J’aime l’art de guérillero.
I love guerilla art.
I’ve always had a love-hate fascination with graffiti. With its (sometimes controversial) reclamation of public space and freedom of access for the viewer, it has a democratic nature that appeals to the idealist in me. Yet graffiti often tows a precarious line between art and vandalism.
Two works of graffiti I encountered way back, particularly stand out in my mind:
I.
It was 1997, the last day of school, and everyone was abuzz; not because it was the last day, but because those who had come early enough, had seen these words smack in the centre of the grassy circular courtyard:
<insert school acronym>
SUX
The school authorities covered up the offending patch of grass with potted plants (resulting in a most bizarre “landscaping” design), but the damage was done, and the student population afire with speculation. Two years later, over an ICQ (remember that?) chat, a friend owned up to it, confessing that the group of them had bought weed killer, and climbed into the school compound in the dead of night to pour out four years worth of bottled-up frustration onto the innocent grass. After leaving school, the “artists”/perpetrators tended to live life on the road less travelled, and achieved some pretty remarkable things along the way. I’ve often mulled over what kind of environment would better channel and celebrate creativity and energy such as they had, instead of so systematically suppressing it, only to have it explode out in an ugly incident of vandal’s diarrhoea. Come to think of it, the story goes that Chairman Mao himself, at age 22, broke the world record for the longest piece of graffiti, a toilet piece containing 4000 characters criticising his teachers and the state of Chinese society. And look where all that school-induced angst got him.
That begets the question: what distinguishes Banksy from Michael Fay? How does graffiti become meaningful? For me, graffiti can be elevated to street art, or more specifically, post-graffiti, and become — and this is controversial — “worth the destruction caused to public property” when it fulfills its potential as a medium for social commentary; jolting viewers into rethinking the status quo (particularly if it’s relevant to the space the graffiti is set in), and affects their interaction with the space, or even is simply something that causes people to stop and reflect. Yet, even this loose definition is a weak delineation, for what’s seen as vandalism today may take on social value tomorrow. Case in point:
II.
It was 2000, Day 20 of a 21-day community service project in Pulau Teluk Nipah, Batam. In high spirits after completing the project, we trekked out to a cave located on the other side of the island and found it covered in mariners’ graffiti carved out on the stone walls, many dating all the way back to the 1400’s; olden day versions of what might today be etched out as:
Her Majesty’s Ship Was Here
2009
Imagine standing at that exact same spot, your mind conjuring up visions of explorers of old, chiselling away at the rock to pass you the message: psst, we’re all travellers on the same journey. And what a rich visual record of all the nations that have been trading through these waters. So I guess it’s all a matter of perspective. After all, even anthoropologists equate prehistoric rock art to modern day graffiti. Come to think of it, Banksy summed the issue up very nicely in this piece:
Since then, I’ve started collecting images of (usually politically-charged) street art off the web and using them as my desktop wallpapers – to serve as daily reminders to rethink comfortable, smug assumptions about the world we inhabit. It was only after getting a camera phone three years ago that I started documenting this fascination myself – photographing bits and pieces of street art I encountered, mostly in Singapore, and organising them into a collection on flickr. As aesthetically-pleasing as some of them were to me, I found something lacking – meaning and relevance to the space. Some of the graffiti appeared to merely seek a free, public canvas, not pushing the art form to its potential of social commentary, and that sometimes smacked of self-gratifying anarchy to me.
Early last year, I flipped through Ontario-based illustrator-turned-guerilla artist Keri Smith’s book The Guerilla Art Kit and something spoke to me. She writes:
“You do not necessarily need to be able to draw or paint to be an artist. You only need to care about something. The biggest hurdle in creating guerilla art is not always how to say something but instead what to say.”
Fast-forward to 2009. Imagine my immense glee to discover the work of a Singapore-based guerilla artist who has something meaningful to say. Since 15 January, this anonymous artist has been creating a-guerilla art-a-day — small post-its with little messages left in public places in Singapore, archived on his blog; a virtual “to do” list of everyday wisdom such as this one from 4 February:
on the 1245 to dhoby ghaut, singapore
While post-it art is not uncommon, what distinguishes this work is that the artist imbues his post-it art with reminders that are universally relevant, and, on good days, are cleverly placed in locations that make the viewer reconsider his reading of that space.
