Hong Kong is a place in the world that is difficult, if not impossible to categorize. It’s not a city, but an administrative region. The local culture is extremely savvy, and dedicated to local artists, musicians, and performers, but it is also one of the most cosmopolitan places in the world. The connections to the global scene are deep and complex, and it is sometimes a reflector of this, and sometimes the one that gets reflected.
A visit to a Hong Kong Hotel will reveal an urban scene that is rich and vibrant, and constantly changing with the times. Writers and poets have always been drawn to Hong Kong, and in the history of performance art , so have performance artists.
Thanks to the work of the researcher and intellectual, Wen Yau , there is a history of live art in Hong Kong that’s under construction, in process of articulation. In tandem with the development of the art form, the history is incomplete, but already revealing threads that reflect, and indeed, affect, the form all over the world.
The roots could be traced back to 1975, when an artist named Kwok poured bone over a sculpture. The developments since then have moved in the directions that are parallel to the global directions, and it’s enough to warrant a closer look, to discover where the paths of cultures diverge and converge.