Thursday, February 15, 2007

Traffic Signal Box Art


The two pictures here are taken alternatively from the intersections of Queen Street and Adelaide Street, and Queen Street and Macrossan Street. The thing both have in common is traffic signal boxes (TSBs) which control the traffic lights. They've been painted! The image of the two diners called Toast was painted by artist John Knap in 2001. He has painted at least eight others. The image of the Story Bridge was painted by artist Justin McLeod in 2001. He two has painted at least seven others.

Artforce is a public art project that gives Brisbane residents the opportunity to turn the city's traffic signal boxes (TSBs) into works of art. Anyone can apply to paint one, although the two rules are:

  • The artist must reside within the City of Brisbane
  • You must get your design approved by Queensland Urban Ecology
On average, artworks last from 6 months to 4 years.

One of the great things I believe a community can do, is to take something which is inherently ugly and turn it into something beautiful. This is one thing which the Brisbane City Council have done very well. All around the city are Traffic Signal Boxes which have been converted from dull, lifeless, grey pieces of visual pollution into fascinating and varied works of art. There are literally hundreds throughout the suburbs of Brisbane, with a significant number in the City itself. The pictures here represent a mere two of these.

Cheers, I Love Brisbane, Wes.

Click Here for the Google Map Reference for this post.

6 comments:

Craig said...

I friend of mine made a project out of trying to photograph as many of these as possible.

Check out his Flickr set.

David J said...

There's also a group on flickr that is devoted to the Traffic Signal Boxes - there are 500-odd photos there.

Craig said...

Nice, I had no idea that existed! I'll pass on the info, thanks :)

David J said...

No worries, craig - BTW flickr has at least 6 active groups dedicated to Brisbane:

Brisbanites
Brisbane Meetup
West End
Valley/New Farm (which I started a few weeks ago)
Brisbane Graffiti
plus the TSB group.

Brisbane is well representing itself on flickr - it's really good to see.

Wes said...

Thanks for the info guys! A nice lot of extra information.

Cheers, Wes.

Pollyanna said...

That is by far the neatest thing I have seen ever, okay, well maybe not EVER, but definately in the top 10! :) You have one cool city there, I gotta say.