With no profile, no rationale, and no write-ups, the artist lets his work speak for itself. His choice of post-its is clever, resulting in transient work which doesn’t pose a problem for the long-suffering workers upon whose shoulders the unenviable task of cleaning up regular graffiti usually lands on. It even invites the itchy-fingered amongst us to interact with it, since, if one physically encountered his work, one could even take it down and stick it up again somewhere else, endlessly, though perhaps subject to the post-it’s remaining sticky-factor. And since his work is so wisely licensed under Creative Commons, these little babies have gone viral, even inspiring reproductions in NYC.
It’s just lovely how this wonderful little project has captured our imagination, brought smiles to our hearts and inspired reflection. May we all remember to make meaning in the every day!
Je vais au bureau de poste.
I go to the post office.
Having been one of those kids who moved a fair bit when I was a kid, I spent a significant part of my schooling days writing letters to friends and family overseas. In Secondary 1, a classmate asked me to join a penpal service with her. Already used to writing letters regularly, I agreed, and ended up with a penpal in Australia, and then another in Canada (a bonus penpal, the agency informed me). By the mid-90’s however, most of us had migrated to communicating by email, and that, coupled with preoccupations with the multitude of demands on the attention of the regular teen, resulted in dwindling communication at best.
Intrigued after a junior college trip to Thailand, I wanted to know more about the country from a peer’s perspective, and so I signed up with the Bangkok Post Student Weekly’s pen pal column, intending “to help a Thai student practice his English” as the paper advertised. My details were published, and for countless months later, my mailbox would be continuously inundated by aerograms from Thai students from virtually every province; their alarmingly identical letters focused largely on pleading me to reply their letters so that they would get extra marks from their English teacher. Increasingly bored, but feeling obliged, I eventually resorted to stock responses. Some continued to write after, and from these folks, I learnt a little bit more about the lives of the regular Thai teenager. But with the concerns of university entrance preparations looming, these too fell by the wayside.
As we prepared to enter university, we gals received and sent snail mail c/o the Ministry of Defence, to the guys doing national service; stuck in basic military training, or on a RSS (Republic of Singapore Ship) somewhere in the world, and regaled them with stories of our travels and university life; a teaser of the life they themselves would soon partake in years to come. Once the guys completed national service, the need for those letters stopped too.
And so it became that the mail I sent mostly comprised postcards to Mummy and Daddy, from my various travels. When work started, travel became shorter, such that I’d arrive home before the postcards, and what good was that? Soon the postcards stopped too.
So it was with a gleeful sense of nostalgia that I stuffed a little envelope with a doodle of a friend and a little note, and popped it off at the post office yesterday. Someone back in Southeast Asia will soon have something nice to greet her when she next opens her mailbox. To think I’d almost forgotten how much joy I get from sending a little surprise out in the mail!
Bread & Tulips
The Singapore International Film Festival opened its 22nd season this weekend…and I’m missing it for the 2nd year running. Before you start to think I’m some tragic no-life who (not so) secretly wishes that she’s actually in Singapore during film fest season just so she can watch images unfold on screen in a darkened cinema full of strangers, let me make a feeble attempt to exonerate myself from the charge.
The SIFF holds a funny little place in my heart. The first SIFF “film” I watched was a trailer back in 2002. I can’t remember what the trailer was all about anymore of course, but I remember watching it in Archana’s room in our uni student hall, and then posting a review. I’m not sure what really happened (perhaps a grand total of 1 person, i.e. me, watched it and bothered to submit a review) but a few weeks later, I received an email informing me that I had won two complimentary tickets to the screening of the delightful, life-affirming Italian comedy Pane E Tulipani (Bread & Tulips) at the 15th SIFF. Since I had watched the trailer with Arch, naturally, she was my date for the screening. It was my first taste of the wonderful world of film (beyond Hollywood, and beyond a certain self-made short film I shall not name, that a college lecturer and aspiring filmmaker I shall not name, forced my whole Lit class to watch), and I never missed another season, up till last year, that is, when I was in Australia for work all throughout festival season.
My 2nd year missing it makes me reminiscent about the good times, and of course, the amusingly bad as well:
The 16th was where I watched Royston Tan’s soon-to-become iconic Singapore film, 十五 (I know I shouldn’t link to illegally uploaded, low-quality versions, but…) and grew to love a good Singapore film, and was reminded that young people need something to believe in, and someone to believe in them.
