Floating Island

Teaser

Hong Kong – city of skyscrapers and shopping center, whose well-being depends on finance and property. Arts and culture do not immediately come to mind when thinking of this modern metropolis. Yet as the city’s government aims to promote Hong Kong as “Asia’a World City,” it has become apparent that an appreciation of the arts must take on a greater role in the urban fabric.

Cultural Policy 10 Years After the Handover

The Hong Kong Cultural Centre

Under colonial rule, Hong Kong’s cultural policy under colonial rule has been described as lax and scattered. Indeed, one could say that the current stereotype of Hong Kong as a cultural desert is a legacy of the colonial age.

The administration of arts and culture in Hong Kong has undergone major changes since Hong Kong’s handover to China in 1997. Cultural matters, previously under the auspices of the two Municipal Councils, are now administered by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department (LCSD) and the Arts and Development Council. An official version of the government’s cultural policy statement can be found on the website of the Home Affairs Bureau.

The Arts Development Council is a statutory body founded in 1995 and replaces the former Council of Performing Arts. The Arts Development Council is responsible for promoting broad development of the arts, making recommendations to the government on cultural policy and providing funding for cultural organizations.

“The role of the Arts Development Council is to act as a sort of buffer between the government and arts organizations,” said Tobias Berger, Curator of Para/Site Art Space, a visual arts non-profit. The Arts Development Counsil has also been criticized for lacking the necessary power and resources to implement policies directly, further hindering the promotion of cultural activities in the territory.

The LCSD organizes a more limited array of artistic and cultural activities, but it is primarily responsible for managing a number of cultural facilities (as well as recreation facilities such as swimming pools and beaches). The LCSD supervises the operation of 15 performance venues and 16 museums in Hong Kong. Another increasingly important part of the LCSD is the Antiquities and Monuments Office, which is responsible for heritage conservation and education in Hong Kong.Hong Kong’s government is reknowned for establishing consultation bodies to tackle social and political issues.

Wanchai’s Foo Tak Building, an organic arts and media hub

In April 2000, the Culture and Heritage Commission was established to advise on cultural policy and funding priorities. Three years later, the Culture Heritage Commission issued its Policy Recommendation Report, which proposed six general principles to guide Hong Kong’s cultural policy: “people-oriented”, “pluralism”, “freedom of expression and protection of intellectual property”, “holistic approach”, “partnership” and “community-driven.” These principles were adopted by the Hong Kong government as part of its official cultural policy. But after a few years of operation in the early part of this century, the Cultural Heritage Commission was dissolved.

A Dream Deferred: The West Kowloon Cultural District

A model for the arts? Photo courtesy of Simon Shek and Wikimedia Commons

Government efforts to impose a top-down approach to cultural policy development met a disastrous fate with the failure of the West Kowloon Cultural District. The ambitious project, covering a 40-hectare section of reclaimed land, was initially proposed on a smaller scale in 1998, early in Tung Chee-hwa’s tenure as Chief Executive, to provide additional performance venues, expanded cultural facilities and a boost for tourism.

The project aimed to add three theaters, four museums, a 10,000-seat performance venue and an exhibition hall. The winning design, by Sir Norman Foster, was to include an extravagant giant canopy, the world’s largest.

However, plans for the development stalled in the aftermath of the dot-com crash and SARS, when the Hong Kong government was in deficit mode. The government sought to create incentives for large developers to build the project, estimated to cost US $3 billion, by cutting land premiums and granting operation rights to a single developer or consortium for 30 years. Up to 70 percent of the gross floor area would be allocated to profit-making uses, such as office space, apartments and shops.

But small developers complained that the proposal shut them out, while architects, artists and academics feared that the project lacked a clear cultural vision and that the area would end up as a “developer’s colony” or property development in disguise. Opposition legislators claimed that the winning developer would stand to make up to US $12 billion profit from the development and decried the lack of transparency in the executive’s decisionmaking process. Lord Foster’s canopy was also criticized because the government cited it as a justification for the single-developer plan. It was also called impractical and experts feared it would present technical problems over the long term.

