Saturday, January 17, 2009

021_politicalisation of urban space


Bangkok was about to have an election for its new governor during my last trip back home. As a norm, the city was flooded with posters and billboards showing the candidates’ pictures and their supposedly sweet and promising slogans. A candidate could have his propaganda tools as close as a few metres away from each other. It is really phenomenal. The posters are parasitic by their nature. To save cost, they made use of any available vertical urban element as structural support. After each election, good-quality billboards are usually transformed into building materials for the poor in slums. Imagine how nice to have their faces on the bedroom walls and how creepy to have them in the bathroom... Especially, one of the candidates for this election is a popular good-looking local star. I’m quite certain his billboards would be well sought after. (He’s not the guy in the photo though.)

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