The 19th was where I discovered that I had been loving Yasmin Ahmad all along. At a free screening at the Goethe-Institut, a sparsely-filled, tiny room of strangers watched a little screening of the amazingly heartwarming Rabun. And then I discovered that Yasmin was the same storyteller behind the beloved Petronas public service messages – the same ones I had viewed in the company of family year after year, always leaving us with a warm and fuzzy feeling, so much so that the new Petronas ad for the season had become one of the things to look forward to when back in Kuching for Chinese New Year. I was hooked, and would go back for more, and more: Sepet, Gubra, Mukhsin and Muallaf. Last year, while waiting for Wall-E to start, though usually fidgety during trailers/commercials, I sat transfixed by a story, and was convinced that only Yasmin could have told it. Sure enough, it was a TVC Yasmin was commissioned to create by the National Family Council. May we all tell stories with such heart!
The SIFF was where hoardes of seemingly unrelated friends, colleagues (past and present) and acquaintences would bump into each other, brought together by our common love for a social cause, at the countless quality documentary screenings, emerging into the bright, post-screening light, depressed and affected. These stories would continue to affect our worldview, the way we lived our lives, and the causes we believed in, in countless minute ways we probably barely even realised.
And the SIFF was where friends and I would groan in the middle of yet another James Lee film (why do we never learn our lesson?) or a Filipino “new wave”. And so I’ve always remembered to stay away from “new wave” – okay, fine, you can say I’m too “conventional” for “new wave”, but groaning through the occasional SIFF screening has helped me recognise my own tastes, and I’m okay with that.
I credit the SIFF for gently guiding and helping me find my taste in film, and probably countless other people besides; providing a starting platform from which to discover and appreciate all the little gems of insight humanity has to offer. But perhaps most important has been the fellowship of like-minded friends meeting to go to or bumping into each other at the same screenings, or in between screening changes, show after show. The hurried dinner bites before the early weekday evening screenings, the lazy post-show teh sessions, the thoughtful discussions, the animated banter – for that, my dear kakis, I thank you, and hope you enjoy yet another eye-opening season!
Est-ce que vous aimez le hiver? Non, je n’aime pas le hiver.
Do you like winter? No, I don’t like winter.
That’s the question la professeure français loves to ask me, just for kicks – to get me to answer as above, and I indulge her.
But that was winter, and it’s time to put that aside; for now, it’s springtime! The city has finally thawed, its people have come to life; each competing in the latest game of “Who Can Wear Less Clothes in Today’s Temperature?” (9°C today, in case you’re wondering, and yes, some people are wearing t-shirts, shorts and flip-flops). The sun is shining, and there’s a general atmosphere of joy and goodwill in the air.
As I mentioned in yesterday’s blog entry, I took the bus (but got distracted by that unpleasant incident in winter, when really, I should have been celebrating spring). I was running a little late, and so ended up taking a later bus than usual. When I boarded the bus, it was driven by a bus driver I had never met before (yes, the bus schedule here is so on-the-dot regular that we know exactly who will be driving which bus, when). He was in the middle of a merry conversation with two elderly ladies, happily on their way to a bingo game. At the next stop, the ladies got down to transfer to the bus behind us, and our bus driver radio-ed over to ask the other driver to “wait for the ladies rushing to their bingo game”, to delighted chuckles from fellow passengers all around. Then we rumbled along, coming to our usual pause at the downtown transfer point. While waiting for transfer passengers, a toddler came running towards the front door of our bus, Harried Mummy chasing closely behind, admonishing him, “No, that’s not your bus”, to which our jolly dear bus driver replied, “Oh, yes it is. Let him up.”, and proceeded to hoist the boy, by now squealing with glee, up to perch at the driver’s seat, and helped the young tot to toot the bus’ horn. Harried Mummy gasped her unbelieving appreciation, “You’re such a lucky boy!”, and our young superhero gurgled with delight, charming all the passengers on board as we all let out a simultaneous sigh of, “Awww, that’s so cute…”. What a difference attitude makes! I’m glad I ran a little late and got to partake in the joy of the jolly bus driver who makes everyone’s day just that lil’ bit happier.
As if to crown it all off, mother nature decided to send us a special present – sun dogs, as I learnt from the lady next to me – a winter light display that looks like pieces of a rainbow (I know, I know, you’re thinking: “Didn’t she just claim it’s spring now?!” Well nature doesn’t switch every part of the seasons exactly on 21 March the way humans do, right? Can you concentrate on the “looks like pieces of a rainbow” part already?!). So anyhow, you can be sure the whole busload of us ooh-ed and aah-ed over the lovely sight, as if we were a busload of tourists gawking at one of the wonders of the world (and it sure is!) instead of regular travel-weary commuters. It’s all about perspective eh? What more can you ask of a day?
Aujourd’hui, j’assiste à un cours de français au collège. Je vais au collège en l’autobus.
