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Recreation, Sport, Culture and the Arts
Heritage
Cantonese Opera
The government is keen to preserve, promote and develop Cantonese opera in Hong Kong. The Ko Shan Theatre New Wing provides a 600-seat auditorium and ancillary facilities for performances, training and rehearsals. In September, a Cantonese Opera Education and Information Centre equipped with advanced technology was opened to provide digitised and interactive Cantonese opera resources.
The Academy for Performing Arts offers the city's first Cantonese opera degree course. The Arts Development Council provides funding to the Cantonese Opera Academy of Hong Kong to organise training programmes.
Intangible Cultural Heritage
In August, the government announced the first Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Hong Kong, comprising 20 items with high cultural value and an urgent need for preservation. The government will enhance measures to safeguard intangible cultural heritage, including its identification, documentation, research, preservation, promotion and transmission, to raise public awareness and encourage the community to support the protection of such heritage.
The Hong Kong Intangible Cultural Heritage Centre is a display and resource centre set up by the government at Sam Tung Uk Museum in Tsuen Wan. It attracted 102,992 visitors in 2017.
Lord Wilson Heritage Trust
This trust aims to preserve and conserve Hong Kong's human heritage by organising activities and funding community organisations and individuals to implement heritage-related projects. It approved 15 heritage-related projects in 2017.
Conservation Office
The Conservation Office conducts conservation treatment on museum artefacts, including paintings, prints, historical documents, textiles, metals, ceramics, sculptures, organic objects and archaeological finds. Scientific research and analyses were carried out to complement the conservation work for 341 artefacts in 2017.
A conservation virtual reality game was launched at Muse Fest HK, attracting 1,600 participants to experience the fun of being conservators as they navigated the museum gallery to complete exigent conservation missions. The office also held 67 educational workshops and behind-the- scenes laboratory tours. In total, it received over 2,993 participants including students, and registered about 10,276 service hours contributed by 193 volunteers.
The office organised the IIC-Palace Museum 2017 Hong Kong Symposium through a collaboration with the Leisure and Cultural Services Department, International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (IIC) and Palace Museum to foster professional exchange and development among conservators.
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