City Beautiful: Understanding Art, Understanding Singapore

One of my young Singaporean friends declared the other day that she finally understood what art is for.  After 20 years of thinking it was merely a way of beautifying our surroundings she realized that it can actually be used to make a statement about something which we may not be able to say with words.  Of course this led to a much longer conservation about how art can be used to communicate simple ideas with graphic design, communicate how to use something through industrial or product design, or it can simply exist to convey more complex, controversial, and even perhaps politically charged ideas.

With her revelation in mind I wanted to share two recent works of art by young Singaporeans which I thought communicate some uniquely Singaporean urban phenomena.  The first work deals with the Singapore’s limited land area as an island, and thus limited space for landfills, through a study of trash.  The second piece draws attention to how Singapore’s “multi-ethnic, multi-religious” population often lives in very dense highrises without actually knowing each other at all.

Republic of Pulau Semakau

Zinkie Aw’s “Republic of Pulau Semakau” highlights one of Singapore’s pressing environmental problems — limited landfill space.  She uses a series of portraits with filled trash cans in place of individual faces to present “things owned and disowned by people.”  She describes her work:

Pieced together, this body of work anchors to issues of waste management in Singapore — to realise things that we as individuals discard, will collectively contribute to Singapore’s only landfill on the offshore island of Pulau Semakau. In 1999, after having exhausted the landfills on mainland Singapore, Singapore then created a Semakau landfill by enclosing Pulau Semakau and a small adjacent island with a rock bund. In this light, we, could all be considered ‘Founders’ of this reclaimed portion of the island. It has never occurred to us where all these rubbish end up in land-scarce and over-populated Singapore. Hopefully these dustbins will form a reality check for all of us.

My favorite portrait in her series is “Ms Mamashop,” named after the neighborhood convenient stores, mamashops.  The trash in this image is mostly packaging, but by being set in a shop this piece highlights how the waste problem is not just about the items that we own and then choose to disown.  Instead it reflects how our each day consumption of  conveniences items contributes greatly to our ecological footprint.

At Our Doorsteps

Although photographer Sam Kang Li lives in a high-rise tower block with 44 other families he admits that after living there 17 years he “could barely count on one hand the number of residents [he] could readily recognize.”  In his photography project, “At Our Door Steps” he seeks to meet all of his neighbors and to take a family portrait for each of them.  Through this project he mentions not only meeting neighbors for the first time but also discovering old family friends that had been living in his block all along.  He describes his work:

…this is never a project about me, nor is it a self-expression piece. This is a project that aims to bring out the best sides of the residents of my block. So it is really satisfying for me to see people actually inviting themselves into the pictures and inviting themselves into the conversations.

Although Kang Li doesn’t directly mention this in his documentary or its description, but his work indirectly reflects the outcomes of Singapore’s efforts to create a “harmonious” society where people from multiple ethnic groups and religions live together in HDB tower blocks because of a quota system.  In an effort to prevent marginalizing minority groups Singapore implemented quota policies long ago to help promote a more integrated society. However as Kang Li’s documentary shows these policies have not led to as much integration as one would hope. However I was very excited to see that Kang Li was able to get all of his neighbors to participate in the project because they wanted to know their neighbors better.

Even though art such as these projects is considered beautiful, I hope that its story does not stop with aesthetics qualities.  I hope these projects inspire more us to invest in our city, be it through environmental improvements or by simply getting to know our neighbors.

- Melissa

All photos are from the photographers Zinkie Aw and Sam Kang Li

Urbanization Notes #3

• Ciro Miguel creates landscapes where familiar urban and natural landmarks collide.
• “A Year in New York City” a short film by Andrew Clancy
• NYU decides to place the new Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP), in Downtown Brooklyn.
• London Planners Break Down Boundaries Between Cars and Pedestrians by eliminating sidewalks
• Police invade a Rio de Janeiro Favela to “Pacify” it before the Olympics

Photo Credit: Ciro Miguel

City Beautiful: Paint the Town Red…or Blue, or Pink

Urban planners don’t generally think too much about cities and color beyond the loud Skittles-rainbow zoning maps showing how land uses harmonize or clash. But for many cities color is ingrained in tradition and community identity, just as much a part of the fabric as the street grid, built forms or open spaces.

