Friday, March 27, 2009

Graffiti, Graffiti on the Wall

This is the first ever proper graffiti I've seen on Bintulu streets for many years now. This graffiti is done at the back wall of a public toilet ( 'Tandas Awam' in Malay) located at BDA-Shahida commercial shopping centre. Funny I was not perturbed by its presence. Instead I was thinking: What is the creative opportunity here?
Graffiti art is a controversial art category. Some prefer to call it urban vandalism and the person who freely ( 'illegally') spray paints on the city's or in this instance Bintulu town's street walls as guerrilla artists. Graffiti art display strong messages and slogans. Now I'm thinking that since Bintulu's public toilets are without any identity why not the local authority here adopt graffiti art as iconic of Bintulu's public toilets? Surely this would be expressive of the local authority's attempt of painting the town beautiful. If properly done Bintulu's graffiti art could be a tourism product. Well, I'm looking at all the positive angles of this playful, provocative art form though for many quarters it uncomfortably borders on mischievousness and punishable by fine, jail term or canning. Positively, what I'm suggesting here is to adopt graffiti-like art as iconic of Bintulu's public toilets. Graffiti, Graffiti on the Wall, Which is the most creative of them all?

1 comment:

Zuzana said...

I think I can relate to your thinking here; graffiti is still an art form and at times I can stand in awe looking at it, as it is done magnificently and by truly talented people.;)
Hope you are having a lovely Friday and a great weekend.;)