NOV. 14, 2014
Art on the StreetsCreditNicolas Asfouri/Getty Images — Agence France-Presse
HONG KONG — Thousands of pastel Post-it notes, marked with messages of support for pro-democracy demonstrators, form a fluttering collage that snakes around the wall of a staircase outside Hong Kong government headquarters. Nearby stands “Umbrella Man,” a 12-foot-tall wood sculpture of a figure holding a bright yellow umbrella.
Above one of the city’s thoroughfares, where demonstrators have been camped out since late September, students have sewn together hundreds of broken umbrellas to form a giant canopy.
The pro-democracy demonstrations that have occupied sections of Hong Kong since September have created more than political statements and traffic jams. The so-called Umbrella Movement has also produced an explosion of public art that has turned the protest sites into enormous outdoor art exhibitions. The art, pointedly political and often witty, has become as much an expression of the protest as the megaphone speeches and the metal street barricades.
But reports that the city may soon clear the protest sites have set preservationists, historians and art lovers scrambling to figure out how to record and preserve the art for posterity.
Because most of the art is still on the streets, the archiving is largely digital. Some digital renditions and objects are already running alongside the “Disobedient Objects” exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
The Umbrella Movement Visual Archives and Research Collective, led partly by academics, is creating open-data platforms and Google maps to mark the locations of art pieces.
A new group — Umbrella Movement Art Preservation, or UMAP — has “rescue team members” on the ground, armed with cellphones and ready to mobilize volunteers to evacuate art on short notice. They have received offers of help from sympathetic truck drivers and about a dozen private galleries.
“Our work is important because these artifacts and images document the spirit of the time, of the year 2014, and our calls for political reform, democracy and justice,” said Kacey Wong, an artist, educator and participant in UMAP. “It is a reflection of our civilization. It’s how we will be remembered 25 years from now.”
Just as the protests have upended the notion that Hong Kong people do not care about politics, the blast of public art is changing the image of a city better known for making money than for art and culture. Still best known as an international financial center, and lacking a world-class art museum, Hong Kong has become the world’s third-largest art market behind New York and London, thanks to high-priced auctions and an array of art galleries that have opened here in the past few years.