A color identity can simply come from the building materials nature gives you to work with,  sometimes trends catch on by copycat neighbors that eventually become a painted pattern, in some cases governments preserve the past through color policy. This week’s City Beautiful highlights a few of those cities most known for splashes of color, where color changes the not just the appearance of a place, but also the experience of being there.

~Amy

Gold | Jaisalmer: Located way out in India’s Thar Desert in Rajasthan, the “Golden City” of Jaisalmer gets its color from buildings made of yellow sandstone (especially glowy at sunset). For centuries the city was an important post on camel routes from India to Central Asia – havelis like the one below are elaborate sandstone mansions built by wealthy merchants back in the Jaisalmer’s trading heyday.

Photo credit: Flickr user Peter Garnhum

Purple | Pretoria: South Africa’s capital is known as the Jacaranda City owing to the purple blossoms blanketing Pretoria’s streets during the blooming season. Jacarandas were actually imported to South Africa from Brazil in the 1880′s, but now there’s a bit of a fight over their future as a fixture lining Pretoria’s streets since being classified as an “alien invasive species” by South Africa’s Parliament. Some environmentalists worry about the ecological impacts of invasives on natural resources, but others see them as a cultural resource that outweighs the environmental risks.

Photo credit: Flickr user Giovanni Paccaloni

Pink | Marrakesh: The Red City, the Rose City – Morocco’s Marrakesh is awash in various shades of pinky-salmon colors. The color originally came from the use of tabia on the exterior of buildings, a mix of reddish clay and lime. Building technologies started to modernize around the same time the city was under French colonial rule, and not wanting to lose the tradition an ordinance was enacted that mandated all new buildings in the old part of the city to be painted pink – a policy kept on by the Moroccan government.

Photo credit: Flickr user Pug!

Green | Chicago: I can assure you this isn’t Photoshopped since I’ve seen it myself – every March the city really does dye the Chicago River the color of radioactive waste in honor of St. Patrick’s Day.  As one history sensationally describes it: “This spectacular transformation ranks right up there with the parting of the sea by Moses and the Pyramids of Egypt” (I wouldn’t go quite that far).  Supposedly the 40 pounds of dye city plumbers dump in the water isn’t harmful to the ecosystem since it’s vegetable-based – though I’m curious about exactly what vegetable would produce such a color…

Photo credit: Flickr user thomassylthe

Yellow | Izamal: Little Izamal on Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula isn’t just the Yellow City but also a Pueblo Magico – an official “Magical Town” according to the Mexican Secretary of Tourism. Once a Mayan pilgrammage site, the Spanish destroyed it and built churches and a giant monastery on top of former temples. Nearly everything in the colonial/ancient Mayan city is painted an egg yolk yellow, though it’s unclear exactly why aside from wanting to match the color of the big monastery.

Photo credit: Flickr user Marco Ziglioli

Blue | Jodhpur: While not terribly far from the Golden City, India’s Blue City clashes with the bleak desert surroundings rather than blends in with it like Jaisalmer’s sandstone. One story behind the blue is that upper-caste Brahmins once painted their homes blue to set them apart from everyone else, but the plan didn’t quite work out once everyone started doing it. Locals claim that the blue helps keep homes cooler and repels mosquitos, no word on the effectiveness of blue for pest management but the color is striking nonetheless.

Photo credit: Flickr user travel.photos

Artocracy in Tunisia

the new Inside Out project by JR

A few weeks ago Amy posted a piece in the City Beautiful series about Inside Out, the Parisian  artist/photographer JR’s “one wish to change the world” with the help of a $100,000 TED Prize. As a follow up to that piece, I thought I’d share some photos from a recent Inside Out street exhibition in Tunisia where “six Tunisian photographers travelled the country to take pictures of 100 « normal » Tunisians representing the Tunisian diversity: men and women, young and old, from North, South East and West, rich or poor, civil servants, business people, workers, farmers, unemployed, and much more…”

In an email about the project, JR talks a little bit about the importance of this exhibition:

“For the first large street exhibition in a nascent Arab democracy, the posting promised to be surprising and the confrontation with art not always simple. Our first two days were quite hot (insulted in La Goulette the first day, posters taken down in Tunis the second day). So we decided to go to Sidi Bouzid (where it all started), an isolated region, to work with those who did the revolution before coming back to the popular districts of the capital.

