“In recent years, Hong Kong artists have begun to emerge from the shadows cast by contemporary mainland Chinese artists, whose works command sky-rocketing prices. No doubt looking for the value of under-appreciated talent, curators from world-renowned art institutions such as Tate Modern and MoMA are starting to take an interest in Hong Kong artists, who have had to struggle with a lack of space, both physical and psychological, and being seen in a city that is often mainly focused on dollar (and now RMB) signs. This is changing though with projects such as West Kowloon Cultural District, and the redevelopment of the old Central Police Station and the Former Police Married Quarters into hubs for arts & culture and creative industries along Hong Kong’s high-rent Hollywood Road.”

For more, please visit Hong Kong’s Art Week: 8 Hong Kong Artists to Watch

Fascinating article about Orhan Pamuk’s new museum based on his 2008 novel ‘Museum of Innocence’.

A piece by Your Curator’s Managing Director Chris White entitled “Heritage matters for Hong Kong companies too” appeared on the Hong Kong Business website today.

And so, after nearly six years I thought it time (with some trepidation) to return to the Hong Kong Wetland Park (HKWP) to see how it is faring. It represents, after all, five years of my life as Director of Research with the designers MET Studio.

It was a dull Sunday afternoon, but I was pleased to see so many families and children enjoying one of the few (the only?) grass roofed buildings in Hong Kong. Unfortunately, due to a bird flu warning we could not get out into the wetlands reserve. A maze was a great source of fun and you soon forgot the cliff-like wall of residential blocks behind you that partly make up “The City of Sadness”, Tin Shui Wai.

The approach to the building still provides a nice wind down from the urban environment, beginning to introduce themes of ecology and a water channel that will broaden out as you enter the atrium.

The ‘What Are Wetlands?’ gallery still provides a good introduction to the overall topic and I was pleasantly surprised (throughout) to see how relatively few of the interactives were out of order.

The ‘Living Wetlands’ gallery provides some spectacular moments …

You can even see the (much grown) endangered False Gahrials these days (they used to hide in the corners) …

Emerging from the Tropical Swamp and Hong Kong Wetlands you are back out into the light with great views of the wetlands habitats through the floor to ceiling windows.

The ‘Humans Culture’ gallery still provides some magical moments …

And the ‘Wetland Challenge’ gallery was catering for large groups of teenagers’ button-pushing tendencies. Out on the Viewing Gallery, we were lucky enough to see the rare visitors, and symbol of the HKWP, the Black-billed Spoonbill.

All in all, I was relieved and proud to see the HKWP standing up so well to both the test of time and enthusiasm of so many of the visitors I was observing (and this was a relatively quiet day when we could not get out to what is the real attraction – the natural habitat).

But the real praise must go to the Agricultural and Fisheries Department (AFCD) for how they are managing the attraction. So often you see good attractions which are left to deteriorate through bad management. But not only is the HKWP well run from a security, maintenance and education point of view but they have really added value from a wealth of fun activities they have introduced to the original project. To name just a couple of examples, we were able to make our own paper Black-billed Spoonbill …

And an area with jigsaws for younger children has been added just before ‘Wetland Challenge’ …

… which was a great hit with our little boy, Alfie.

The AFCD deserve a huge amount of credit for the way they continue to run the HKWP so well, including a very interesting and useful shop which stocks professional bird-watching equipment as well as souvenirs.

I’ve seen some criticism on the Internet that the regard the HKWP as a waste of money and “weird but not wonderful” (even going so far as to criticise the designers for not being conservationists!). But the pioneer of wetland conservation, the Wildfowl and Wetland Trust (WWT) was intimately involved in the design of the project and are now a partner organization. The Park has had millions of visitors over the past few years and, with its educational facilities and wild habitats, it is a major asset for Tin Shui Wai (which is not overly endowed with advantages). Not to mention 24 out of 34 reviews on TripAdvisor rating it Excellent or Very Good. If one child is inspired to become the next David Attenborough because of it, it will all have been worth it.

The Hong Kong Wetland Park is open daily from 10am to 5pm but closed on Tuesdays (except public holidays).

Address: Hong Kong Wetland Park, Wetland Park Road, Tin Shui Wai, New Territories, Hong Kong

Tel: (852) 3152 2666 (General Enquiries)
(852) 2617 5218 (Ticketing)

Great to see this article in the South China Morning Post about the success of the Hong Kong Wetland Park’s volunteer programme.  It now has more than 1,000 active volunteers and has registered more than 7,000 since its opening in 2006.

