Damn! Sydney has all the goods this week! We saw this over the weekend but didn’t realise that it had creeped up on us so soon – being the huge supporters of any international crew that decides to visit our shores, we would urge all of you to get along to this this coming Thursday – that makes DRS, Red Bull Wreckers Exhibition and World Speed Bombin all on the same night – you lucky, lucky bastards!

The World Speed Bombing Tour comes straight out of Hong Kong, from the island based collective Start From Zero. Over the years, SFZ have cemented their place as one of the cities most prodigious street artist crews – they’re creative, progressive ,and socially aware, and they do some damn fine work!

“Start from Zero is a street art crew founded in 2001, by the Hong Kong local street artist Dom. It began with a “start from zero” sticker, which is now a symbol of the crew. Apart from stickers, SFZ is also good at …using wheat pastes; stencils to convey messages on streets. There are double meanings for the name “Start From Zero”. The first meaning is about the background and independent spirit. SFZ started quietly on the streets, without any formal art background. Throughout the years the crew had left marks and traces over the decade, simply promote street art wholeheartedly and encourage people to live a different way of life! Moreover, the word “start from zero” can also be a slogan for encouraging people when they are unhappy, down or miserable. By leaving the slogan around, SFZ wants to remind people to keep the faith, in order to overcome and restart no matter what happens. Start From Zero is from the street; working quietly to promote street art culture in Hong Kong.”

The show itself looks pretty damn cool as well, with a whole range of street art inspired artworks up for the viewing – most with a guaranteed message, represented by inspiring, subversive heroines.

“Gaffa is pleased to present ‘World Speed Bombin Tour’ an exhibition by Start from Zero (SFZ). This new body of work captures the uncertainty surrounding the future of artist communities in the industrial areas of Hong Kong.

SFZ has used the landscape of Hong Kong to reflect on what they believe are unjust social, political and cultural issues. In ‘Uprising’, the focus is on the future of Ngau Tau Kok. Just like Fo Tan, Ngau Tau Kok’s industrial space has became a haven for the creative fringe, including artists, musicians, pirate radio stations, tattoo parlours, and honey farm. The huge diversity of creative young talent giving a renewed life to these old warehouses is now under threat from the Government’s very ‘Hong Kong’ unrelenting insistence on ‘revitalization’ through property development. Any irony is lost in the face of profit-seeking.

An admiration and dedication to their fellow radical spirit of neighbours and friends, FM 101, Hidden Agenda and Dirty Boogie, SFZ’s created artworks based on each of these subversive heroines. ‘Uprising’, is the everyday struggle for artistic expression in Hong Kong is vibrantly portrayed through the collaborative efforts of these close-knit communities. The loss to Hong Kong if they are destroyed will be self-evident.”

Get down to Gaffa gallery and see the show, and show some support to the guys in their fight to lessen the erosion of cultural and artistic communities within the rapidly gentrifying zone of Ngau Tau Kok – something that we’re sure many of you in such areas here in Oz can sympathise with.

Seriously, SFZ got it goin on!

Who: Start From Zero
What: World Speed Bombing Tour
Where: Gaffa Gallery, 281 Clarence Street, Sydney, NSW
When: Show opens Thursday 14th July, 6pm til 8pm and runs til 256th July

Check out the SFZ website, as well as their Facebook page, and the Facebook event page!