Part of the SEA Virtual Residency and hosted by ISEAA, Yogyakarta-based Indonesian street artist Anagard conducted three workshop sessions with students from various bachelor and diploma programmes at NAFA. Each workshop session began with a physical walkthrough along Waterloo street to explore, examine, and identify historical anecdotes around the locality that could have been forgotten; but that have relevance in deepening ties within a community and a connection to the specific environment. Following this walking exercise, the group reconvened at the seminar room to discuss their findings and photographic documentations, as well as produce a stencil design based on their interpretation of the discussion’s outcome.  

The activities in this workshop provide a platform where both the artist and the student participants can learn and explore their voice as well as communicate their concerns in the public sphere.  Overall, ‘Reimagining Waterloo’ achieves several key outcomes directly accountable to a specific community in society, while addressing lager questions of ethnic and historical identity and the miscibility of cultures in a cosmopolitan environment. It encouraged the participants to contemplate the past, confront the present, and create immediate and eventual futures.