Umbrella Revolution 10 Years On: The Evolution of Hong Kong Protest Art

Name: Umbrella Revolution 10 Years On: The Evolution of Hong Kong Protest Art
Start: 2024-09-28T19:00:00+08:00
Location: 台北市萬華區艋舺大道110號1樓, Taipei, Taiwan 108028

Schedule

Sat Sep 28 2024 at 07:00 pm

UTC+08:00

Location

台北市萬華區艋舺大道110號1樓, Taipei, Taiwan 108028 | Taipei, TP

September 26, 2024 commemorates the 10th anniversary of Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement, a key event that called for democratic reform and more transparent elections. This movement saw demonstrators occupying major areas and halting traffic for 79 days, with crowds swelling to as many as 100,000 people at a time, according to CNN.
The movement gained its name because protesters used umbrellas to shield themselves from tear gas used by police. Eventually, yellow umbrellas and other visual symbols evolved to become important emblems of the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong.
This panel will explore the protest artwork that emerged in Hong Kong during 2014, and how this imagery was deployed to express social criticism. We will examine the art and look at some historical objects that appeared during the 2014 street protests and trace the evolution of Hong Kong protest after the enactment of the National Security Law in 2020, particularly within the Hong Kong artist diaspora.
In addition, this panel will investigate the cross-influences between the visual imagery of Hong Kong's social movements and Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement, exploring how these influences continue to resonate in civil society today.
[Panelists]
Loretta Lau (劉慧婷)
Performance Artist and Director of NGO DEI 我地
Loretta Lau, hailing from British Hong Kong, is a political artist whose career is a dynamic blend of performance, activism, and self-expression. After teaching art for seven years, she relocated to Prague in 2018 to pursue a master's degree. Loretta's powerful performances, like "Letter to My People" and "Memory Eraser," challenge the boundaries of political and personal identity, gaining international acclaim and media attention. In 2021, she founded the NGO DEI, uniting art and advocacy for Hong Kong culture and human rights. Her work has expanded globally, organizing exhibitions and events across multiple countries.
Kacey Wong (黃國才)
Visual Artist and Educator
Kacey Wong’s political art projects investigate the relationship between people and their social and political environment. Kacey received B. Arch from Cornell University, USA, Master of Arts in Sculpture from Chelsea of UK and Doctor of Fine Arts degree from RMIT of Australia. He participated in the 2019 Anti-extradition Bill Movement and the 2014 Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong through live-art performance, videos, photography, installation, sculpture, and social interventions. He was awarded the Best Artist Award in 2010, Rising Artist Award and Outstanding Arts Education Award in 2003 by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council. Kacey left Hong Kong in 2021 in search for freedom of artistic expression and now living as an exile in Taiwan.
Brian Hioe (丘琦欣)
New Bloom Magazine
Brian is a writer, editor, translator, activist, and DJ based out of Taipei. In 2014, he was one of the founders of New Bloom Magazine (破土), an online magazine covering activism and youth politics in Taiwan and the Asia Pacific that was founded after the Sunflower Movement, which he was a participant in as a student activist. In his capacity as such, he helps run the community space for events that New Bloom runs in Taipei, DAYBREAK (破曉咖啡)
https://www.facebook.com/umbrellamovementartpreservation/photos_albums
Entry fee: 100 NT