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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
make great efforts in the following aspects if our work is to be evaluated from the wide angle of cultural construction:
(1) Direction
Section 25 of the Urban Council Ordinance provides no guidelines for promoting and developing culture and arts, which the Council should follow in cultural construction, nor does it stipulate that the Council should formulate long term cultural policy. At present, the Council can only make short term plans for individual cases when deciding on the priorities of the allocation of resources, the training of talents, programme arrangements and sponsorship of cultural and art activities. In such circumstances, a lack of full development and mutual coordination of the activities organized by the Council is inevitable. Obviously, it is most important for the Urban Council to formulate as soon as possible a long term policy on cultural development, and, through consultation with the Municipal Services Branch, Regional Council, District Boards and the Council for the Performing Arts, to seek consensus and cooperation, so as to minimize duplicated allocation of resources to the activities as well as unnecessary competitions, provided that it would not affect the independence and autonomy of the authorities.
(2) Balance
As a cosmopolitan city which is efficient in communications and where Eastern and Western cultures are mixed, Hong Kong develops multi-faceted and dynamic forms of cultural and artistic presentation, which range from Eastern to Western, from traditional to modern, and from preliminary to mature. Different schools of arts and ideologies coexist in Hong Kong. Being in such a diversified arts environment, the Urban Council has a responsibility to do its best to foster a free and democratic world for creation and presentation, and to develop each type of arts in a balanced way.
At present, certain art still remain in the ‘grey zone' where they are not being properly recognized or promoted. Take photography, filming and design, all of which fall within the category of visual arts, for an example. In the recent Contemporary Hong Kong Art Biennial, photography is but categorized as 'miscellaneous' while design has not been recognized and was only classified as the frequently displayed item'. Imbalanced development of individual arts is extremely unhealthy to the equilibrium of culture as a whole.
Among all the tasks to be done for the greyzone arts, I think the establishment of a Film Archive and a visual art workshop are two of the items which brook no delay.
In terms of artistic and cultural values, the achievement of Hong Kong films in quantity, creative concepts and artistic standard is obvious to all. In addition, these films are of historical value in that they reflect the livelihood, economic and cultural conditions of our society, so the government should have the responsibility of preserving them. Unfortunately, in the past we did not have any department responsible for collecting, storing and preserving films in a systematic way, thus resulting in a serious loss and damage of the original film copies. The setting up of a Film Archive can help save the films of fairly high historical, artistic and cultural values from the brink of their being lost or damaged and finally to enable them to reappear in front of the eyes of the public. The ordinary young visual art workers may not be able to find themselves a spacious and well-equipped workshop for creative activities in Hong Kong where the rent is so high. The aim of setting up a visual art workshop is to provide those potential visual art workers with a convenient, centralized and well-equipped place where they can create and exchange ideas with undivided attention. The Urban Council can do the lead by allocating part of the budget of its new capital works programme to be carried out in the future for buying the art works for the visual art workshop as a kind of encouragement to local artists' creation. Besides, seminars and short training courses can be held in the workshop so as to further promote visual arts, build up audience and help create new artists.
(3) Universality
The provision of cultural activities can, in a passive way, cater to the audience's taste while promoting their level of appreciation in an active way. When a certain kind of arts has been generally accepted by the audience, the greater challenge is to change the form of presentation of that particular kind of art or to broaden the audience's minds by enabling them to experience another kind of culture and art so as to build up a large audience of high appreciative ability.
So, when we have built up a fairly large audience for the performing arts, we should not forget to do the same for visual arts. Caution must be exercised in order to achieve a balanced development in building up audience for art, be it traditional, modern, avant grade, Eastern or Western. It is only by making the audience generally accept and understand culture and art of various forms that they can gradually become part of our life and survive in the market, and that the artists' works can, under the mechanism of supply and demand of the market, have a deserved value and pass from generation to generation instead of endlessly relying on government subsidy or sponsorship.
I am glad to know that the Urban Council has already started to plan for the publicity, as well as building up of audience, for the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Phase II which will be completed soon. The success of the subscription scheme of the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra brought us great encouragement. It is hoped that in the future, there will be more creative and imaginative plans for the building up of audience.
