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| “Wings of Renewal”, showcased at the Tampines West PAssionArts Festival, was awarded a new entry in the Singapore Book of Records for the largest hand-painted plastic sculpture, measuring 1.0m by 1.3m by 2.0m. (Image Credit: People’s Association – PAssionArts) |
We often think we need to head into town, visit a museum or step inside a gallery to discover art. But sometimes, the stories worth looking at are already sitting right in our own neighbourhoods.
A bird fluttering among the greenery. A familiar landmark we've walked past countless times. An old story behind the name of the place we call home. Even things we might normally throw away!
Well, that's what caught my attention about PAssionArts Festival 2026 this year...
With the theme “Our Neighbourhood Gems”, the festival is encouraging residents to look a little closer at the people, places, nature and stories around them, before turning these everyday inspirations into art together.
Over the weekend of 15 and 16 August, two very different artworks emerged from Tampines West and Telok Blangah. One transformed discarded materials into a colourful sunbird and even found its way into the Singapore Book of Records. The other reached much further back into our history, using traditional batik to retell the legend of Sang Nila Utama.
Different neighbourhoods. Different materials. Different stories.
But both made me think about how much character can exist in places we casually call home.
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| A closer look at “Wings of Renewal”, where flowers, a butterfly and a dragonfly shaped from recycled materials bloom beside the sunbird, at the Tampines West PAssionArts Festival held in conjunction with the Tampines West National Day Carnival 2026. (Image Credit: People’s Association – PAssionArts) |
When Discarded Objects Become a Neighbourhood's Sunbird
Over at Tampines West, residents unveiled “Wings of Renewal”, a two-metre-tall sculpture inspired by Singapore's colourful sunbirds and the greenery surrounding the neighbourhood.
Held in conjunction with the Tampines West National Day Carnival 2026, the community artwork depicts a sunbird perched on a branch beside a blooming flower, accompanied by a butterfly and dragonfly in flight.
Sounds like a pretty garden scene, right? But look closer and things get much more interesting.
Up to 90 per cent of the sculpture was created using recycled materials collected from the community, including bottle caps, clothes hangers, clean plastic bottles, a metal shoe rack and even the steel legs of a chair. Suddenly, the things we might normally consider rubbish have wings.
Plastic bottles were painted and shaped into flowers. Bottle caps became eyes. Clothes hangers became feet. Residents layered individual pieces together to create the sunbird's feathers and decorated the wings of the butterfly and dragonfly.
More than 110 residents participated in two co-creation workshops led by artists from Artz Johan and organised by the Tampines West Community Arts and Culture Club (CACC), Green Action for Communities and Tampines Summerville RN.
And their collective effort eventually earned “Wings of Renewal” a new entry in the Singapore Book of Records for the largest hand-painted plastic sculpture.
That's certainly something to chirp about. 🐦
Why a Sunbird?
According to Mr Avery Hoo, Chairman of the Tampines West Community Arts and Culture Club, seeing sunbirds fluttering around is also an indication of a thriving ecosystem.
As natural pollinators and pest controllers, these little birds contribute to the green spaces around us. The sculpture therefore isn't simply about recreating a beautiful bird. It represents the relationship between the neighbourhood and the nature growing alongside it.
Mr Hoo shared that the sunbird was intended to represent more than Tampines alone, with vibrant greenery reflecting a healthy environment and, in turn, a healthy Singapore.
When more than a hundred residents each paint, shape or contribute one small part to the artwork, no single bottle cap or plastic feather may seem particularly significant. Put all those individual contributions together, however, and suddenly you have a two-metre-tall sunbird.
Perhaps there's a little metaphor for community hiding in there too.
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| Residents painting a 2.8m batik panel, one half of the artwork “In the Beginning”, a 6.5m-long batik artwork detailing the legend of Sang Nila Utama, and celebrating the history of the neighbourhood of Telok Blangah, at the Telok Blangah PAssionArts Festival. (Image Credit: People’s Association – PAssionArts) |
From Tampines' Nature to the Legends of Telok Blangah
The following day, PAssionArts Festival travelled from the natural environment of Tampines West into the history and legends surrounding Telok Blangah.
Instead of plastic bottles and bottle caps, residents here picked up paintbrushes and fabric dye to create massive 6.5-metre-long batik artwork called “In the Beginning”, led by artist Ms Amruthaa of Artz Johan and created in collaboration with the community.
During a three-hour community workshop at the Telok Blangah PAssionArts Festival on 16 August 2026, residents worked alongside the artists to add colour to the first 2.8m by 0.8m batik panel.
Using traditional wax-resist and fabric-dyeing techniques, the two-panel artwork brings together different chapters of Telok Blangah's story, from kampong life to the Singapore we recognise today. And if you grew up hearing the story of Sang Nila Utama spotting a lion and naming our island Singapura, there's something rather nostalgic waiting within it too.
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| (Image Credit: People’s Association – PAssionArts) |
Look Closely and You Might Recognise Your Neighbourhood
Ms Amruthaa explained that Sang Nila Utama is depicted travelling in a djong, a Palembang ship, as he is believed in the legend to have landed around the Telok Blangah area.
But history is only one layer of the artwork.
Telok Blangah is surrounded by some of Singapore's most recognisable green spaces, including Mount Faber, Telok Blangah Hill Park, HortPark, the Southern Ridges and Labrador Park. Nature therefore became another important part of the batik's visual story.
Look around the artwork and you'll find orchids representing Singapore, alongside butterflies inspired by a spot near Telok Blangah Community Club where they are known to gather. Elsewhere, familiar neighbourhood and Singapore icons appear too, including the Henderson Waves bridge, kingfisher birds and modern HDB flats.
It's a beautiful concept where you're looking at different versions of the same place existing together on one canvas: legends, kampongs, nature, landmarks and today's HDB neighbourhood.
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| (Image Credit: People’s Association – PAssionArts) |
Maybe These Are the Real “Neighbourhood Gems”
One neighbourhood turned discarded objects into a symbol of its natural environment.
Another reached into legends, landmarks and memories to paint its story in batik.
Yet perhaps the most interesting part of both artworks isn't the finished pieces at all.
It's the fact that they were made together.
Someone painted a plastic bottle. Someone added colour to a piece of batik. Someone else might have shared a story about the neighbourhood while doing it. Each contribution seems tiny on its own, but together they become something that represents an entire community.
And maybe that's what PAssionArts Festival 2026's “Our Neighbourhood Gems” is really inviting us to discover.
Our neighbourhood gems don't necessarily have to be spectacular attractions or places we'd put on a tourist itinerary. Sometimes they're the birds outside our windows, the greenery along our daily walks, the legends behind familiar names and the memories shared by people who live alongside us.
We just have to notice them.
So perhaps the next time we're walking through our own estate, it's worth looking around a little more closely. There might be a story hiding somewhere we've already passed a hundred times...
