HOPE & GLORY Forum

Date: 14 May 2010
Time: 7 - 9 pm
Venue: HOPE & GLORY, ArtisTree, 1/F Cornwall House, TaiKoo Place, Island East, Hong Kong (MTR: Quarry bay, Exit A)

Re-Generation, De-Generation
(Hosted by the Centre for the Humanities and Medicine, in conjunction with the International Academy for Cultural Leadership at the University of Hong Kong)

Today, East Asia is experiencing rapid and unprecedented urbanization. Art is increasingly being viewed as a 'creative industry' indispensable to tourism and the economy. Within this context, many governments and metropolitan authorities are seeking to promote the Arts and to 'regenerate' urban spaces.

In Re-Generation, De-Generation artists, performers and cultural critics explore the relationship between art, cities and community. In particular, they consider the deep-rooted assumptions that underlie the concept of 'regeneration': namely, that urban spaces are prone to decay and therefore require a counter-process of continual revival. But is this true? What are the implications of cultural interventions in the name of renewal? And what would happen if - in the spirit of Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities - Hong Kong was imagined as a multitude of possible cities which art could help to make visible?

Participants include: Alvis Choi (Videotage), Gray Kocchar Lindgren (University of Washington Bothell and HKU), Ah Kok (HK-based musician), Wallace Chan Ping-Hung (Chinese University of Hong Kong), Cynthia Lee (Dragon Garden Charitable Trust), Joanna Lee (C for Culture and a member of the San Po Kong Creative Industry Concern Group), Horace Tse (Loft Stage) and others.

The HOPE & GLORY forums and related educational programmes were generously supported by a grant from Louis Vuitton.

Details of the other forums can be found here.