The 114th Board Meeting of the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority

The Board of the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority (WKCDA or the Authority) held its 114th 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).

WKCD welcomed the first Labour Day Golden Week period after the full resumption of normal travel between Hong Kong and the Mainland. During the five-day holiday between 29 April to 3 May, M+ and the Hong Kong Palace Museum (HKPM) received more than 100,000 visitors in total, breaking each of the museum’s single-day visitation record on 30 April. The Labour Day Golden Week at WKCD saw smooth transport and reception arrangements; catering and retail tenants within the District also noted significant increase in their business volume. Since early this year, the two museums have been receiving a steadily increasing number of tourists from the Mainland and abroad. The percentage of these visitors has risen from single digit at the beginning of the year to 30% in March 2023, and then to nearly 55% in May. The rising trend is a testament that WKCD is a popular cultural destination for tourists.

To celebrate the 26th Anniversary of the Establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, on 1 July (Saturday), M+ will offer free access to all its exhibitions and HKPM (Galleries 1 to 7) will open its seven thematic exhibitions to the public for free. Visitors planning to visit HKPM on 1 July shall reserve free general admission tickets in advance. Over 3600 of these tickets will be available from 3pm on 21 June through the museum’s website, the West Kowloon Cultural District website or mobile app, or the Cityline online ticketing platform. Visitors who are interested in the special exhibitions in HKPM’s Gallery 8 and Gallery 9 can also purchase their tickets through the abovementioned platforms and our ticketing partners. However, visitors planning to visit M+ on 1 July do not need to make reservations.

At M+, the critically acclaimed first special exhibition of the museum Yayoi Kusama: 1945 to Now concluded on 14 May. It will go on tour and be on view at Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain from 27 June for over three months. M+ received over 280,000 visitations since the exhibition opened on 12 November. Three highly popular large-scale works from Yayoi Kusama, including Dots Obsession - Aspiring to Heaven’s Love (2022) and the site-specific installation Death of Nerves (2022) on level B2, and the large sculpture Pumpkin (2022) on the G/F Main Hall will be continued to be on view. Over the course of this exhibition, M+ organised educational workshops, and offered more than 500 programmes and activities for students, non-profit making organisations, access tours and the general public, benefiting more than 11,500 participants.

Angela Su proudly presents: Lauren O – The Greatest Levitator in the Polyhedric Cosmos of Time, an exhibition jointly presented by M+ and the Hong Kong Arts Development Council, is shown at the Cissy Pui-Lai Pao and Shinichiro Watari Galleries until 8 October 2023. This site-responsive showcase by Angela Su, the local artist representing Hong Kong at the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, is the first response exhibition of Hong Kong artist's presentation in the Venice Biennale staged at M+ since its opening.

In addition, the second special exhibition of M+, Madame Song: Pioneering Art and Fashion in China, will be shown starting from 29 July 2023 at the West Gallery of M+. Centred around the life and times of Song Huai-Kuei, a legend in the spheres of Chinese art, film, music, and fashion from the 1980s to the 2000s, the exhibition will feature more than 320 objects to narrate Song’s fascinating biography and her underestimated influence on transforming China through reform and opened-up China in the 1980s into a cosmopolitan and culturally diverse society today.

For Performing Arts, WKCD joined up with Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels and French May Arts Festival to present Les Traceurs at WKCD’s Art Park on 20 May. The large outdoor performance was meticulously programmed by French choreographer Rachid Ouramdane. Integrating tightrope walking, extreme sports and music, the performance has toured several cities in France, Italy and Brazil. Its Hong Kong premiere attracted more than 1,400 viewers.

As for Xiqu, Magic Tea House 2.0 – Dreams of the Future began its run from 9 June at the Tea House Theatre in the Xiqu Centre. Presented by the Friends of Hong Kong Association, this new season of the Tea House Theatre’s regular original programme will be performed by the Tea House Rising Stars Troupe, with art direction by Cantonese opera maestro Mr Law Ka-ying and co-directed by Law and the programme’s producer and playwright Naomi Chung. The tale illustrates the richness and diversity of the art form through a highlight selection of familiar songs and instrumental music pieces, with Cantonese opera excerpts written by legendary librettist Tong Tik-sang and a new piece by acclaimed local actor-playwright Keith Lai.

Application for WKCD Street Performance Scheme, which has been temporarily suspended for more than two and a half years owing to the epidemic, was reopened. The first round of application closed on 18 June. A Review Panel comprising the Authority’s representatives will be formed to select quality and diverse performances by individuals or performing groups. Selected street performers will be issued a “Street Performance Permit”, which will be valid for six months. They may reserve to perform at a designated performance area in WKCD during a designated timeslot at weekends and public holidays. The Authority looks forward to further enriching the performing arts programmes at the WKCD and injecting more colours and vitality into the District.

Of late, the performing arts programmes of WKCD have received an array of accolades. Phygital D: Tsang Tsui-shan – Chroma 11 co-presented by Freespace and Hong Kong Arts Centre ifva was honoured with the “Outstanding Small Venue Production” by the “24th Hong Kong Dance Awards”.

In theatre, Bright Day, part of the Future of Performance series of Freespace, has been named the “Scenography of the Year” at the IATC(HK) Critics Awards 2022. A more encouraging news came from The Impossible Trial – a musical, a Hong Kong original musical commissioned by WKCD and co-presented and co-produced by the Hong Kong Repertory Theatre (HKRep) and WKCDA. The production received 15 nominations from the Hong Kong Drama Awards, breaking the record of the Hong Kong Drama Awards since its inception in 1992. Receiving the largest number of nominations in the event’s history and living up to expectations, The Impossible Trial took home ten major awards and became the biggest winner of the year. The accolades include Best Production, Best Director (Tragedy/Drama), Best Leading Actor (Tragedy/Drama), Best Leading Actress (Tragedy/Drama), Best Lyrics and Best Original Music (Musical), etc. The Impossible Trial will return to the Xiqu Centre in December 2023 for a highly anticipated rerun. Ticketing details will be announced in September.

As for HKPM, the museum has received more than 1.18 million visitors in 11 months since its opening in July 2022, indicating its popularity amongst the people of Hong Kong and tourists. The one-year free standard tickets for Wednesday offered to celebrate the opening of HKPM will conclude at the end of June as planned. HKPM will continue to work with companies and social welfare organisations to give out more than 120,000 sponsored tickets to the underprivileged in the next year.

On 22 May, HKPM signed a letter of intent on collaboration with the Sanxingdui Museum in Guanghan, the Jinsha Site Museum in Chengdu, the Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, and the Chengdu Cultural Relics and Archaeology Research Institute to jointly organise the special exhibition Gazing at Sanxingdui: New Archaeological Discoveries in Sichuan at the HKPM during the 2023 National Day holidays. The exhibition aims to advance cultural exchange between Hong Kong and Sichuan Province. Gazing at Sanxingdui focuses on the new archaeological discoveries at Sanxingdui in Sichuan Province, featuring 120 pieces of precious bronze, jade, gold, and pottery dated to 2,600–3,300 years ago. Nearly half of the exhibits were unearthed in the most recent excavations at the Sanxingdui archaeological site between 2020 and 2022, and the majority of them will be exhibited outside Sichuan for the first time. The special exhibition will last for about four months after opening in late September 2023. HKPM will announce more details about this special exhibition and ticketing arrangements in due course.

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.