CULTURAL
EXCHANGES
The LCSD’s arts managers, curators and librarians regularly attend international conferences and festivals to keep abreast of new developments in arts and culture, and to scout for quality programmes for presentation in Hong Kong.
In 2016-17, overseas exchange programmes and international conferences organised by the LCSD or attended by representatives of the LCSD included the International Forum on Museum Renovation Projects, To the Seas and Beyond: An International Conference on the History of the Maritime Silk Road, the 18th China Shanghai International Arts Festival (the Mainland); the Annual Conference 2016 of the Association of Asia Pacific Performing Arts Centres, the Annual General Meeting of the Association of Asian Performing Arts Festivals in Adelaide, and the Melbourne Festival (Australia); the London International Mime Festival, the Edinburgh International Festival, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and the Imaginate Festival in Scotland (UK); the Spring Festival 2016 in Copenhagen (Denmark); Cinekid Film, Television and Digital Media Festival for children (The Netherlands); the 20th Southeast Asia-Pacific Audiovisual Archive Association Conference (Guam); the Fall for Dance Festival in New York (US); the 72nd International Federation of Film Archives Congress in Bologna (Italy); The Future of the Past Conference in Seoul (Korea); the 2016 International Conference of Cultural Policy Research in Seoul (Korea); Atelier for Young Festival Managers in Chiang Mai (Thailand); the 11th Conference on Cooperative Development and Sharing of Chinese Resources (Macao); the OCLC Asia Pacific Regional Council Meeting 2016 (Hong Kong); and the 6th Hong Kong-Taiwan Cultural Co-operation Forum (Taiwan).
The Music Office organises music exchange concerts for visiting youth music groups from around the world, and sends its advanced level orchestras, bands, and choirs on concert tours. In 2016, the National Junior College String Orchestra (Singapore), the All-American Boys Chorus (USA), the Teck Ghee Primary School Choir (Singapore) and the Christ Church Secondary School Choir (Singapore) visited Hong Kong and took part in music exchange programmes arranged by the Music Office. In August 2016, the Music Office Youth Choir participated for the first time in the Singapore International Choral Festival 2016 and won Gold Awards in the Equal Voices (aged 25 and below category), Mixed Voices (aged 25 and below category) and Musica Sacra (open category) in the competition. In December 2016, the Hong Kong Youth Chinese Orchestra of the Music Office performed in Shanghai, and participated in music exchange activities in Shenyang.
In September and October 2016, the Art Promotion Office (APO) of the LCSD joined hands with the Centre for Applied Computing and Interactive Media of City University of Hong Kong in co-ordinating the Hong Kong – Macau Visual Art Biennale. This event has been hosted by the Ministry of Culture since 2008, and is designed to promote art and cultural exchange among the cities. This year, the biennale was staged at the Beijing Minsheng Art Museum, after which it toured to Dunhuang in Gansu Province as part of the first Silk Road (Dunhuang) International Cultural Expo, later moving on to the Henan Art Museum in Zhengzhou. With the theme ‘Interactive Times’, the Hong Kong exhibition featured new media works by nine Hong Kong artists exploring the significance of ‘interaction’ in the modern world.
In October and November 2016, two prominent arts festivals collaborated to share work. Under the collaboration, New Vision Arts Festival brought Hong Kong artist Ivanhoe Lam’s ArtSnap work titled Pretext Quartet to the China Shanghai International Arts Festival, while this latter festival offered Sever, part of its R.A.W! Land programme, to ArtSnap.
In December 2016, the Hong Kong Youth Strings of the Music Office was invited to give a joint performance with the Macao Youth Symphony Orchestra at St. Dominic’s Church in Macao. In the same month, the Hong Kong Youth Chinese Orchestra of the Music Office went on a music exchange tour in Shanghai and Shenyang.
The 17th edition of the annual Greater Pearl River Delta (GPRD) Cultural Co-operation Meeting, jointly presented by the Home Affairs Bureau of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, the Department of Culture of Guangdong Province, and the Cultural Affairs Bureau of the Macao Special Administrative Region, was hosted in Macao in May 2016. The two-day meeting saw participants discuss a number of important topics and trends in the world of culture and the arts.
Major performing arts initiatives held under the GPRD Cultural Co-operation framework included the annual Cantonese Opera Day in November 2016, and Magicrobatics, a programme of the International Arts Carnival 2016 that featured magicians and acrobats from Guangdong, Macao, Taiwan and Hong Kong.
Themed around Conservation of Stone Relics and Built Heritage, the first GPRD Conservation Workshop was begun in Hong Kong on November 25, 2016 and completed in Guangzhou on December 1, 2016. The seven-day workshop, designed to facilitate professional development and technological exchange between Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, placed 14 trainees from various GPRD cultural institutions under the mentorship of specialists from the three regions. The trainees enjoyed classroom teaching, experience sharing, demonstrations, group discussions and field trips in Hong Kong, Macao and Guangdong.
The year included a number of museum and exhibition collaborations. One was the exhibition Commentary x Humour = Cartoons before and after the 1911 Revolution, held at the Dr Sun Yat-sen Museum from June to October 2016, and organised in collaboration with the Memorial Museum of 1911 Revolution. The exhibition From Son of Heaven to Commoner: Puyi, the Last Emperor of China which ran at the Hong Kong Museum of Coastal Defence from August 2016 to February 2017 was organised in collaboration with the Museum of Imperial Palace of Manchu State. Another collaboration was the exhibition Across the Oceans: the Local Connections and Global Dimensions of China’s Maritime Silk Road, jointly organised with Art Exhibitions China, Ningbo Museum and various cultural organisations of Mainland China and run at the Hong Kong Museum of History from October to December 2016. Finally, the exhibition A Visionary Thinker: Dr Sun Yat-sen and His Blueprint for Economic Development was jointly organised by the Dr Sun Yat-sen Museum and Guangdong Museum of Revolutionary History, and ran from November 2016 to February 2017.
On the library front, GPRD cultural co-operation initiatives held in 2016-17 included a creative writing competition jointly organised by the Hong Kong Public Libraries (HKPL), the Macao Public Library, the Sun Yat-sen Library of Guangdong Province, the Shenzhen Library and the Shenzhen Children’s Library on the theme Healthy Body ‧ Healthy Mind. This was in celebration of 4.23 World Book Day. Winning entries were put on display in the libraries of the three regions.
The fifth edition of Hong Kong Week in Taipei, presented by the Hong Kong–Taiwan Cultural Co-operation Committee, was held from November 11 to December 10, 2016. With Masters & Talents-in-Bloom as its central theme, the event featured a total of seven programmes in various arts and creative disciplines capturing the spirit of Hong Kong culture, and held at major exhibition and performance venues in Taipei. Along with 12 extension activities, they attracted over 24 000 visitors.
The 2016 edition opened with two exhibitions, UNZIP Creativity Hong Kong Fashion in Taipei 2016, and Reminiscences: Life in Hong Kong’s Built Heritage. These were followed by five performing arts programmes, including Voices of Cantonese Narrative Music by Yuen Siu-fai & Windpipe Chinese Music, the Hong Kong Sinfonietta Debut in Taiwan: Ethereal Is the Moon, an a cappella theatre performance titled Our Immortal Cantata by the Yat Po Singers, a dance performance titled Boy Story • Reborn by Unlock Dancing Plaza, and Shining Together, Hong Kong & Taiwan – Cantonese, Peking and Kunqu Opera Extravaganza, jointly performed by the Young Academy Cantonese Opera Troupe and the GuoGuang Opera Company of Taiwan.