The article carries quotes from some of its youngest and oldest volunteers. Emily Kwan Wing-lam, just 13, says, “It’s an interesting experience. I can learn more about wetland insects and animals, and at the same time, share my knowledge with the others.” At the other end of the age scale, 70-year old Ho Keung says, “I like watching birds, but in the past, I knew very little about them. Now I can recognise more than 40 species.”

As Director of Research for the project when I was at MET Studio, designers of the visitor experience, it makes it all worth while when you see just one kid (especially one from the somewhat disadvantaged local Tin Shui Wai area) inspired by what you have done, but to know that over 7,000 have been enthused enough to join up as volunteers is great news.

Congratulations to Marc & Chantal Design for winning gold in the Institution and Exhibition Space category at the Asia Pacific Interior Design Awards for the Civic Education Centre exhibition at the Home Affairs Bureau. Nice to have been part of the team.

Nice to see Frame Magazine feature this project which I worked on with Marc & Chantal Design. It was a challenge to define the storyline and interpret the content into a way which a notoriously skeptical audience (teenagers) would find engaging but I think the end result is sufficiently intriguing. The Gallery divided into five segments titled, My Room, My Home, My Neighbourhood, My City and My Country. From self-image to interpersonal skills, each segment of the exhibition is intended to encourage the young students to think for themselves, interact with their peers and take ownership of their experiences.

The CERC can be found at 7/F, Youth Square, 238 Chai Wan Road, Chai Wan. Opening hours are Monday to Friday 9:00 a.m. – 9:00 p.m., Saturday to Sunday 9:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m., Closed Public Holidays

One of the latest additions to the Marina Bay skyline and Singapore’s cultural landscape is the ArtScience Museum. It’s self-proclaimed iconic architecture is intended to house “blockbuster” temporary exhibitions on … well anything that can be linked to art or science.

Designed by Moshe Safdie, the building form is intended to represent a lotus flower or, in the words of Las Vegas Sands Chairman Sheldon Adelson, the welcoming hand of Singapore. It promises 21 galleries with a total area of 6,000 square metres.

The permanent galleries in the upper levels of the building set the museum’s conceptual stall out in an exhibition called ‘ArtScience: a journey through creativity’. Divided into Curiosity, Inspiration and Expression, they provide a cursory impression of the ways in which art and science are linked.

Quite reasonably, they aim to provide a taster of the subject intended to whet the appetite. But given that these sections anchor the raison d’etre of the entire enterprise they feel curiously empty calories, particularly as the ArtMuseum itself is constantly referred to as genius on the par with the likes of Leonardo da Vinci.

I don’t know the answer to “where do Art and Science meet?” but I am pretty sure that getting the masking right on a simple slide projection to include the whole question would be a good start.

The Museum was running three exhibitions when we visited – ‘Dali: mind of a genius’, ‘Shipwrecked: Tang Treasures and Monsoon Winds’ and ‘Van Gogh Alive – the Exhibition’ – which I will be reviewing in subsequent posts. Suffice to say the spaces within the building which work best as gallery spaces are in fact below ground – in other words freed from the constraints of the “iconic” architectural form.

Opening hours are 10am-10pm (last admission 9pm) including public holidays. Tickets cost S$30 for adults and S$17 for children (2-12 years). There is a combination ticket that includes admission to the Sky Garden.

Interesting review of the Rem Koolhaas exhibition ‘Cronocaos‘ at the New Museum in New York. First shown at the 2010 architectural biennale in Venice, it is a representation of what happens when an aged city is repackaged for tourists – so losing whatever made it vibrant and distinctive in the first place. Startingly, he claims that 12% of the world’s surface has been earmarked by conservation organisations such as UNESCO. I can’t help think that there is a bit of special pleading going on here where the architectural world now somehow feel that they are being poorly treated by a cabal of preservationists, governments and developers. Replace preservationists with architects and I think you get what is the general feeling amongst most communities around the world threatened by “progress”.

I remember about 10 years ago being invited to the monolithic National Museum on the edge of Tiananmen Square for a briefing with about half a dozen other museum design companies hungry for a slice of the Mainland pie. The numbers we were being told were staggering – 200,000 square metres of exhibition space accompanied by the inevitably poor per square metre spend. Well, now we all have a chance to see the result: http://www.chnmuseum.cn/

And a fascinating review of the outcome and process.