the eating continues...

after three months of planning, the PAssionArts village came and went. if you didn't get a chance to experience the ongoings of 'Eat Your Art Out!', you can still be a part of the village via the special moments captured by the army of photographers. all the photos (that are not too scandalous!) are either on our facebook page or running on the instagram feed on our blog! if you are a fellow instagrammer, just search for either #kakibukitcac or #artsvillage.

but what a journey and experience it has been to bring this village from concept to execution. nothing is ever perfect and i am probably my own harshest critic: this could have been arranged better, that could have been pushed back. this could have been placed here! 

a picture speaks volumes: colours, sun, sweat, thumbs-up

however, like i told the team running the entire event, you must enjoy your own village and what you are doing. whether it was giving out peanuts to residents for them to eat then prompting them to toss it into our art installation or helping children with their (sometimes messy) cupcake decorations, it has to be an event where the working team has fun memories as well.

'Kopi Kaki Korner' before 'operation'

happy people, happy sandwiches!

i do miss my village. i miss residents walking by, (literally) wondering what was going on thus giving me an opportunity to walk them through the village. i miss the pandan rosette bouquets that residents made and were passing around. (there was a lot of 'i make one for you, okay?') 

i miss little leroy who came to our village around 4.20pm, which was almost our closing time. in conversing with his mum, i realised that they came by to our village specially to take a look. there were no workshops left for him to be a part of, no giveaways for him or no food demonstrations that he could watch except our peanut art installation. 

so i sat him down and taught him how to crack peanuts. it was the first time that little leroy (from horizon primary school... yes, i did ask the usual age and school question) cracked the shells of peanuts. it was also the first time he stepped on peanut shells and heard the shells crackled under his feet. this  encounter made all the late nights, meetings, emails and sweat worth it.

like i wrote in a script recently: a gift from the heart will be a treasure for the generations. 'Eat Your Art Out!' is truly a gift from the hearts of an extensively long list of people but we truly hope that we have created treasures for you and your days ahead.

anyway, before i run off for some kleenex, i would like to encourage you to visit this little application that we have. it's a photo contest that we are running on facebook so do pop by before 19th april 2359 and vote! till our next encounter...

catch the hARTbeat @ kaki bukit!

edwin

no man is an island

the perception that people have towards grassroots work is always interesting. i do enjoy the stunned silence whenever i tell people that i am involved in grassroots work. more often than not, i will get the 'so you are a (ruling party) supporter?' that is when i explain to them that one can be involved in grassroots work and be politically distant but that's not the point of this post. 

i always believe in using available platforms to bring attention to causes or movements that otherwise would be heard but not seen. i'll be sharing two of them with you. the reasons are simple: i'm partnering both for our upcoming arts village and they are causes that i believe in.

the first are the family life champions. we have been raised in a society that sees family as dad, mum, children and the occasional grandparents. however, when i was first introduced to the existence of family life champions, it got me thinking about the true definition of family. with the changing trends of today, what exactly is family? well, the definition of family differs from person to person but one thing is certain. it is the family unit that gives us support and keeps us going. 

some of our FLC giveaways

in order to get everyone thinking about what a family is and what meaningful family life is, we are giving out quite a few premiums with the family life champion logo imprinted on it. not just to remind everyone about the importance of family but also, each individual is a family life champion. it starts with me!

another organisation that is a part of the 'eat your art out' village is about building hope. i get acquainted with this organisation when i was a volunteer years ago. the organisation? SCORE. when you visit our village, you will get a chance to sink your teeth into some food items. well, a large majority of them are from score. just doing my part in bringing prominence to a cause i was once heavily involved in.

i won't go into further details about the mission of score but do take a few seconds to visit their website and feel free to partner them!

catch the hARTbeat @kaki bukit!

edwin

ready for SM action?

ready to whip into action?

i know what you are thinking and i want you to think what you are thinking (haha!) that is the perk that i get to enjoy as a writer: i get to mislead readers without getting into (too much) trouble.

anyway, back to business, i'm going to give you a little glimpse into the action at our upcoming village. this is specific to the activities on 13th april. 12th april is just a movie screening with free snacks but if you are ready for some SM action, 13th april is your day.

taken from social media marketing

by SM, i am talking about social media. yes, it's time to test how well you can 'socialise'. we have made available three platforms:

Taylor Swift: 2.5 million followers

1) instagram: there will be three instagram instant wins. to qualify, it's simple. just turn up at the arts village and snap away. after that, make sure that you add the hashtags #kakibukitcac and #artsvillage to qualify. however those are not the only hashtags you can use. if you want to use 1001 tags, you are most welcomed to do so. when the emcee announces that the instant win is on, you can pick up a prize as long as your picture has at least 50 likes. once a picture has been used, it cannot be recycled. there are no limits to the number of entries BUT you cannot redeem more than one instant win at one moment. this means that once you have claimed a prize, you will have to join the queue AGAIN to claim your subsequent prize.

