"Sticker Lady" saga (2012)

For more information on the artist, see Samantha Lo .

On 17 May 2012, Singaporean contemporary artist Samantha Lo and graffiti artist Anthony Chong committed "acts of mischief" by illegally pasting stickers on traffic light control buttons and spray painting public property. Their arrest generated online debate on whether street art should be considered as acts of vandalism.

Details of incident

Screen grab from a Straits Times article featuring her graffiti work on Realty Building (left), her signature circular stickers and 'My Grandfather Road' stencil (right). Photo from SgHardtruth.

On 16 May 2012, Samantha Lo ‘SKL0’ reportedly contacted Anthony Chong ‘ANTZ’ to ask for his company in spray painting public property around the Central Business District (CBD) area. The next day, she brought the necessary equipment to Chong’s office. At Telegraph Street, Maxwell Road and Robinson Road, Lo spray painted ‘My Grandfather Road’, a Singlish phrase which is used to criticise road hogging or bad driving. At Enggor Street, she also spray painted ‘My Grandfather Building’ on the exterior wall the Realty Centre building. She also stuck stickers with the message ‘Stop Looking At Your Phone’ on the pavement of a pedestrian walkway. Anthony Chong acted as a lookout while she was committing the acts. Anthony Chong also placed an adhesive sticker on a pedestrian sign along Robinson Road. The sticker had the words ‘So Kancheong For What’, a Singlish phrase to urge pedestrians to exercise more patience and obey traffic laws.

Samantha Lo was arrested by authorities on 3 June 2012, and Anthony Chong was arrested at Changi Airport on 11 June 2012. Lo's history of pasting her personally designed circular stickers which contain witty messages on public property around Singapore dates back to November 2011.

Public responses

A sticker in Samantha Lo's signature style pasted anonymously on a traffic light control button in support of her acts. Photo from Cheryl Miles.

Netizens who have commented on the incident presented mixed views towards the issue. Some supported the duo’s actions, stating that their intentions were not malicious and the acts were meant to be funny and creative. A petition titled ‘Review sentence of SKL0; Arts Censorship in SG’ (official petition page) was started by user Nicole Lee on the website Change.org. The petition had since closed and garnered a total of 15,164 signatures. The hashtag #freestickerlady also trended on social media site Twitter, following the news of her arrest.

However, there were some who did not condone the duo's behaviour. Some individuals voiced that their work had ultimately defaced public property, and hence their actions constituted as vandalism. Those who had this view belonged to a smaller majority, according a week-long Yahoo! Poll, which had 15% of respondents deeming the duo’s actions as vandalism. 46% voted that their work should be considered as ‘street art’, and 39% felt that their work was indeed creative, but should not have been put up on public property illegally.

Court charges and sentencing

On 26 March 2013, the court officially charged Samantha Lo and Anthony Chong for their offences. Their charges had been altered from the initial charges of vandalism to lighter charges of mischief. This alteration was made after the court took into consideration various factors, including the letter of appeal that had been written by Law and Foreign Affairs Minister K Shanmugam on behalf of the duo after he had met them personally in 2012. According to the media release from the Attorney General's Chambers, their final charges were as such:

Samantha Lo

• 1 count of mischief done in furtherance of the common intention with Anthony Chong under section 426 read with section 34 of the Penal Code
• 1 count of mischief causing loss upwards of SGD$500 under section 427 of the Penal Code
• 13 charges of mischief under section 426 of the Penal Code

Anthony Chong

• 1 count of mischief done in furtherance of the common intention with Samantha Lo under section 426 read with section 34 of the Penal Code
• 1 count of abetting Samantha Lo to commit an offence of mischief causing loss upwards of $500 under section 427 read with section 109 of the Penal Code
• 6 counts of abetting Samantha Lo to commit an offence of mischief under section 426 read with section 109 of the Penal Code

On 8 May 2013, Samantha Lo and Anthony Chong were sentenced by the court. Lo and Chong were sentenced to 240 hours and 160 hours of community respectively. The two were also sentenced to a Day Reporting Order for the duration of 3 months. Both of them also had to pay for the restoration of the public property they had defaced to their original state. The total cost of their acts of mischief amounted to SGD$7,610.

Follow-up exhibitions

For more information on the artist, see Samantha Lo (The Sticker Lady).

The words 'My Grandfather Road' written in chalk on Circular Road in 2016. Photo credit to Singapore Art & Gallery Guide (SAGG).

Singapore River Festival: My Grandfather Road (2016)

On 5 November 2016, Samantha Lo used chalk to spell out the words ‘My Grandfather Road’ on Circular Road as part of an event titled ‘Circular Spectacular’ as part of the Singapore River Festival 2016. This piece was a recreation of the incident that got her into trouble with the authorities in 2012, but she had all the necessary permits to undertake the task legally this time around. The project took her 12 hours to execute and stretched across 170 metres of the road.

‘Greetings from Singapore’ exhibition and book (2017)

Samantha Lo had her solo exhibition at One East Asia gallery. Her book launch was on 10 January 2017, and the exhibition was open to the public from 10 January 2017 to 31 January 2017. The exhibition was part of Singapore Art Week, a joint initiative by the National Arts Council, Singapore Tourism Board and the Singapore Economic Development Board. Lo also hosted a talk at the gallery on 18 January 2017. The exhibition complemented her book which contained a series of postcards featuring her art pieces that can be torn out, as well as a sticker sheet containing her famous traffic light control button stickers. The book was published by local bookstore BooksActually.