At the end of this year, Hong Kong will be erecting a new milestone in its economy and culture with the completion of the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Phase II and the Hong Kong Trade Development Council's Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre on the opposite side of the harbour. I hope
Page 149 of 185
289
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
Page 149 of 185
288
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
make great efforts in the following aspects if our work is to be evaluated from the wide angle of cultural construction:
(1) Direction
Section 25 of the Urban Council Ordinance provides no guidelines for pro- moting and developing culture and arts, which the Council should follow in cultural construction, nor does it stipulate that the Council should formulate long term cultural policy. At present, the Council can only make short term plans for individual cases when deciding on the priorities of the allocation of resources, the training of talents, programme arrangements and sponsorship of cultural and art activities. In such circumstances, a lack of full development and mutual coordination of the activities organized by the Council is inevitable. Obviously, it is most important for the Urban Council to formulate as soon as possible a long term policy on cultural development, and, through consultation with the Municipal Services Branch, Regional Council, District Boards and the Council for the Performing Arts, to seek consensus and cooperation, so as to minimize duplicated allocation of resources to the activities as well as un- necessary competitions, provided that it would not affect the independence and autonomy of the authorities.
(2) Balance
As a cosmopolitan city which is efficient in communications and where Eastern and Western cultures are mixed, Hong Kong develops multi-faceted and dynamic forms of cultural and artistic presentation, which range from Eastern to Western, from traditional to modern, and from preliminary to mature. Different schools of arts and ideologies coexist in Hong Kong. Being in such a diversified arts environment, the Urban Council has a responsibility to do its best to foster a free and democratic world for creation and presentation, and to develop each type of arts in a balance way.
At present, certain art still remain in the ‘grey zone' where they are not being properly recognized or promoted. Take photography, filming and design, all of which fall within the category of visual arts, for an example. In the recent Contemporary Hong Kong Art Biennial, photography is but categorized as 'miscellaneous' while design has not been recognized and was only classified as the frequently displayed item'. Imbalanced development of individual arts is extremely unhealthy to the equilibrium of culture as a whole.
Among all the tasks to be done for the greyzone arts, I think the establishment of a Film Archive and a visual art workshop are two of the items which brook no delay.
In terms of artistic and cultural values, the achievement of Hong Kong films in quantity, creative concepts and artistic standard is obvious to all. In addition, these films are of historical value in that they reflect the livelihood, economic and cultural conditions of our society, so the government should have the responsibility of preserving them. Unfortunately, in the past we did not have
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
Page 149 of 185
289
any department responsible for collecting, storing and preserving films in a systematic way, thus resulting in a serious loss and damage of the original film copies. The setting up of a Film Archive can help save the films of fairly high historical, artistic and cultural values from the brink of their being lost or damaged and finally to enable them to reappear in front of the eyes the public. The ordinary young visual art workers may not be able to find themselves a spacious and well-equipped workshop for creative activities in Hong Kong where the rent is so high. The aim of setting up a visual art workshop is to provide those potential visual art workers with a convenient, centralized and well-equipped place where they can create and exchange ideas with undivided attention. The Urban Council can do the lead by allocating part of the budget of its new capital works programme to be carried out in the future for buying the art works for the visual art workshop as a kind of encouragement to local artists' creation. Besides, seminars and short training courses can be held in the workshop so as to further promote visual arts, build up audience and help create new artists.
(3) Universality
The provision of cultural activities can, in a passive way, cater to the audience's taste while promoting their level of appreciation in an active way. When a certain kind of arts has been generally accepted by the audience, the greater challenge is to change the form of presentation of that particular kind of art or to broaden the audience's minds by enabling them to experience another kind of culture and art so as to build up a large audience of high appreciative ability.
So, when we have built up a fairly large audience for the permorming arts, we should not forget to do the same for visual arts. Caution must be exercised in order to achieve a balanced development in building up audience for art, be it traditional, modern, avant grade, Eastern or Western. It is only by making the audience generally accept and understand culture and art of various forms that they can gradually become part of our life and survive in the market, and that the artists' works can, under the mechanism of supply and demand of the market, have a deserved value and pass from generation to generation instead of endlessly relying on government subsidy or sponsorship.
I am glad to know that the Urban Council has already started to plan for the publicity, as well building up of audience, for the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Phase II which will be completed soon. The success of the subscription scheme of the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra brought us great encouragement. It is hoped that in the future, there will be more creative and imaginative plans for the building up of audience.
At the end of this year, Hong Kong will be erecting a new milestone in its economy and culture with the completion of the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Phase II and the Hong Kong Trade Development Council's Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre on the opposite side of the harbour. I hope
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