Save our planet: Bordalo spent two weeks creating a large sculpture of the critically endangered Sumatran tiger at Gardens By The Bay. — The Straits Times/ANN
AT a luncheon hosted by UBS for delegates of the World Cities Summit at Marina Bay Sands earlier this week, security personnel stopped Artur Bordalo from entering the event hall.
They were convinced the curly-haired man – wearing shorts and a T-shirt which did nothing to conceal his multiple tattoos – was a gatecrasher.
Never mind that he was with Adrian Tan, founder of advertising group Ad Planet.
Tan told the security staff that Bordalo was not only a famous street artist from Portugal who travelled the world to construct giant animal sculptures from trash, but also a special guest speaking on Art and Sustainability at the luncheon.
It took 20 minutes and numerous calls to various parties before Bordalo was at last allowed entry, but not once during the debacle did the 35-year-old lose his cool.
“They were just doing their job,” says the Lisbon-based artist, who spent two weeks last month creating a 10m-by-7m sculpture of the critically endangered Sumatran tiger at Gardens by the Bay.
Using more than 600kg of salvaged trash including car plates, portable loos and a water slide, the piece – the largest upcycled sculpture in Asia – launched Trash-sure, a nationwide campaign by UBS and real estate company Ho Bee Land to provoke conversations on sustainability using art.
Staff of UBS, Ho Bee and Ad Planet, which brought him in, approached various organisations for some of the project materials, while the rest was sourced from recycling company Greenway Environmental.
Bordalo wants to highlight how humans are not just killing animals but also the planet with their greedy, selfish and wasteful behaviour.
“The whole idea is not making beautiful animals out of coloured plastic. I’m making portraits of the victims of all that pollution and contamination,” he said.
To date, he has completed nearly 250 Big Trash animals, sculptures and murals from over 115 tonnes of trash. — The Straits Times/ANN