To offset the criticisms, which grew increasingly vocal during 2005, the government implemented a public consultation period of six months and ultimately scrapped the single-developer plan. Instead, the government proposed bringing in a majority developer with a 65 percent stake, who would fund a US $3.6 billion trust for operation of the arts and cultural facilities by a separate statutory body, while smaller developers would be able to join in developing 35 percent of the site. In January 2006, the three short-listed developers balked at the revised plan, calling it commercially unfeasible, and the entire project was sent back to the drawing board.

In April 2006 the government appointed a Consultative Committee on the Core Arts and Cultural Facilities to rethink the West Kowloon Cultural District, with three advisory groups to deal with performing arts and tourism, financing, and museums. The museums advisory group’s latest plan, called M+ (for “museum plus”), would provide an interdisciplinary platform for visual arts, conceived broadly to include diverse elements such as design, architecture, video and popular culture.

Policy considerations should remain fundamental to the new project. “At the moment the M+ concept is very much built on idea of having very good people to develop content, and at the moment we don’t do enough to educate people,” said Tobias Berger. “In the end it’s really about the people who run it.”

“But at this stage we need it so badly they should just build it,” he said.

Hong Kong Museum of Art

The Search for Identity: Hong Kong and the Motherland

The role of art and culture in Hong Kong has taken on increasing prominence in city’s search for an identity in the ten years since the People’s Republic of China resumed sovereignty over the territory. The limits on democracy in post-colonial Hong Kong may lead more residents to seek expression or confirmation of their identities through arts and culture, according to David Clarke, a leading historian of Hong Kong’s culture.

One might expect to see greater interaction on arts and culture between Hong Kong and the mainland in the decade since the handover. Yet observers find that this is not the case. Tobias Berger of Para/Site finds it puzzling that there are so few connections between Hong Kong and the neighboring cities of Guangzhou, Macao and Shenzhen. Berger seeks to develop greater integration by showcasing artists from around the Pearl River Delta region, yet he says that doing so opens him to criticism that he is ignoring local talent.

“For me to include other things is not to put another culture down– its more to redefine this culture and to redefine one’s self awareness of what’s going on,” said Berger. “Hong Kong is like an island, it has to find its own new identity.”

Looking out for the future of Hong Kong art

Berger finds that nowadays there are fewer Hong Kong artists dealing with issues of identity than during the period surrounding the 1997 handover, though in recent months he has witnessed some changes. “Demonstrations for the Star Ferry are a very good indicator of people’s understanding of culture,” he said. “Now there are other interest groups and it is becoming more like a civil society.”

Artist Robert Iolini has been working in Hong Kong for several months on various sound and video projects. He finds that Hong Kongers involved in the arts are generally surprised that he—an outsider—is interested in them. “My impression is that people think that no one is really interested in Hong Kong.” Iolini says that Hong Kong artists should capitalize on the world’s interest in China. “There’s not a lot of interaction between Hong Kong and the rest of the world,” he noted.

Iolini, whose work explores the impact of popular culture in Hong Kong (such as shopping centers and Japanese influences) also challenges the equation of culture with art. “Hong Kong has culture, it’s just a different kind of culture.”

The Spectacle of Reunification: Handover Celebrations Past and Present

Over 170 celebratory activities were staged in June and early July of 1997 to mark the handover, including a three-week football tournament, an epic play about the handover, and a Reunification Gala in the 25,000-seat Victoria Stadium. Although the handover was certainly a once-in-a-lifetime event, the Chinese penchant for marking major anniversaries with lavish celebrations promises to be back in action for the upcoming tenth anniversary.

Cover of the 10th anniversary celebration calendar, courtesy of the government of Hong Kong SAR

Last month the government announced that over 450 activities would be held to celebrate the Special Administrative Region’s tenth birthday in celebration spanning nine months. The tenth anniversary celebration budget of HK $90 million exceeds the HK $70 million budget for the 1997 events. However, this year’s celebrations apparently encompass events that would have been held in any given year, such as the Cheung Chau Bun Festival and the International Arts Carnival.