Today, I attend a French course at the college. I go to the college by bus.
Taking the bus made me recall some of the different experiences I’ve had taking the Kingston Transit. On 12 February, I witnessed a particularly unpleasant incident involving two girls and two guys, in their late teens/early twenties, who boarded the bus together with me late one night going back from the college. The girls got on after Guy A, sat one in front of the other, and settled into a very loud conversation; all the while glancing back at Guy A and snickering away with what I had then thought was simply juvenile girlish glee. Guy B boarded, and the whole scene quickly turned ugly. The girls decided to pounce and started taunting Guy B, asking him if he had a date for Valentine’s (hence I remember the date of the incident so clearly) and without waiting for an answer, told him that Guy A was available. They proceeded to detail the homosexual acts that Guy A allegedly appreciates, ostensibly as an “enticement” to Guy B, which, given its usage in this context of bullying-verging-on-verbal-assault, are simply too rude for me to reproduce here. A few bus stops worth of this nonsense later, a petrified Guy B couldn’t take it anymore, and stopped the bus to get off at some deserted stop in the middle of nowhere, to which the girls mockingly cried out, “Getting off already? But you haven’t gotten his number yet”, their malicious laughter reverberating through the bus.
I was angry because I realised that the girls had created precisely the kind of climate of fear that females around the world have had to endure from males for centuries. But I was also in shock, because it says something about a society where the tables can as easily be turned thus. As I sat there stewing, it occurred to me that this was not what the feminist movement was fought for; turning the tables is not the point. We, men and women alike, need to be breaking down the geography of fear, not contributing to it. Too late, I realised that I should have gone up to the girls and told them to lay off the guys, and that they should be ashamed of themselves, or at the very cowardly least, have gone up to the bus driver to tell him that passengers were being harassed. But I know better now, whether the perpetrator be male or female, and perhaps you’ll think about it too.
Image by Kingstonist at flickr.
I realised today that in many ways, I stop to consider outdated superstitions way more than my parents do. Case in point: today, my dad was showing off his new purchase of white lanterns from Hội An, Việt Nam, and the first thought that so auntie-ly popped into my head was: “Aiyoh! Not pantang meh?” Where in the world did I inherit this pantang gene from? Must be from reading too many Catherine Lim novels when I was younger. Whatever. Anyway, this reminded me to stop being so unnecessarily superstitious, and inspired me to break a pantang larang to blog about cynspiration that hit during my walks by Kingston’s lakefront last week: what happens after I die. I know, I know: “Choy!” right? Whatever.
I know this is not the most original of things, but seeing all the memorial trees along the waterfront made me a little melancholic for all those people I don’t know, and the loved ones they have left behind to deal with their death.
My late 婆婆 (paternal grandmother) was very superstitious about all things death-related, and so she never attended any funerals, no matter how close a friend or relative the deceased was, and always warned me not to even glance at, much less walk through any wakes being held at the HDB void decks, and certainly, she never talked about death, much less how she’d like her funeral arrangements. But even in my teens, my friends and I had to come to terms with the death of our friends; departed through suicides and accidents. Perhaps because of this, I grew to believe that accepting the inevitability of death, but letting it come at its own mysterious pace, is the best way to embrace life. And so, as unfeeling as even my loved ones sometimes misconstrue me to be, I remain dry-eyed at funerals, precisely because my heart celebrates the life lived, not mourns the life lost.
I realise that when I go, I want it to be a celebration of the culmination of a life well-lived, and not a mourning for my loss, and this helps me want to live every day better. But I also realise that if I follow my grandparent’s superstitions and never talk about how I’d like it to be when I go, it could very well go the other way. Even Việt Nam’s late President Hồ Chí Minh was placed in a mausoleum instead of being cremated; the latter of which is widely believed to have been his wishes. Why do the living always think it necessary to make things grander than the deceased would have wanted? Okay fine, in Uncle Hồ’s case, there’s the issue of a tangible national symbol…but I digress, again.
I’ve always thought funerals were for the living, not for the dead, so for most of the details, I leave it up to the person who’ll end up stuck arranging it – do what makes you happy. All I ask is to keep it simple, and for that, a few simple things. I want to be cremated. I want my ashes in a box (unfinished wood, cardboard; whatever’s convenient for that place and time) and if possible, I’d like my box of ashes to be buried under a tree sapling, unmarked. No, no dusty, high-rise columbarium for me, thank you very much. If anyone should feel a strong need for a place to remember me by, to that I say: “Go play amongst the trees.” That’s all. My desires are as simple as that. Please? Whoever’s gonna end up being the one doing this for me, you can be sure I love you very much, and thank you.
