SINGAPORE — An order by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) to erase a cigarette from a Chinatown mural has sparked discussion online about public complaints and the censorship of street art. The mural, which depicts a young samsui woman holding a smoking cigarette, was completed in early April on the exterior of 297 South Bridge Road.
The URA told the landlord that the mural is 'not aligned with Singapore's anti-smoking policy stance'.SINGAPORE — An order by the Urban Redevelopment Authority to erase a cigarette from a Chinatown mural has sparked discussion online about public complaints and the censorship of street art.
The URA in the e-mail requested a "revised proposal" by July 3, and a failure to do so "will be taken into consideration for any application for the renewal" of the building's temporary permit for the restaurant. The said restaurant is Ya Kun Kaya Toast, whose Temporary Permission expires on July 27.
It is well-documented that samsui women smoked cigarettes as a form of recreation after their hard labour and even stored cigarettes under their trademark red headgear. South Bridge Road was where many of these pioneering migrant women from Guangdong province stayed. As to the charge that the woman depicted looked like a prostitute, Dunston dismissed the reaction as "ridiculous". "There are people being offended by everything all the time," he says, adding that the authorities' response to the public complaint had been "knee-jerk".
Ms Phillips also questions if public complaints are given too much weight in censorship decisions. "With the recent cancellation of the Science Centre lecture and now with this, I think about the power of complaint. How is it that different mediums can be censored or silenced because it isn't to someone's taste?"
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