Not all of these events are related to arts and culture. Sporting events, the commissioning of infrastructure projects, and a forum on the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement are all part of the festivities too.

So far, the event that has garnered the most attention has been the arrival of a new pair of pandas from the mainland. The pandas, named Lele and Yingying through a panda-naming contest, arrived in Hong Kong last week, though they will be kept in seclusion until July 1, when they make their public debut at Ocean Park.

Sound and video artist Robert Iolini was inspired by the handover anniversary to come and work in Hong Kong for an extended period. In 1997, Iolini collaborated with anthropologist Philip Ma on Hong Kong: City in Between, an audio work that was broadcast in Australia and Europe. Ten years later, he is preparing a series of follow-up works that will complement the 1997 piece.

Yet Iolini finds that few local artists are commemorating the anniversary in a similar way. “I haven’t come across anyone who’s doing work relating to the anniversary,” he said. “Most people I talk to— artists and activists— are very cynical.”

Resources

Government Departments and Institutions:
Central Policy Unit http://www.cpu.gov.hk
Home Affairs Bureau http://www.hab.gov.hk
Hong Kong Arts Development Council http://www.hkadc.org.hk/en/
Leisure and Cultural Services Department http://www.lcsd.gov.hk
Antiquities and Monuments Office http://www.lcsd.gov.hk/CE/Museum/Monument/

Research Organizations:
Centre for Cultural Policy Research http://ccpr.hku.hk/

Educational Institutions:
Hong Kong Academy for the Performing Arts http://www.hkapa.edu/
Hong Kong School of Creativity http://www.hk-icc.org/hksc/eng/index.php
Hong Kong Art School http://www.hkac.org.hk/hkac_hkas_en.html

Non-profits:
Hong Kong Institute of Contemporary Culture http://www.hk-icc.org/
Para/Site Art Space http://www.para-site.org.hk/
Artist Commune http://www.artist-commune.com/
Hong Kong Arts Centre http://www.hkac.org.hk/
Asia Art Archive http://www.aaa.org.hk/index.html
1a space http://www.oneaspace.org.hk/
Ying e chi http://www.yec.com/
Zuni Icosahedron http://www.zuni.org.hk/
Videotage http://www.videotage.org.hk/
Videopower http://www.videopower.org.hk/index.htm

Museums:
Hong Kong Film Archive http://www.lcsd.gov.hk/CE/CulturalService/HKFA/english/eindex.html
Hong Kong Heritage Museum http://www.heritagemuseum.gov.hk/
Hong Kong Museum of History http://www.lcsd.gov.hk/CE/Museum/History/index.php
University of Hong Kong Univerisity Museum and Gallery http://www.hku.hk/hkumag/main.html
Hong Kong Museum of Art http://www.lcsd.gov.hk/CE/Museum/Arts/index.htm

Performance and Exhibition Venues:
Hong Kong Fringe Club http://www.hkfringe.com.hk/english/index_eng.asp
Shanghai Street Artspace Exhibition Hall, 404 Shanghai Street, Yaumatei 2770 2157

Performing Arts:
Chung Ying Theatre Company http://www.chungying.com/chi-html/
Hong Kong Repertory Theatre http://www.hkrep.com/english/index/index.html
Hong Kong Ballet http://www.hkballet.com/eng/index.html
Hong Kong Dance Company http://www.hkdance.com/
DanceArt http://www.danceart.com.hk/english/danceart.asp
City Contemporary Dance Company and Contemporary Dance Centre http://www.ccdc.com.hk/2007/
Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra http://www.hkco.org/index_tc.asp
Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra http://www.hkpo.com/eng/index.php
Hong Kong Sinofonietta http://www.hksl.org/content.html
City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong http://www.ccohk.com/
Opera Hong Kong http://www.operahongkong.org/
Jingkun Theatre http://www.jingkun.org.hk/#