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Motivations for

Walk along a street in a Chinese town or city and you are likely to see numbers stenciled on the walls. Street stenciling in China very much geared towards advertising - 'id cards' - without one a person who has migrated to work in a city might not be covered for health insurance, 'plumbing services', 'coke delivery' - coke for burning, not ingestion. The stencil describes the service and includes a mobile phone number.

Trees stenciled with advertising from Shanghai, above.
Leaves carved from Hawaii, below.

How does the object that is stencilled or defaced affect how the message is perceived?

Writing from Shanghai | April 27, 2006 | Permalink