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The following is the "Letter to Hong Kong" by the Convenor of Museums Advisory Group, Consultative Committee on the Core Arts and Cultural Facilities of the West Kowloon Cultural District (WKCD), Mr Victor Lo, broadcast on RTHK this morning (January 14):
Last summer, while travelling to Europe and North America on business, I also went to visit some of the major new museums and leading cultural institutions in Britain, France and the United States. During the visit, what struck me most was their innovative presentations and the rich cultural ambience emanating from these museums and institutions. Their architecture is iconic, layouts are very spacious, presentations are appealing, bringing very pleasant and delightful experience to visitors. To me, these institutions are more than a conventional museum. They are, in fact, an interactive platform to engage, communicate, delight and inspire the community for the purposes of enhancing cultural appreciation and the quality of life. Visitors are not just viewing standalone exhibits, but could also communicate and interact with the institutions and the exhibits. I was then thinking, wouldn't it be great if such an inspiring and interactive cultural platform could take place in Hong Kong?
This direction, however, was very close to the concept proposed by my colleagues of the Museums Advisory Group under the West Kowloon Cultural District Consultative Committee. We are of the view that Hong Kong needs a lot more cultural input to make it a world-class city. Hong Kong should not merely be a place for earning a livelihood. We possess uniquely rich and diverse cultural characteristics which ought to be preserved and further enhanced while building up Hong Kong as a city of culture and the arts, as mentioned in the Policy Address by our Chief Executive last October.
What types of museums in West Kowloon would be most conducive towards the development of West Kowloon into a world-class arts and cultural district, enriching arts and cultural life for the people in Hong Kong, and making Hong Kong an international cultural metropolis? This is the most important question for the Museums Advisory Group. From May till December last year, we conducted a series of public consultations, studied many overseas experiences, and invited many top experts to come to Hong Kong to exchange with us. One of the interesting findings from these sessions is that many views and proposals from the public and experts on museum themes in West Kowloon fall within the area of "visual culture". The term "visual culture" may sound unfamiliar to many people. In fact, "visual culture" is closely related to our daily lives. To make it simple, "visual culture" refers to areas of culture that are grounded on visual expressions and embrace a broad range of creativity and experience that cut cross many media. In other words, it includes a wide range of things that we use or see every day, like architecture, design (such as fashion design, graphic design, urban design), moving image (such as film, television, digital art), popular culture (such as advertising, comics, games), visual art (such as painting, photography, installation art) etc. I must say that although "visual culture" is very embracing, it is a fluid concept which is not easy to have a very scientific or universally agreed definition. However, it is exactly this fluid nature which offers flexibility and scope to explore new aspects in response to changing circumstances.
In view of the embracing, forward looking and flexible nature of "visual culture", the Museums Advisory Group recommended that museums in WKCD should focus on visual culture in its broadly defined sense. Four interconnected broad groupings, namely design, moving image, popular culture and visual art, have been identified as the initial focus of the institution. The interconnecting nature of these groupings could foster cross-disciplinary communications and dialogue in collection, preservation, research, education and presentation.
With "visual culture" in mind, the next challenge for the Museums Advisory Group was to identify the most desirable form of cultural institution to develop and present this concept. Following intensive deliberations, we have concluded that it should be a single cultural institution embodying museum functions but with some added key values - maximum cross-fertilisations and minimum fixed boundaries, fostering interactive dialogues and exchanges with audiences, emphasising on an open and forward-looking attitude. We named this cultural institution "M+", or "Museum Plus".
We propose that M+ would present visual culture of the 20th - 21st century from a "Hong Kong perspective", "the perspective of now" and with a global vision.
Focussing on visual culture of the 20th - 21st century seeks to bring the M+ experience closer to its audience, as the period coincides with the era in Hong Kong with rapid social and cultural changes.
A "Hong Kong perspective" is the unique way which Hong Kong people perceive and interpret. Hong Kong is unique in its history, background and location. It is more than a place where East meets West. Curating from a Hong Kong perspective implies that the displays will be interpreted from a distinct Hong Kong curatorial point of view which differs from the perspectives of other world cultures.
A "now perspective" means curating from the time in which we are living. While conventional museums focus primarily on presenting and interpreting historical eras, M+ would present visual culture of the past from the perspective of their relevance to the present moment, and experiences of their current and future audiences.
M+ would perform the key functions of collection building and preservation; education and outreach; exhibition and display; and research and publication. For M+ to flourish, it must attempt to set the highest international standards comparable to other world-class cultural facilities in various aspects, such as codes of ethics, research, curatorship, conservation, interpretation, display, presentation, management and operations.
Since community participation is essential to breathing life and energy into M+, we consider that great emphasis should be placed on education. We have proposed to include a dedicated outreach and education centre in the M+ proposal. Furthermore, arts education and audience building programmes should be enhanced by the Government as soon as practicable.
Apart from programming, we consider that the architecture of M+ is equally important. An innovative architecture is in fact an exhibit of visual culture itself. We therefore propose that the M+ should be an iconic building, preferably an outcome of international design competition, providing a spacious and inspiring environment for visitors.
M+ will be distinct from cultural institutions of other places. It would help bolster the West Kowloon Cultural District into a world-class arts and cultural district that could sustain Hong Kong's unique cultural position of bridging Chinese culture and other cultures of the world. The development of the M+ concept is a bold initiative and not to be taken lightly. It calls for a long-term investment in culture and the arts, which is essential to the sustainable development of Hong Kong. It will take years to build up, and requires commitment, excellence and innovation at every stage. The Museums Advisory Group sincerely wishes that the Hong Kong community would share this cultural vision such that the Government could work together with the arts sector and all other relevant sectors in the community to make this a reality.
Ends/Sunday, January 14, 2007
Issued at HKT 08:30
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