Justin Timberlake on The Social Network

2) facebook: this is a common one and i like to work within expectations. all you have to do is snap more pictures then load it onto our app on facebook. get as many of your friends to 'like' it as possible. the top five pictures with the most number of votes wins. at this moment, all i can reveal is that the prizes ARE attractive.

once the app goes live, it will be made known via our own facebook page as well as the main kaki bukit fan page so do look out for it.

(update: good news! the app has gone live... here's the link. all the best!)

graphic from celeb-blogger.com

3) blogging: finally, we want to encourage you to blog about us as well. tell us about the entire experience you had at our village. the top blog post will win $50 in vouchers. 

in order to participate, simply turn up at our village on 12th or 13th april and then write a post about us by 20th april. send the link of your post to kakibukitcac@gmail.com, message us on facebook with the link OR tweet the link to us by using #kakibukitcac. only posts which are posted by the admins onto our main page will be considered for the contest.

in conclusion, there are plenty of opportunities for you to try out your social media skills whether it's instagram, facebook or blogging. best part? you get to win prizes along the way, so see you at our PAssionArts Village where we are going to eat your 'art' out!

catch the hARTbeat @ kaki bukit!

edwin

the art of writing

whether i like it or not, the arts village is going to take place in under 10 days! (*scream* *pant* *attacks of every nature*) anyway, no stone has been left unturned (except going to your house and dragging you out of bed to tell you about the event).

the photo campaign is pretty successful. not easy to gather close to 100 shots. we would have gotten more if not for the bad weather during our movie screening last sunday. anyway, here are a couple of them!

check out the full album here...

beyond the photos, there are also a couple of bloggers who have kindly featured us on their blogs as well! here they are...

wild dragon chase, kimchi fairy, anythingalsoeat!

finally, i managed to figure out the twitter widget and can't wait for everyone of you to tweet to us! just make sure that you are not tweeting from a protected account AND add the hashtag #kakibukitcac...

catch the hARTbeat @ kaki bukit!
edwin

eat your art out!

this has to be one of my worst kept secrets EVER!

since the planning of this village started in january, i have been telling everyone i met about it. not to boost of an exciting village but more to get responses and gauge if people will buy my idea of an arts village that revolves around food. i mean, how many of us actually stop to admire the 'artistry' on a bun before we gobble it down? i certainly don't. thus in crafting up this arts village, i had a few objectives in mind.

a) see art in our everyday lives... like earlier mentioned, it's not easy to come up with interesting patterns on your daily pastry or design the frosting of a cupcake. if you think it's easy, just ask my dragonboat team mates who decorate a birthday cake for me! so i really wanted everyone to stop and just see that art can be simple and approachable too!

what do you think? A* for effort!

b) merge the passions of singaporeans! we always talk about how singapore is a food paradise and indeed it is. i love how my local hawker centre is a gourmet haven! hence if you are coming by the village, before you gobble down the food, just pause and appreciate the creativity of the matter.

so that said, here are a few reasons why you should visit MY village! (welcome to my world of shameless marketing... there are a few other villages over the same weekend BUT you don't want to miss out mine!)

1) we are the ONLY food art village. see your food turn into art or art turn into food. doesn't matter which way you prefer... you get the gist of it!

2) giveaways! i am sworn to secrecy with regards to the exact timings that we are distributing freebies but we have some interesting (and useable) items to give you. however, if you prefer the traditional pens and fans, i promise to not disappoint...

3) social media... while i like to create buzz in real life, being modern and contemporary is my mantra too. thus if you think you are big, huge or gigantic on social media, do turn up at our village to take the social media challenge OR follow our facebook page closely to be in the know of the contests that we are running.

4) community giveback... one of my guiding principles in grassroots work has always been to use the platform to bring awareness to causes amongst us that sometimes go unnoticed. for my arts village, a significant part of the food featured comes from score. you can click here to find out more about the good work that they are doing.

all in all, the village is a couple of weeks away. the stress is mounting but i'm looking forward to it because it's been an exciting three months for the team behind this entire project!

in case you missed out the earlier banner!

catch the hARTbeat @ kaki bukit!

edwin

ps: while i write the post in first person, the journey to completion is a collective effort between kaki bukit cac and eunos cac. just so that i have something to write about after the event, i will name the people behind the scenes in another post.