Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office, Berlin

From top left: The moderator of the Center for International Relations, Ms Agnieszka Ostrowska; President of the Digital Poland Foundation, Mr Piotr Mieczkowski; Lecturer of the Department of Sculpture at Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in Chongquing, Dr Ewa Maria Śmigielska; Opera Director, Mr Michal Znaniecki; Professor at the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering and Director at the Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology), Dr Pascale Fung; Director of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office, Berlin, Mr Bill Li; Head of Media Imaging Lab at the Department of Media Art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, Dr Katarzyna Stanny; Veteran new media artist and Chair Professor of the School of Creative Media (City University of Hong Kong), Professor Jeffrey Shaw; and President of the Centre for International Relations, Dr Malgorzata Bonikowska.

With resilience and innovation into the future of art

HKETO Berlin in collaboration with the THINKTANK and Centre for International Relations (CIR), gathered top-notch experts from the creativity industry in Hong Kong and Poland on April 13, 2021 to talk about the future of art amidst the increasing influence of technology and artificial intelligence on artists and their creation process. More than 50 participants from the cultural sector attended the online event.

The full version of the webinar can be viewed here.

In the event’s opening, Mr Bill Li, Director of HKETO Berlin, highlighted that the arts and cultural sector in Hong Kong proved to be resilient and innovative despite the pandemic. Hong Kong has emerged as one of the largest art trading centres in the world in recent years. Its unique history and geo-strategic location made it a place, where Eastern and the Western artists and collectors meet. With Asian economies’ strong performance and fast recovery from the pandemic, the Asian and Hong Kong art scenes flourish, attracting both artists and entrepreneurs who are looking to expand their presence here. Hong Kong’ s importance as Asia’s marketplace for art is also reflected in the increase of its global market share from 17.5 percent in 2019 to 23.2 percent in 2020, overtaking London for the first time.

Apart from being an international financial centre, Hong Kong has also cemented its reputation as an important hub for contemporary art in Asia. A new cultural hot spot in Hong Kong is the West Kowloon Cultural District (WKCD), a flagship project designed to boost Hong Kong’s art and cultural landscape, with the vision to attract people across all demographics to a vibrant district to explore new cultural experiences. The WKCD is one of the world’s largest cultural projects that will accomodate a great variety of arts and cultural facilities ranging from theatres to museums and outdoor spaces. The centrepiece of the District is the M+, Hong Kong’s new visual cultural museum. Set to open to the public at the end of 2021, M+ is a multi-disciplinary museum with an international collection of contemporary art dedicated to collecting, exhibiting, and interpreting visual art, design and architecture, moving image, and Hong Kong visual culture of the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries.

In recent years, Hong Kong has pushed major development projects bringing the arts and culture scene to the forefront and fueling its evolution into an inviting stage for local and global artists. While art visitors usually expect the elements of their cultural diet to be served up on separate plates, be it in museums or arts education, Hong Kong will surely bring surprises as it has always been a melting pot of influences and ideas.