Interview by William Chan
Macau’s streets, shopfronts and historic buildings are being presented in miniature at ALL GOES TO TINY WORLD – Macao !OUTLOUD Street Art Miniature Exhibition, where graffiti and street art meet detailed scale modelling.
Organised by the Macau Old District Promotion Association and curated by Cassidy Chan, the exhibition brings together more than a dozen artists from the Greater Bay Area (GBA), as well as artists from Costa Rica, Portugal and Thailand. It opened at Macpro Gallery on Avenida da Praia Grande on Friday.
Foshan artist WESTONE has created several miniature architectural scenes for the exhibition, reconstructing the details of historic buildings and urban lanes. The models also provide settings for new graffiti interventions, allowing artists to imagine changes to the city without altering its actual structures.
WESTONE, who has worked with graffiti since 2002, said the project grew from his earlier scanned works and his interest in presenting a city as a central theme. As a Foshan native, he had previously worked with images of the city’s arcades and older streets. The exhibition allowed him to extend that approach to other cities, including Macau.
“I am from Foshan, so I had already made works based on some of the arcades there,” WESTONE said. “I wanted to see how the concept could continue in other cities and how their different characteristics could enter the same project.”
Rather than focusing only on Macau’s best-known landmarks, WESTONE said he is drawn to older buildings, small streets, guesthouses, shopfronts and everyday scenes. From his perspective, Macau’s architectural character comes from the combination of Chinese and Western influences with local life.
The miniature format also creates possibilities that would not be available at full scale. Historic walls and buildings cannot be painted freely, but a model can become a controlled space for experimentation. WESTONE said the format allowed him to place figures and new images on architectural forms while respecting the original sites. “If I want to paint on a historic wall, I cannot simply do that in reality,” he said. “With a miniature version, I can create on the architecture while respecting the actual building.”
Costa Rican artist F. E. W. (Felipe Wong) approaches the exhibition from the perspective of street culture. F. E. W. has lived in Macau for six years, after spending 10 years in Hong Kong. His practice combines digital art, graffiti and art toys, and is informed by community, friendship and local culture.
F. E. W. said Macau has a smaller graffiti community than Hong Kong, but artists continue to collaborate and develop their own ways of telling stories about the city. “In Macau, we are a very small group, but we have been working together for quite a few years to keep this culture alive,” he said. “There are talented people here who can tell interesting stories about local and contemporary culture.”
For F. E. W., graffiti can offer a contemporary way to discuss Chinese and Macau identities. He has previously reinterpreted elements such as lion dance heads through street art, treating tradition as something that can be viewed from a new perspective. “Identity is a fusion of many things,” he said. “We can show Macau culture and Chinese culture through the eyes of contemporary street culture.”
The limited number of walls and public spaces in Macau remains a challenge for graffiti artists. F. E. W. noted that artists need more than a canvas: they need places where they can paint, practise and develop their visual language. “We do not just need a canvas. We need a wall and we need a space,” he said. “Those places define our culture.”
F. E. W.’s work on display at the exhibition, Quinquilharia e Acessórios de Barco Cheong Heng* (祥興五金船具), reflects his interest in fragments and layered identities. He said that people, like old walls, are formed by pieces accumulated over time. “We are not just one single piece,” he said. “As we learn and grow, we add more pieces. Those fragments build our identity.”
By bringing the street indoors and shrinking the city to an intimate scale, the exhibition invites visitors to rediscover Macau’s architecture and the contemporary culture growing around it. “When the buildings became as small as a little kitty, we grew more aware of how precious and fragile they are - and felt a deeper urge to protect them.”
The exhibition is on at Macpro Gallery until 5 December. Opening hours are daily from 2:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m., free admission.
*English translation: Cheong Heng Chandlery and Boat Accessories
Artists WESTONE (left) and F. E. W. share a fist bump at the exhibition on Friday. Photos provided by the organiser
The interior of one miniature resembles the attic of a local building. – Photo: Leong Kit Man
Fragmentos by F. E. W.
Drying Salted Fish by WESTONE
