City | 3:00 pm | November 29, 2012 | By

Believe in People strikes again, this time on Yale-NUS

The Elm City’s famous underground graffiti artist “Believe in People” has struck again, this time using his creative expression of free speech — street art — to comment on Yale-NUS, the University’s joint venture to build a liberal arts college with the National University of Singapore.

Believe in People’s latest art can be found in Yale’s steam tunnels that run underneath campus, the New Haven Independent reported yesterday. On an underground brick wall, Believe in People left his rendering of a bright orange road sign with black script reading “Under Construction: Yale-N.U.S.T. ‘Going Lower Than Ever Before,’” and on a nearby concrete wall, a nearly identical sign reads “Yale-N.U.S.T. ‘Freedom of Speech Guaranteed.’”

Not one to beat around the bushes when making a public point — consider his depiction of a student writing “I will only work finance 1 year” in a LC classroom — Believe in People has written a message that appears to poke fun at the ongoing debate about freedom of speech at Yale-NUS.

Some have questioned whether “N.U.S.T.” stands for “National University of Steam Tunnels.”

In a somewhat related tweet from May 31, Believe in People (@BiP_Treehouse) released what can be interpreted as his mission statement for this piece.

“Intelligence and education are pointless without passion and joy,” he Tweeted to his hundreds of followers.

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