“There is nothing better to understand the weight of traditions and the willingness to change than to post big portraits in the symbolic places of the popular districts and try to explain the concept to people nearby…

“And then, we received a warm welcome in Sfax, Sidi Bouzid, Le Kram where men and women (OK, mostly men) have asked questions, challenged the project, raised objections, posted with us, explained the project to their neighbors…

“We come back with hope that Tunisia will become a country open to art as Spain after Franco or Berlin after the wall was taken down.

“Artocracy in Tunisia, an project initiated by Slim Zeghal and Marco Berrebi and created with the group of Tunisia photographers including Sophia Baraket, Rania Dourai, Wissal Dargueche, Aziz Tnani, Hichem Driss and Héla Ammar.”

~ Ariana K. MacPherson

City Beautiful: Inside Out

Cities don’t generally hide confrontation. The friction from millions of bodies, minds, and diverse beliefs in close quarters creates the energy for both innovation and conflict. While the city wears much on its sleeve,  so many stories remain untold. But a new art project promises to expose some of them – the city is a confrontational canvas exhibiting faces that might be overlooked much of the time, but have exceptional things to tell us.

Security fence between Israel and Palestine (Israeli side), "Face2Face" project | Photo: BasilicStudio // aKkY

That’s the essence of Inside Out – it’s the Parisian  artist/photographer JR’s “one wish to change the world” with the help of a $100,000 TED Prize.  His work takes huge black-and-white photos of faces, or fragments of faces, and adheres them to walls, trains, rooftops, stairwells – anyone can be a model, anywhere – from favelas in Rio to walls in Los Angeles. Now the world is invited to join in the process. The artist explains in this recent TED talk:

His past projects have explored social questions such as why Israelis and Palestinians can’t get along to showcasing courageous women from around the globe. Generally there’s some element of creating a conversation around a conflict big or small through pasting these uninvited guests in unexpected places where we can’t help but engage with them and anyone else who happens to be around.

Inside Out takes that idea and opens it up to everyone’s participation. The project is about “standing up for what you care about” – a compelling story that needs to be told, photographing who you see to be the face of it, and then pasting it on a city surface. Anyone can submit an idea and upload a portrait to the website. JR’s crew will print it on a poster and mail it back for you to wallpaper a conversation piece on your own city.

Below are some photos of JR’s previous work – looking forward to seeing the world’s cities blanketed with more.

~Amy

Image from Favela Morro da Providencia in Rio, part of the "Women are Heroes" project | Photo: BasilicStudio // aKkY

From "The Wrinkles of the City" project, a portrait from Carthagene, Spain | Photo: BasilicStudio // aKkY

Shanghai, two months after photo placed | Photo: Sabine Fricke

View of portraits on rooftops in Kibera, Kenya for the "Women are Heroes" project. | Photo: BasilicStudio // aKkY

City Beautiful: Bikes Continued

Inspired by Amy’s post, I decided to seek out a project I heard about a while back from various different sources. Bicycle Portraits is an effort to photograph “everyday South Africans and their bicycles.”

As someone who has traveled to and around South Africa a total of four times since 2005, I can say that biking has definitely become more popular in the past six years. On my first visit to Cape Town it would never have occurred to me to bike between the picturesque and disheveled neighborhoods that characterize that city full of paradoxes. But this time around (I just returned from two weeks there last month) I was close to astonished by how many people I saw biking around not just for pleasure but as what seemed like a growing form of transportation.

With that in mind, this project will (hopefully) grow in popularity with bicycles themselves!

- Ariana

City Beautiful: Bikes of Burden

This week’s City Beautiful is dedicated to images of people carrying improbable loads of stuff on bicycles. Our thanks to Urban Observatory for inspiring the idea, with a recent feature on French photographer Alain Delorme’s  surreal series of Shanghai cyclists balancing superhuman cargo on trikes.

As an urban biker I’ve watched in awe at what people here in New York and other cities manage to haul through traffic with two wheels, people power, a little ingenuity and a lot of balance (I think my biggest cargo was a giant roll of bubble wrap, which is comparatively weak). While exploring these images, though, what emerged was something more than just the comedy and skill of biking with awkward items. There are also powerful connections between migration, labor, and the bicycle as a livelihood necessity.

