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# HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL

CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese):-For the motion debates that follow, as Mr. Lam Wing-fai has to attend another official meeting, I would like to reshuffle the order and deal with item 5 first, so that, Mr. LAM can attend the District Board meeting after he has spoken. Will Mr. Lam Man-sai move his motion please?

(5) MR. LAM MAN-FAI moved the following motion:-

'**RESOLVED** that appropriate Urban Council venues should be used to display works of art and to set up facilities for displaying exhibits of cultural interests and historical relics, so as to increase the exhibition rate of the collections of museums and to enhance citizens' knowledge in the development of art, culture and history in Hong Kong.'

He said (in Cantonese):-I beg to move the motion standing in my name.

The attendance rates of the Museum of Art and the Museum of History were on the low side in the past years, particularly in comparison with those of famous museums in overseas countries. As such, shouldn't we consider converting the pattern of centralized display to an outreach popularizing one so that our collections and our cultural artefacts can be displayed in different regions? As at 1 April 1996, the Museum of Art has 13,075 items of collection valued at $74.5 million, but the display rate for last year was only 10%. If we speak of the cumulative display rate from 1962 to 1996, only 55% of our collection items were displayed. In other words, nearly half of our collection was never put on display in the past 30-odd years. For the Museum of History with 5,500 items in its collection, the display rate for 95/96 was 3.8% whereas the rate for 94/95 was even lower at 1.3%. By world standards, the quantities of our collections are small. If we maintain such a low display rate of our small collections instead of putting them on public display as much as possible, it seems to me we are wasting our resources.

Is it because the Urban Council does not have suitable venues? It doesn't seem so. Let me quote some examples. The Kowloon Walled City Park is in fact of very high historical value. Many citizens have visited it in groups, and quite a number of Members here have organized tours of the Park for kaifongs. Even tourists from overseas make the Park an important point of interest when they visit Hong Kong. If we can provide space in this Park to display cultural relics or collection items of the Museum of Art, it will promote the public image of the Council greatly. Another venue is the Hammer Hill Road Park which is now under planning. We discussed at our last Committee meeting on how we could blend in with the Tang Dynasty construction design of the Chilin Nunnery project. That project will see the largest range of Tang designs in 2000 years. If we can blend in the design of this Park with the Chilin Nunnery and build venues to exhibit collection items of the Museum of History and Museum of Art, our facilities and those of the Chilin Nunnery will complement each other more.

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