Vennes Cheng
Hong Kong Studies. 2023, 3(2): 2.
This article aims to mediate the fleeting notion of the border of Hong Kong through the lens of contemporary art, the participatory creativity during recent social movements. The subjectivity of Hong Kong, its people often underpins social movements in Hong Kong after 1997, in the past two decades is negotiated in the forms of confrontation, contention on geopolitical, nationalistic, ethnic borders between Hong Kong, the Mainland. The social unrests indicate that nationality, ethnicity may not be the prevailing attribution for devising one’s attachment to a place. The notion of identity, its boundaries are complex orchestrations that involve confounding subjective, variable aspects of humanity, such as emotion, psychological attachment. In this sense, the notion of border is a transient one, whereby Hongkongness is constantly manifested. The works of three Hong Kong artists—Samson Young, Luke Ching, Tang Kwok-hin—illustrate, mediate both the fluidity of multiple assemblages on the boundaries of Hong Kong SAR, the trans-border correlations between Hong Kong, Taiwan. The participatory creativity, namely the Lennon Wall, diverse creativity once spread across the city during the 2014, 2019 protests, also allegorize the diverse, mutated boundaries of individuals that comprise the subjectivity of Hong Kong.
