Out of a (post) box
SINGAPORE is counting down to the Youth Olympics Games (YOG). Tickets sales have just been launched on March 31. Whilst this may be regarded by some as a barometer of the nation’s enthusiasm for the inaugural YOG; it seems to me, that some of that enthusiasm and the commitment shown towards it could well be drawn from elsewhere.
Last Sunday morning, I caught a mysterious man donning a hat, standing under a parasol and working with colours and a white rectangular box. He was engrossed in his work under the hot sun on a public street. Several hours later, he was still there. The only difference was that by then, the box had metamorphosed into a colourful treasure chest.
Several hundred metres away in another neighbouring estate in the east coast, I saw yet another young person similarly wrapping up his day’s work by the roadside.
I was with my two young children at that time and explained to them what the young man was doing standing by the postal box (no, I assured them, he was not vandalising public property).
It was only right to show the artist some appreciation. I asked my children to wave to him. We even synchronised a “thumbs up” gesture to encourage him. It put a smile on his face and he waved back.
The moment that passed between the young artist on one side of the road, and my children and I on the opposite side, seemed rather surreal. That simple act of open appreciation for his effort, talent and spirit was akin to an electric transmission between strangers, a dose of magical, glittering sprinkle of the spirit of the YOG.
For the artist, it was a meaningful artistic endeavour – he gets to see his art design – one of the 40 winning entries in the postal box art competition organised by SingPost – come alive on the white post box canvas.
To have various images on the theme of “Sports and the City” brought right into the heartlands and expressed onto the ordinary functionable postal boxes, was part of SingPost’s YOG sponsorship tribute.
For me, I was simply excited to witness the creative and explosively colourful make-over of our everyday snail mail receptacle. I also hope that the transformation makes people think more deeply – and out of the (post) box, no less – of the meaning surrounding the YOG endeavour. It would be heartening for all of us to support it in the right spirit, starting perhaps with the purchase of a ticket or two?