk with OH! Open House. During the 90 minute tour, enter the world of transient workers, sunset trades and disappearing clans with artists as your guide. Their works are scattered across the neighbourhood in secret places and trade shops, each giving visitors a new way of approaching and understanding the communities that inhabit Jalan Besar. 

ArtScience Museum is celebrating its 10th birthday with Orchestral Manoeuvres, featuring over 32 artists and composers from eight countries who explore sound through sculpture, installation and music. Curated by ArtScience Museum, this exhibition features some of the world’s leading artists whose explorations of the sonic landscape encourage visitors to listen more closely to the sounds around us. Expect sound art projects, early music notation, experimental scores, noise-making sculptures, video installations and contemporary artworks. Catch the key highlight: a presentation of The Forty Part Motet by Janet Cardiff, which will be showing for the first time in Southeast Asia.

Singapore Art Museum's latest exhibition opens today at National Gallery Singapore’s The Ngee Ann Kongsi Concourse Gallery. Titled The Gift, it explores how the act of gifting transforms an ordinary object into something much more meaningful and emotional. It then becomes an embodiment of a relationship, a social act, or even an obligation to another. One of four related exhibitions in an ongoing transnational project titled Collecting Entanglements and Embodied Histories initiated by the Goethe-Institut, The Gift features artworks and historical materials from the collections of SAM and partner institutions such as Galerie Nasional Indonesia, MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum, and Nationalgalerie – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.

It's no secret that our little island nation is especially vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Even as Singapore continues to develop, much effort has gone into mitigating the effects of urbanisation, and to stave off the harmful impact of climate change. Find out what these efforts are at a new exhibition at Singapore Botanic Gardens. Jointly set up by City Developments Limited, NParks and Singapore Tourism Board, Change the Present Save the Future Exhibition showcases our climate change mitigation efforts, and ways everyone can play a part in building a resilient city. 

The Ng Teng Fong Roof Garden perched atop the National Gallery Singapore is now home to a new large-scale installation by Antony Gormley. On display from August 6 to October 30 next year, Horizon Field Singapore (2021) will be exhibited alongside three other sculptures that trace four decades of Gormley's practice: Sense (1991), Close V (1998), and Ferment (2007). Placed at key locations throughout the Gallery, these works form a sequence of what the artist calls “acupuncture points” within the architecture, activating their surroundings and provoking connections with their audience. 

Escape to alternate realities at the ArtScience Museum's new and permanent gallery space VR Gallery. Outfitted with state-of-the-art virtual reality (VR) headsets and controllers, this is where the museum will be rolling out novel immersive experiences for visitors in the coming months. VR Gallery launches on July 10 with Hyperrealities, a VR exhibition featuring works from beloved contemporary artists Olafur Eliasson, Marina Abramović and Anish Kapoor. This is the first time some of them are using VR, augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality technologies to present their ideas. Nevertheless, these masters of art have you in for a treat: their multi-sensory artworks will have you gaping at elusive rainbows, feeling the visceral horror of rising sea levels, and taking a trip into – yourself. 

If the kids' got energy to burn, Kiztopia's mega birthday bash Dazzling Nights is just the place to be. In celebration of its second anniversary, the flagship playground's 13 play areas are decked with colourful lights, LED projections and glow-in-the-dark decals – think laser lights, mirror balls, and moving projections of soothing water wave pattern – which are illuminated during the evening play sesssions. Kids can look forward to a new kind of sensorial play when night falls, as well as special LED light performances, stunning magic shows, and a variety of station games.

Titled after the 1959 film Korban Fitnah (Victims of Slander), the fourth edition of SAM Mini Mobile Museum invites movie buffs to rediscover the films produced between 1958 and 1963 – which is the period sandwiched between the post-war heyday of Singapore’s film industry and Singapore’s independence day – through a choreography of film footages, digitised images, text, objects, and printed matter. It also features themes that recur in the artist’s practice – the modernist notions of shape, size, scale, seriality, and repetition. Catch it at Woodlands Regional Library from June 9 to July 21, before travelling to Jurong and Tampines regional libraries on July 28 and September 15 respectively.