Creative Strategies for Hong Kong Community Art in Community Building

Description

Recently, community art activities have been growing remarkably in Hong Kong with funded support. It is believed that community art can “bring arts closer to the people” and “converge cultural identities among local communities” (Hong Kong Arts Development Council). Substantial public resources have already been invested in community art projects. Government funding has been provided to set up and support community art spaces, examples being oi! and Shanghai Street Artspace. Urban Renewal Authority provides funding for projects integrating community arts and culture in the process of urban renewal. However, not all community art projects are popular. Members of the general public have criticized art works that try to be regional landmarks for being ugly (Ming Pao A02). People worried that community art project is a “stalking horse for gentrification” (Cheung). How to make community art acceptable to the community and bring positive change to the community? There has been very little systematic analysis of the nature and impact of Hong Kong community art (Wong 89). Without learning from past successes and failures, it is hard to conceive a long term strategy for the development of community art. To fill this gap in knowledge, this research undertakes a comparative study of four types of community art projects to evaluate how community art in Hong Kong can be used constructively for community building. These four types of projects are organized by artists, activists, social workers and government officials and serve specific communities. Media coverage and reviews of these projects will be collected and analyzed. In-depth interviews with art practitioners, active participants and audience will be conducted. Participant observation methods will be used to examine the efficacy of the projects. This research will compare the creative strategies of these different community art projects since the 1997 handover. Grant Kester’s dialogical aesthetics and Nicolas Bourriaud’s relational aesthetics will be applied to identify similarities and differences. As a “context provider” rather than “content provider” (Kester 76) art form, it is important to examine the community art within its context. This research will identify a set of best practices in community building and develop models of art making which are aligned with community needs. It will contribute to the reading of Hong Kong community art and would provide terms of reference for artists, curators, researchers, critics, funding bodies and policy-makers on the relationship between art and community.