An exhibition featuring scenes and memorabilia from pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong opened on Wednesday in Taipei, featuring work by artists from Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Australia and other nations.
Some of the 66 participating artists, including 45 from Hong Kong, used posters, the front pages of newspapers and other items to recreate scenes from the Hong Kong protests, which started in June last year.
Among the 100-plus exhibits is a drawing by Hong Kong artist Kay Wong, which shows two photojournalists wearing helmets, on the otherwise blank front page of Apple Daily’s Hong Kong edition on July 4 last year.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
The idea for the exhibition originated from the public response to the February edition of the Creative Comic Collection (CCC) magazine, which featured images associated with the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement, CCC project manager Huang Guan-hua (黃冠華) said.
“I thought that because of Taiwan’s place at the center of freedom and democracy in the Chinese-speaking world, this [exhibition] was something we could and should do,” Huang said at the opening ceremony at Taipei Comic Base, which organized the exhibition jointly with the CCC.
The exhibition’s curator Chen Yi-ching (陳怡靜), a freelance journalist who went to Hong Kong four times in the past year to cover the pro-democracy protests, said there were some notable differences between that campaign and the 2014 “Umbrella movement” in the territory.
In 2014, protesters occupied Hong Kong’s Central district from late September to mid-December with sit-ins, but the current demonstrations are more like an urban guerrilla action, as protesters have staged gatherings that resemble flash mobs at locations throughout the territory, she said.
Chen said the central strategy of the ongoing leaderless protests is to remain fluid, as reflected in the images posted on “Lennon walls” and shared on Instagram, Telegram and other social media sites, which helped create a bond among the protesters.
Some of the protest scenes are highlighted in the exhibition, including a Lennon wall in an underpass at the Kwai Fong railway station, and a replica of the Hong Kong police headquarters.
The free exhibition also offers a virtual reality experience of the protests, as well as guided tours every 30 minutes between 1:30pm and 4pm, which are available in English and Japanese with a one-week advanced booking.
The exhibition is open from Tuesday to Sunday, from 10am to 9pm, through July 26.
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