[i am @ Youth.SG]
It's the sixth round of the Youth.SG blogging festival.

And it has been a whirlwind ride. It's like as though you have been on the MRT train and you are at the station rushing to the destination: the finals.



I used to think why I'm always joining the competition and depriving others of the chance of getting into the winning 11 (not that arcade game but the top 11 of blogs). But heck. I wanna show off to the world that Singaporeans can be creative despite many undefined OB (out-of-bound) markers. After all, I am taking a creative thinking module now.

So what really is creativity? I was taught something about divergent thinking - linking non-related things together - in the first lesson. Last week, our professor Margaret Chan brought us on a field trip (yippee!). We visited the Singapore Art Museum to nurture our creative juices.

Here's the photo edition of my creativity guide.

Creativity is not so much the ability but the style that one has. In the past, rich men engaged artists to paint women that they loved. There were no cameras that time. And when Pablo Picasso was asked to, he evoked his own style. I recall seeing a cubist artwork done by him. It contains drawings of spheres, cones and various shapes. And it has feelings and emotions etched inside. It is also different from say, the Mona Lisa for example.



I guess the next aspect would be perspective - the way you look at a certain thing. Just a simple line of text on a wall can be seen from many directions. Some choose to look from the front, others the bottom and yet others from the side.



If I were to name this piece, I'll call it "converging statements" to make a point.



Colours or the lack of it do bring out the essence of a piece of art. Contrasting colours even better. Perhaps the art teacher would give you points for being creative. Who would ever paint the sky red?



And who would paint the town blue? Usually they say "let's pain the town red". Opposites attract. There's black and white. Yin and yang. Tian (sky) and di (soil). Huo (fire) and shui (water). Boy and girl. North and south poles of a magnet.



Creativity comes in many forms. Visual, interactive and dynamic. Paintings, photos and videos. A song, a poem or a prose.

Since I am supposed to show that I am creative and it is for Youth.SG, I shall attempt to fuse two elemets together - youth and Singapore. Ephraim Loy, 24, a young Singaporean (the official age for youth is up to 35 in Singapore) and his little story on Singapore. Youth+Singapore=Youth.SG Please don't blame me for revisiting history.

In the beginning, way after the arrival of Sir Stamford Raffles in 1819, there was a boy who lived at Kampong Java Road. Number 92. His dad was Lee Chin Koon and his mum Chua Jim Neo.



No one would have thought he would be the great man that he is today. But he did. But certainly, somewhere, somehow, something triggered that spur to succeed. The story of Singapore's first Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew.

And here I present a series of two creative videos. First, the early days - face-off with a Japanese soldier was shot on location at the new National Museum of Singapore.



Those who study Singapore history should know how we became independent accidentaly. The 1962 Merger Referendum of Singapore kicked start the process of accidental independence. SIngapore joined Malaya, Sabah and Sarawak to form the Federation state of Malaysia on 16 September 1963. Two years later, because of ideology conflict of the PAP government and the Kuala Lumpur federal government, we decided to go our own way. This paved the way for Lee Kuan Yew to emerge as Singapore's first Prime Minister. The next video depicts a scene on independence day, 9 August 1965.



In Lee Kuan Yew's memoirs, The Singapore Story, there's a chapter that describes the events that occured on that very day. At close to 6pm, news of Singapore's separation was all over the airwaves. Some may reacall it as 'that tearful scene'.

Lest you think this is some brainwash National Education video, think again. It's supposed to trigger your mind on what we have achieved, how far the road we have travelled and the toil and hard work of our forefathers.

The baseline: whether it's a photo or a video, creativity can certainly exist. In all other forms too.



This post is in conjuction with the Youth.SG blogging festival.

Thought of the day: Perhaps if I get in again this time, I shall launch a major voting campaign. After all, I have been through a General Election.

Read more about the blogging festival on Youth.SG