By Jasmine Teo

FAR East Plaza's Level One has been transformed into a gallery where youth can exhibit their works of art, design, photography and music under the Noise Singapore Festival Showcase.

More than 1,000 street art murals, videos, songs and photographs are being shown on the ground floor of the shopping mall, with more currently on display in two shop units.

The show is open daily until March 29, from 10am to 9pm on weekdays, and until 10pm on weekends.

Now into its fourth year, Noise Singapore is an arts festival organised by the National Arts Council (NAC) for those below the age of 35.

This year's festival was launched yesterday by Senior Minister of State (Information, Communications and the Arts) Lui Tuck Yew, who put together a puzzle on stage before touring the exhibition.

Youth submitted works of art, graphic designs, photographs and music works in an open category and under The Apprenticeship Programme.

Under the latter, promising participants were matched with professionals in various fields to develop their talents.

A panel of industry professionals from various fields shortlisted the works from both categories. This year's panel of 16 judges included DJ Chew Soo Wei from 98.7 FM, art director Martin Heng from Ogilvy Japan, Straits Times photojournalist Bryan Van Der Beek and Life! music journalist Eddino Abdul Hadi.

They looked at more than 11,000 works submitted by a record number of 2,000 young artists and settled on 1,700 works for the showcase.

Apart from the exhibition at Far East Plaza, this year's showcase will also include free concerts over two weekends at the Esplanade's Outdoor Theatre.

Visit www.noisesingapore.com for more details about the concerts and workshops.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.