Floating Island

Text – I’ve been conducting research on various arts organizations and government policies relating to the arts. I have a lot of material and references, such as the Arts Development Council reports on Hong Kong’s arts and cultural indicators (2005) and its a ten-year review (2006), a policy report from the Culture and Heritage Commission, along with several research projects completed by HKU’s Center for Cultural Policy Research, and a collection of news stories relating to the arts in Hong Kong. Some of the policy material is rather dry, so the challenge will be to write about it in an interesting and concise manner. Over the next week I will draft a series of short pieces for my project, focusing on particular areas of the arts, as well as highlighting key issues over the last ten years.

Graphics - I’m thinking that it may be useful to prepare a timeline showing events in terms of Hong Kong’s policies towards the arts, and it may also be useful to incorporate a calendar of upcoming cultural events planned for the handover.

Photos – I’ve been photographing Hong Kong’s main arts venues, such as museums and performance spaces, as well as some art events, such as ArtWalk. I am also looking for additional photographs of arts events in Hong Kong for which I may be able to obtain copyright permissions.

Interviews – I’ve requested an interview with someone from the HKU Center for Cultural Policy Research, and I’ve arranged to interview the curator from an independent arts organization, Para/Site Art Space next week. I also plan to look for a young artist to interview, possibly a student-artist at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts or a member of the public with some interest in these issues, or a foreign filmmaker who’s doing a scholarly residence in Hong Kong.

Design – In looking for inspiration for my project design, I was impressed by National Gallery of Art’s online tours. The main page of this section is very simple and well organized. Although some of the online tours are very sophisticated in terms of design, others, such as the exploration of ten American art themes, utilizing relatively simple components, such as text essays, images and glossaries to present information in a highly informative way. Clicking on a hyperlink of a name or term in this tour allows a small window to pop-up with a brief definition and image, which keeps the reader from losing focus on the text of the essay.

Perhaps because it’s what I am most used to, I tend to heavily favor the site design of the New York Times’ sections. Taking the Arts section as an example, it features a lead story, with a larger headline and larger photo, several mid-level stories (some with smaller photos), and further down, articles arranged according to subdivisions within the main arts category. Certain multimedia elements, such as audio clips and charts, are linked unobtrusively below the stories to which they refer, while video, blogs and podcasts have their own section about two-thirds of the way down the page.