When we think of a couple’s video diary of their Hong Kong holiday, shots of the Star Ferry and Victoria Peak come to mind… not shaky footage of two graffitists hightailing it out of a train depot as an MTR employee stares, slackjawed, at their handiwork.
In a video which was released yesterday, an American couple known as “Utah and Ether” are seen breaking in to an MTR depot while it’s dark out, painting at least three designs on the trains, and watching citizens routinely ignore them in favour of their phones. Case in point:
Screenshot: The Grifters
The largest piece ironically features the words “crime time” scrawled in fire-engine red on a shiny carriage, punctuated with an alarm clock. You know, in case you forgot what the visual embodiment of time was. So thought-provoking. </sarcasm>
Danielle Bremner (“Utah”) and her boyfriend Jim Clay Harper (“Ether”) have been dubbed – or romanticised, your call – as the “Bonnie and Clyde of graffiti”.
Following some “legal problems” in their native USA (read: jail stints for vandalism, getting banned from an entire city), the couple has been travelling the world for the last five years and “tagging” various subway trains along the way.
Apple Daily reports that the Bremner visited Hong Kong recently, after Harper was arrested for defacing a Melbourne shopfront in May. An MTR Corp. spokesperson said the incident had been reported to the police.
Got a tip? Send it to us at hongkong@coconuts.co
