Hong Kong artists are finding their space for expression restricted back home. An exhibition in Taipei is helping them find their voices again.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 For 36-year-old Hong Konger Alrick Lee, this exhibition in a church in Taipei is a way
00:06 to keep his city's spirit alive.
00:09 Now based in Tokyo, Lee founded the advocacy group that's showing these artworks that convey
00:15 Hong Kongers' feelings and their fears.
00:19 The Hong Kong government is essentially trying to remove the voice of Hong Kong people.
00:25 We want to encourage artists, writers and independent creative professionals to keep
00:30 voicing their support for Hong Kong.
00:33 The exhibition includes winners of the first Hong Kong Liberty Art Prize, set up by Lee's
00:38 organisation to counter what it says are restrictions on artistic freedoms back home.
00:44 The winner?
00:45 A digital art piece that evokes violent memories of a mob attack on protesters and passengers
00:52 on a Hong Kong subway train.
00:56 Many artists fled Hong Kong after Beijing imposed a national security law that makes
01:01 it easier to crack down on dissent.
01:04 That same law has led to prosecutions of former opposition lawmakers and journalists and publisher
01:10 Jimmy Lai, who's accused of colluding with foreign forces and faces a life sentence if
01:17 convicted.
01:20 And he's a key part of this exhibition in Taipei.
01:24 The young Hong Konger who sculpted this work doesn't want to appear on camera because she
01:28 worries what could happen to her family back home if she's revealed as an artist activist.
01:34 But she says that people see Jimmy Lai as a saint and she wants to remind them of his
01:39 vulnerability.
01:40 So with this work, they see his human side and remember his pain and suffering.
01:48 The exhibition is moving visitors, both Hong Kongers and foreigners.
01:52 "Hong Kongers, we know everything is gone and I hope one day we can rebuild it.
02:00 So we have to let people from the Western world know we are not defeated by the communist
02:12 party.
02:13 We are just preserving ourselves, our power."
02:16 "Hong Kong is something we've never really had a lot of media talking about in our country
02:23 and so deeply it's good to have the actual point of view of people living through this."
02:29 Taipei is just the first stop for these works.
02:33 Organisers plan to exhibit in London and Sydney in 2024, hoping to further raise the voices
02:40 of Hong Kongers and awareness of their ongoing suffering through their art.
02:46 Alex Chen and Louise Watt for Taiwan Plus.
02:49 [BLANK_AUDIO]