The 113th Board Meeting of the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority

The Board of the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority (WKCDA or the Authority) held its 113th meeting today. At the meeting, Mrs Betty Fung, Chief Executive Officer of WKCDA, reported on the latest progress in various areas of the West Kowloon Cultural District (WKCD).

Hong Kong's art scene is at its peak in March with various arts and cultural exhibitions and conferences to be held starting next week. These events include Art Basel Hong Kong, a major international event in the art world; Art Central, focusing on local and emerging artists; and the Museum Summit, which will gathering local and overseas museum leaders. As Hong Kong's largest cultural hub, WKCD will also host “West Kowloon Cultural District Art Week” from 20 March to 24 March. Among the highlights is the International Media Day on 20 March (Monday), where media representatives from all over the world will be briefed on the WKCD project and the District’s latest developments by WKCDA. The M+ International Open House will take place on the same day. A dinner will be hosted at M+ for the leading figures from global arts and cultural communities.

The two renowned architects from Herzog & de Meuron—the world-renowned architect firm that designed M+—will visit M+ for the first time after it is completed and give a public lecture at M+ on 21 March (Tuesday). Lou Wei, Executive Vice President of the Palace Museum, will give a public lecture at the HKPM on 22 March (Wednesday) as well. Guests attending the Art Basel Hong Kong and the Museum Summit will be invited to visit M+ and the Hong Kong Palace Museum. As Hong Kong returns to normalcy, we hope to promote WKCD in the international arena by organising "West Kowloon Cultural District Art Week", so as to attract more visitors from home and abroad to WKCD, and to demonstrate its charm as an East-meets-West centre for international cultural exchange.

For Performing Arts, “SerendiCity”, the grand finale of WKCD’s first art and technology festival Creative Tomorrow, concluded on 5 March. Featuring an array of interactive art installations that fused data and technology, the three-week programme was enjoyed by over 100,000 visitors at the Art Park and Xiqu Centre and 62,000 viewers on its online platform.

“HKT x WESTK POPFEST” is the next mega event to be staged at WKCD. Co-presented by WKCDA and HKT, the POPFEST will be the biggest music event in Hong Kong, bringing together the biggest number of local musicians to perform on various indoor and outdoor stages at Freespace, Art Park, Wonderland and M+, etc. Over 70 performances will be presented from 22 March to 2 April.

Among them, ticketed events include Popnorama, which features crossover performances by 17 groups of mainstream and indie musicians; three runs of I Am What I Am – A tribute to Leslie Cheung, which pays tribute to and commemorates the 20th anniversary of the passing of Cantopop legend Leslie Cheung; Unboxed, which hosts a series of four thematic music parties; and M+ Live Cinema Dragon’s Delusion—Paracusia. The POPFEST also offers more than 40 free activities and performances, including Disco Night at M+, which features classic Hong Kong disco scenes from the 1980s.

“HKT x WESTK POPFEST” has met with enthusiastic responses. Some ticketed programmes of the POPFEST have already sold out while some others still have limited seats available. Purchases can be made online. It is expected that 30,000 to 40,000 music lovers will attend the free and ticketed performances during the POPFEST's 10-day run.

As for Chinese Opera, three-time Plum Blossom Award winner and the “Queen of Sichuan Opera” Shen Tiemei will team up with Wang Chao, another Plum Blossom Award winner, and perform at the Grand Theatre on 28 and 29 April. Performing the gaoqiang full-length production Li Yaxian, which is widely known as China’s La Traviata, they will delight the audience with tender and elegant Sichuan opera singing. Chongqing Chuanju Theatre will also showcase A Master Selection of Sichuan Opera Excerpts on 30 April. Shen Tiemei will lead a team of renowned performers from the Chongqing Chuanju Theatre and perform a selection of classic Sichuan opera (aka chuanju) excerpts.

As for the museums, Chief Executive Officer of WKCDA reported that the Hong Kong Palace Museum (HKPM) has received more than 890,000 visitors in eight months since its opening in July 2022. More than 40,000 students and teachers have attended school visits and experience workshops arranged by the HKPM. The museum’s exhibition, Odysseys of Art: Masterpieces Collected by the Princes of Liechtenstein also concluded in mid-February. This highly popular exhibition, which opened in November 2022, attracted more than 110,000 visitors during its three-month run.

