Singapore’s love-hate relationship with graffiti.
Sadly, I feel it shows how Singapore generally lacks a sense of humour. From Wu Xiao Kang’s expulsion from the Month of Photography after the photographs were revealed to be the work, not of a schizophrenic, dead photographer but a body of work of an art collective, (full story here ) to reports of a student from an art school being expelled over graffiti, we really need to understand that creativity shouldn’t be a government prerogative.
From The Straits Times Sep 7, 2007
LaSalle student expelled for campus graffiti
By Khushwant Singh
A SECOND-YEAR student in fine arts who painted graffiti on his college’s new premises has been expelled from school.
He was caught spray painting the words ‘Gotta start somewhere’ on some steps, a lift door, a pillar and a wall of the LaSalle College of the Arts in McNally Street, off Prinsep Street, on Monday night.
His classmates would have known that the phrase referred to a mantra lecturers used during classes.
Fellow second-year student Joj Chan, 22, said: ‘They keep telling us that to be artists, we’ve got to start somewhere.’ Full report here:
Check out the video here:
Look out especially for the architecture of the new La Salle campus- really beautiful work. Wait- is that why they’re so angry?- naughty students defiling a pristine new campus… the kids interviewed in the video said the students had the same habits in the old campus and apparently no one cared.