Rather bewildered, travellers and locals alike have been discovering a huge blown up white rabbit all over Singapore. Finding it unique and strange, passer-by’s often stop to take a photograph with it. Called WALTER, this curious colossal bunny is the creation of Dawn Ng, a Singaporean Artist based in France.
Walter was found popping up around Singapore’s standard landscapes of flats, heartland enclaves and famous spots around the island. Often taken for granted, both locals and travellers alike tend to forget Singapore’s rustic charm as the central city develops into a style concious landscape of skyscrapers and modern technology far advanced than most South-East Asian countries.
Courtesy of Marina Bay under the Marina Bay Public Art Programme, an interview with the enigmatic Dawn Ng allowed us to shed some light on the deep meaning of WALTER. Unlike the first thing that comes to mind, Walter is not completely designed for children, instead to bring out the kid in all of us as it forces people in a way to re-examine overlooked and over-familiar spaces by invoking a sense of surprise and wonder. As WALTER popped up around more than a dozen places, curiosity grew and people from all walks of life came out to be photographed with it.
Through her creation, Dawn Ng aims to enable others to discover the extraordinary in their everyday lives. WALTER is Dawn’s response to the city, her home which she feels is being over shadowed with ever growing new apartments, malls and casinos. The old tapestry of flats, zhi char eateries, Hotel 81s and rustic convenience stores that are unapologetically beautiful truly came alive through the emergence of WALTER. Consumed by the hectic rush of the common rat race, WALTER allowed for every day folk to start reminiscing about their childhood and home towns which they once cast aside deep in their memory bank.
WALTER has temporarily made the Marina Bay City Gallery home and will be hosting a series of activites till the end of September. For more information visit the Marina Bay official website. What does WALTER look like? I leave that to you to find out!
Dawn Ng Exposed
With talented and imaginative skills in drawing, painting, cutting, printing, photography, pasting, writing, this 28 year old has spent 8 years across DC, London and New York working for creative shops on brands such as Nike and Levi’s. Her work is reflective of an urge to hijack, subvert and toy with the obvious to surprise people with the truth. Schooled at the School of Fine Art, UCL and Georgetown University and now based in Paris, Dawn has launched numerous shows abroad.
As she takes on commissioned projects with the Singapore Art Museum (SAM), her solo show for WALTER received numerous accolades in 2010 for its controversial guerilla content and form and was thus brought back for SAM’s Children’s Season in 2011.
