A Gentle Reminder
Originally uploaded by fireant2006.

This banner near from the Singapore Youth Centre reminds us of Singapore's program to co-opt the street art sensibility. (Real graffiti is punishable by caning.) This effort has reached a new (three-storey) height, as seen by today's story in, well, Today.

Below the article from Today.
Canvas for our youth

Graffiti wall marks the start of developments for youth at *scape Youth Centre
Monday • October 9, 2006
Grace Yap
grace@mediacorp.com.sg


If IT was a movie, they could call it Singaporean Graffiti.

In a first for the city-state, the exterior of *scape Youth Centre was designated recently as a canvas for youth to unleash their creativity. After inviting proposals as to what shape the finished artwork would take, *scape's programming committee chose nine artists belonging to two separate graffiti crews, ZNC and Project Burnez, to collaborate on a gigantic piece of art.

On Saturday, the fruits of their labour were unveiled: A three-storey high work built around the image of a graffiti artist practicing his craft. "We tried to push the limits by actually rendering a person on the wall with only the use of spray paint," said Shah Rizzal Wan Hussain, 21, the leader of Project Burnez.

The two groups' technique of mimicking the appearance of an actual photograph in a graffiti artwork is something that had not been explored previously in Singapore, he said.

Rozaimie Sahbi, 26, who heads ZNC, added: "It was experimental for us. We had a photo to refer to, but much of the rendering was done on the spot. We were just going with the flow."

Grace Ng — the Project Officer for this latest initiative by Youthop!a, a unit of the National Youth Council — estimated that about 800 cans of spray paint were used in the work's creation, which took about a month to complete.

The short time they were given to create the work and the new methods they used meant the group had to quickly adapt to their artistic space. "There were two boom lifts, so it could only take two people at a time, while another two had to wait. We also had quite a hard time rendering the images, because when you're so high up, you have to keep leaning back to see if the tone is right," said Rozaimie.

Ng said the graffiti showcase is only the beginning of new developments at the youth centre. "We are encouraging youth to use the walls as a canvas and hopefully every year, different graffiti crews can come in to refresh the artwork".

She added that young people can soon look forward to a black box theatre-cum-exhibition space at the venue that will allow youth to explore their interests in creative art forms and to showcase their abilities.

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Labels: Singapore

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