And with that, I end my morbid talk for the day. Have you broke the pantang and thought of how you’d like your arrangements to be?
White Lanterns image by Jungle Boy on flickr.
My friend has an interesting idea to “see the world through children’s eyes”. He’s submitted the idea for a funding proposal that will be awarded according to popular vote. You can see and vote for his proposal here. I do admire him for coming up with an idea and trying to achieve it. It got me pondering, given my standpoints on issues based on the experiences and exposure I’ve had, how I might choose to structure the project should I find myself set on putting all my effort into such an idea.
For starters, let us assume that the primary objective of this project is to create a collection of photographs as a platform for people (young and old around the world) to see the world through the perspective of children using the medium of photography. A second assumption I am going to make is that the medium of photography by children can be useful in many ways different ways (depending on how it is framed) in education (one of the many possible uses is briefly explained here, and the full research paper can be read here). Finally, the third assumption I am going to make is that many schools, groups and individuals have already used photography by children as an educational tool (a most well-known example being Kids With Cameras). Given these assumptions, instead of travelling the world to give children cameras and assign them to create images that capture the world through their eyes, I would make the primary task of the project the creation of a platform to promote, curate and create children’s photography as an educational resource. The platform could be an online photography submission gallery (or easiest to set up cost-free, right now, would be a flickr group) and information guides with suggested lesson plans for parents or teachers guiding the children in this project on how the project could be introduced to the children, and how to describe their photographs in a way that could convey meaning to the viewer. For groups that are new to using photography in education, details could be provided on how assignments can be incorporated into a media literacy curriculum – as a third stage of media literacy, getting children to create their own media to represent themselves; as part of a writing class – describing their photograph in writing; as part of an art class, etc.
Much like many other global campaigns in the era of Web 2.0, the project can call for organisations to use this as a platform to share works from their existing programmes, or for volunteers to set up programmes in their own cities. City-based volunteer groups could contact schools/organisations in or near their cities to run activity workshops and to coordinate donations of digital cameras (both from individuals as well as from digital camera manufacturers) or funds, to be raised for groups that may wish to participate, but do not have the resources to. The project creator need not physically travel anywhere to be part of the project (except perhaps to manage such projects in his own home city), since parents, teachers or volunteers in each project city would be the ones guiding the children and helping to get their images and descriptions onto the online gallery. This would make the project an inclusive, voluntary platform, with minimal costs, thus aiding in sustainability – “Think Globally, Act Locally” right? In fact, since the project need not have an end date, the project creators, who are now freed to function primarily in the role of curator, could concentrate on curating the works into collections instead, perhaps through tagging. For example, a collection to sum up “The World in 2009 – As Seen Through the Eyes of Children” or other topical variations.
In any case, the purpose of my writing this is not to say that I would like to run such a project, but more to provide my add-on to an idea. Inspired by my coursework in International Education, I’ve been trying to connect-the-dots of the multitude of implications of the “new flat world order” we live in (read Thomas Friedman’s Hot, Flat, and Crowded). I realise that for me, it is not so much the need for a competitive edge over the other 6 billion people that inhabit our planet that overwhelms me (no, I don’t agree that that’s necessarily the conclusion, Thomas Friedman!), but rather that, “if anything and everything that can be done will be done” but I’m not doing whatever that “anything and everything” is yet because it isn’t high on my list of current priorities, then perhaps my responsibility is to release this idea out into the world. Perhaps someone will pick up the idea and run with it, or perhaps someone will build on the idea (that I built, in turn, on someone else’s idea) or perhaps the thought process behind it, rather than the idea itself, will trigger some ideas in someone else. Better yet, I might read it again sometime in the future and realise that this was my life’s mission all along (heh). Whatever the case, I’ve spent too many years noting random scraps of ideas into miscellaneous journals that were later chucked to collect dust in some dark drawer, create dead space on my hard disk, or worse still, allowing ideas to float through my mind, then escape into the land of the forever forgotten. I resolve to try to release some little ideas out into the world; a baton of sorts, for you to pick up if you so choose to, to run your own good race, wherever it may take you. So here it is then, if nothing else, a humble contribution to a no-longer traceable web of inspiration and collaboration, now of a scale made possible only by our “new flat world order”!
20 March update: Came across a wonderful project using photography to empower marginalised populations – In Focus. It brings to mind Singapore’s Inside Out project by migrant workers.