Radiance: Ancient Gold from the Hong Kong Palace Museum Collection and the Mengdiexuan Collection—the first special exhibition from the HKPM’s own permanent collection—opened on 22 February and will run till 25 September. 220 sets of ancient Chinese gold are shown at the exhibition, and the oldest exhibits date back to the eighteenth century BCE. Still glimmering despite their age, the delicately crafted gold objects highlight the artistic and technical achievements of gold in ancient China over the past 3,000 years.

In addition, the HKPM will be presenting another special exhibition, Cartier and Women, from 14 April to 14 August. Curated by the HKPM, the exhibition is supported by Cartier and is the first major exhibition that foregrounds women’s unique role and influence in the history of Cartier.

Featuring about 300 stunning Cartier treasures from the nineteenth century to the present day, the exhibition unveils fascinating stories of the close relationship between women and jewellery and highlights how Chinese aesthetics have influenced women's lives and fashion. It also testifies to the museum’s mission to facilitate cross-disciplinary collaboration and encourage dialogue between China and the rest of the world in arts and culture.

The HKPM will roll out a wide variety of educational programmes alongside the special exhibition Cartier and Women. These will range from scholarly lectures to film screenings, music and dance performances, and artmaking workshops. Cartier has also sponsored the HKPM with 5,000 complimentary special exhibition tickets for the underprivileged.

At M+, WKCDA announced the naming of its Courtyard Galleries as Cissy Pui-Lai Pao and Shinichiro Watari Galleries as from 1 March in recognition of the generous donation of Cissy Pao and her husband Shinichiro Watari towards the long-term development of M+. Chief Executive Officer of WKCDA said that support from individuals and the private sector is crucial to the development of WKCD. WKCDA has donation and sponsorship policy and guidelines established and we look forward to engaging more arts and culture lovers in pursuit of WKCD’s vision and mission.

M+’s first special exhibition Yayoi Kusama: 1945 to Now has welcomed more than 130,000 visitors since its opening in mid-November 2022. This largest retrospective in Asia outside Japan of Yayoi Kusama is highly praised by the artist herself. After closing at M+, the exhibition will tour to the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain in June this year, bringing it to audiences across Europe and beyond.

Apart from the exhibitions, M+ has joined forces the Advisory Committee on Mental Health to launch “Shall We Talk at M+”. Through a series of activities involving appreciation of art, art therapy workshops and a public talk, the programme aims to broaden the conversation on mental health particularly among young people, and to encourage young people to speak openly about and seek appropriate support for their mental well-being if necessary.

“Shall We Talk at M+” will provide 10,000 complimentary admission tickets to Yayoi Kusama: 1945 to Now to students from local tertiary institutions, including universities and other higher education institutions, for redemption from 17 March to 14 May. Eligible students can show their valid full-time student card to redeem a ticket during the museum’s opening hours. No pre-registration is required.

Hand Me Your Trust, a work commissioned by M+ and supported by Art Basel and UBS, will be shown on the M+ Facade from 18 March to 17 June. The site-specific moving image work is created specifically for the M+ Facade by Swiss spatial video art pioneer Pipilotti Rist, who approaches the concept of the hand from a variety of scales, mirroring the dynamics of the city itself and guiding viewers to revisit historically significant designs and architecture of Hong Kong.

As a final item, Mrs Fung reported that the Hong Kong Green Building Council had issued a Final Platinum rating to the HKPM under the BEAM Plus initiative in February. With WKCDA Tower, M+ and the Conservation and Storage Facility, the Xiqu Centre, Freespace, which had already achieved a Final Gold rating, WKCD now has six projects certified with BEAM Plus.

Remarks

About the West Kowloon Cultural District
The West Kowloon Cultural District is one of the largest and most ambitious cultural projects globally. Its vision is to create a vibrant new cultural quarter for Hong Kong on forty hectares of reclaimed land located alongside Victoria Harbour. With a varied mix of theatres, performance spaces, and museums, the West Kowloon Cultural District will produce and host world-class exhibitions, performances and cultural events, providing twenty-three hectares of public open space, including a two-kilometre waterfront promenade.