Known for its abundant colours and outdoor murals, Kampong Gelam ups the ante with a brand new visitor experience, Southeast Asia’s first official graffiti Hall of Fame. Launching 28 April 2021 on an unprecedented scale, 17 Singapore-based artists will unleash their expression on prominent five-metre tall walls over a collective 230-metre stretch along Bali Lane and Ophir Road.
Spanning a whopping 131 metres along Bali Lane and 107 metres along Ophir Road, the five-metre high Hall of Fame is set to be one of the most prominent street art experiences in the region. Originally erected as noise barriers for ongoing construction works, the metal canvases will become an evolving stage for the best muralists from Singapore and eventually, the world.
Kicking off the production are 16 artists, ranging from established faces to rising names, who have set the bar high for the quality of murals to come. Prolific street artists ANTZ and Didier ‘Jaba’ Mathieu present stand-alone murals on Bali Lane as well as a collaborative piece on Ophir Road with Hegira, Singapore’s pioneering representative to the international street art scene back in 2003.
Ophir Road will also see The Journey, a mashup of the precint’s past and present, and inspired by five of the artist’s personal memories of Kampong Gelam. Artist duo Studio Moonchild depict a child of many cultures, a metaphor for how the traditional and contemporary co-exist uniquely, while Dem imagines artists as ubiquitous flying pigeons, growing and spreading their wings on their own journeys. KILAS and Boon Baked then create a time portal, bringing the four murals together by telling a story of the precinct’s fictional past.
On Bali Lane, view a light-hearted piece from AshD and NOEZ23, who reimagine graffiti artists as contemporary pendekars (martial arts masters) equipped with bright-coloured spray-cans. Has.J’s playful, abstract mural mirrors pedestrians on the street, communicating how we each walk the line in our own unique ways. Full-time tattoo artist Sei10 sprays the environmentally-charged Tamotori Hime (The Pearl Diver), seamlessly marrying Japanese folklore with the precinct’s Batik heritage to tell a story of the state of our current world.
When: 28 Apr - 31 Dec 2021,
By: n/a
