Part 1: Arts in Hong Kong
West Kowloon Neighbourhood
Sitting on the Kowloon peninsula, the West Kowloon neighbourhood embodies the rich offerings of traditional local culture and world-class arts. The local communities of Jordan and Yau Ma Tei are home to a vast range of trendsetting arts, traditional craftsmanship and the amalgamation of such traditions and innovations – the perfect showcase of the ceaseless creativity of local talents. On the Victoria Harbour waterfront, the West Kowloon Cultural District (WKCD) boasts one of the largest and most ambitious cultural projects in the world. M+ and Hong Kong Palace Museums are the latest openings that will draw global attention to its world-class offerings of local and international arts.
World-Class Arts Museums
M+
M+ is one of the largest museums of modern and contemporary visual culture in the world and Asia’s first global museum of contemporary visual culture. Opened in last November, it presents around 1,500 works drawn from the M+ Collections in the 17,000 square metre exhibition space that spans 33 exhibition halls and other display spaces in the museum. The M+ building is among Hong Kong’s most iconic landmarks and the newest must-visit attraction, with its 65 metre M+ Facade visible from the Hong Kong Island.
Meet the M+ Team
Suhanya Raffel
Suhanya Raffel is the Museum Director at M+. She leads M+ as a whole and oversees all museum activities, including acquisitions, programming, collections care, development, research, institutional collaborations, and museum operations. She has led the museum’s mission, broadening its international reach and championing its deep connection with its local community.
Doryun Chong
Doryun Chong is the Deputy Director, Curatorial, and Chief Curator at M+. He oversees all curatorial activities and programmes at M+, including acquisitions, exhibitions, learning and public programmes, and digital initiatives. He has led the transformative growth of the M+ Collections and steered the curatorial direction and pedagogical practices of the museum’s exhibitions and programmes to foreground the transcultural and transnational narratives of twentieth- and twenty-first-century visual culture.
Silke Schmickl
Silke Schmickl is the Lead Curator, Moving Image at M+. She was previously curator at the National Gallery Singapore, the Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore, and the co-founding director of Lowave, a Paris based curatorial platform and publishing house for artists’ moving images. She has initiated and directed numerous art and film projects dedicated to emerging art scenes in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, has led commissions with leading contemporary artists, and has curated exhibitions internationally.
Hong Kong Palace Museum
The Hong Kong Palace Museum aspires to become one of the world’s leading cultural institutions committed to the study and appreciation of Chinese art and culture, while advancing dialogue among world civilisations through international partnerships. Embracing new curatorial approaches, it will offer a Hong Kong perspective and a global vision, presenting the finest objects from the Palace Museum and other important cultural institutions around the world.
Meet the Hong Kong Palace Museum Representative
Daisy Wang
Daisy Yiyou Wang is the Deputy Director of the Hong Kong Palace Museum. She is responsible for the museum’s exhibition, research, collection, publication, learning and public engagement programmes. She has contributed to a dozen Chinese, Japanese, and Korean art exhibition projects. With Jan Stuart, Wang co-curated the exhibition ‘Empresses of China’s Forbidden City’ and co-edited the publication, which was merited with the Smithsonian Secretary’s Research Prize in 2019. This exhibition was named ‘the Best Thematic/Historical Show’ in 2018 by the Boston Globe and ‘the Most Influential International Exhibition from Chinese Museums’ in 2019 by the China Art Exhibition Center. A specialist of the history of collecting, lacquer, Qing imperial portraiture, and the history of photography in China, Wang has published internationally.
Arts & Culture in the Neighbourhood
Tung Nam Lou
Tung Nam Lou is a heritage building converted into a boutique art hotel in Yau Ma Tei. It was once a neighbourhood seafood restaurant before transforming into an office building and finally into a hotel that celebrates arts and local culture. The trendsetting experiential art fill all the senses of visitors in unimagined ways. By getting a better understanding of the local creative minds, everyone can take active part in feeling and creating art on their own.
Sindart
A store that sells traditional embroidered shoes since 1958, Sindart has breathed new life to the traditional Chinese footwear. Miru Wong, the third-generation owner, inherits the delicate skills of embroidery from her grandfather and continues to add new spins to these silk-brocade slippers. The non-traditional motifs and patterns, as well as new footwear such as flats and heels on top of the traditional slippers, prove to be a popular hit with the younger generation.
Biu Kee Mahjong
Uncle King at Biu Kee Mahjong is one of the masters who still hand-carve mahjong tiles in Hong Kong. The game of mahjong is deeply rooted in Chinese tradition, traditionally played at family gatherings and during important festivals like Chinese New Year. True master of the craft for over 5 decades, Uncle King deftly etch symbols and numbers onto the smooth faces of the bare tiles, before bringing them to life with colours. He also makes custom tiles that can bear anything from names to cartoon characters.