~Amy

Alain Delorme’s staged photographs of migrant workers in Shanghai are serenely absurd and simply beautiful – they touch on the complex intersection of production, consumption, and the rapid expansion of Chinese cities (see the rest here):

The sculptural skyscraper of boxes above isn’t incredibly far from the truth, as in this documentary photo taken in Beijing (via Reuters):

Shifting to a little European cycling history, for over a century French onion sellers have been pedaling from Brittany to peddle their produce in the U.K. – before World War II over 1400 “Onion Johnnies” would load up strings of Brittany’s distinct onions from the French countryside and sell them door-to-door in British towns and cities. Flickr user seat2j captured this present-day Onion Johnny in London:

Photographer, writer, and epic bike trekker Gregg Bleakney spent some time a few years ago training with the Colombian national cycling team – you can see several photos from Bogota at Dutch Bike Co. Seattle. The image below is of a little repair shop that popped up along one of Bogota’s many bike lanes. Looking at the couple riding by in the background, “bike commuting” takes on a slightly different form:

Some of Bleakney’s newest work comes from two and a half months on photo assignments in India. This slideshow features some of his shots from the project “Portraits of India on Two Wheels,” inspired from observing delivery cyclists in Mumbai. It contemplates how for  300 million Indians bikes are a necessity for work, but also laments that cycling culture in the city might be lost as cheaper motorcycles are accessible to more people:

City Beautiful: Art as map. Map as Art.

This week’s City Beautiful lets my current urban planner self wax nostalgic with my undergrad art history major self from so long ago – together we’re going to indulge in a little exploration of how cities, photography and geographic information collide into Google Street View. Street View objectively surveys a physical place for us, but the roving mechanical eye can’t help but snap people and the marks they leave on their urban canvas. Let’s look at this from a couple of perspectives: first, how Street View can document art in the process, and then how it can become an art form in and of itself.

Last week was the grand unveiling of  Street Art View, art which is brought to you by the energy drink Red Bull and their Brazilian marketing firm Loducca. Basically it’s a Google map interface that uses crowdsourcing to pinpoint locations in the world where you can check out street art when you’re supposed to be working or studying – I found this one in Rio de Janeiro:

Red Bull empowers you to help create the “world’s largest art collection” with them – it’s a neat idea and fun to look at, but I’m not really buying the art collection spin. Let’s call it what it is – a lot of low-res photos of graffiti used to market fizzy syrup that tastes like strawberry Nerds. It’s also an ironic “collection” given graffiti by nature isn’t particularly collectible, nor does it generally want to be. At any rate, it’s still cool to cruise around Rio’s streets looking at what Brazilian urban outsider artists are painting on walls and buildings.

Shortly before Red Bull declared itself the grand collector of outsider art, Google itself edged into the world of fine art with the Google Art Project. This uses Street View technology to let us “walk” around in the galleries of the world’s finest museums (or those in the U.S. and Europe, anyway). I tried it out and was mostly annoyed, unable to navigate out of the Rijksmuseum’s gift shop. After bailing on Amsterdam I did fly over to Florence and sat on a bench admiring Botticelli’s Venus in the Uffizi:

For the most part Street View is a cold survey of the world, but it can’t help but capture what people in it are doing – artists are virtually walking the streets in search of a decisive moment, but appropriating it from Google.  Sure, this type of work might elicit the “seriously – this is art?” reaction to some, but how is it all that different from traditional street photography? Whether walking or clicking down a street, an artist still combs through mundane scenes in search of composition and expression. After flipping through a lot of these photos, you start noticing something eerily quiet about them. Solitary figures, blurred faces with identities intentionally erased by facial recognition software, some surprisingly painterly, many others depicting unfortunate events. Here are a few.

Michael Wolf is a photojournalist by trade and takes actual photographs of his computer screen with street views on it. He has series from New York and Paris – this one is from Manhattan:

Montreal artist Jon Rafman’s work is probably my favorite – there’s something almost intimate about the scenes he selected from across the globe, many of them gritty social commentaries hearkening back to the hard-boiled street photography of post-war America – drugs, guns, accidents and such:

Doug Rickard’s A New American Picture series is a recent initiative that focuses on crumbling American cities like Detroit and Camden. His selections are mostly quiet, lonely scenes like this one from Fresno, California:

If you know any other artists or projects that are appropriating Google’s appropriation of our cities, please do share in the comments or email me at amy.faust [at] nyu.edu.

Amy