Photo: natgeeoh/Instagram

In Singapore, Colorful Tape Is Turning Social Distancing Guidelines Into Art

News
by Dayana Aleksandrova Apr 24, 2020

Social distancing guidelines have been strongly recommended just about everywhere in the world to limit the spread of COVID-19, but because we’re all new to the social distancing game, it can be difficult to know exactly how to abide by those rules properly.

To make social distancing guidelines easier to follow, Singapore is taking a visual and artistic approach to keeping people apart for safety. By using colorful tape and geometric shapes, the city marks how far people should stand from each other, where they should avoid sitting, and even provides directions with pops of color.

Instagram account @tape_measures is gathering examples of this fun, educational, and practical way to impose social distancing that is changing the look of the city.

The founder of @tape_measures, Berny Tan (@bernytlm), who started the project “on a whim” one Sunday morning in March, told Matador Network, “Tape has become the main medium of enforcing safe distancing and has inadvertently transformed the urban environment into a series of vernacular graphic interventions.”

Advising citizens to stay at least three and a half feet apart from each other, the tape can be seen at cafes, public spaces, playgrounds, tennis courts, and more.

The social media account is helping raise funds for migrant workers by donating to the COVID-19 Migrant Support Coalition, the Courage Fund, and the TWC2.

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