Arts and culture as well as creative industries in Hong Kong are well known for their diversity as well as embracing both Eastern and Western cultures. They come in every aspect, stand in great numbers and are of high quality.
Arts and Culture
From drama to dance, and from pop music to Chinese opera, Hong Kong is the centre of Eastern and Western performing arts. There are over 1 000 performing arts groups in Hong Kong, staging as many as 8 000 performance arts show every year and attracting an annual audience of over 3 million. Hong Kong is also one of the world’s largest art auction markets. Top-tier galleries such as the Gagosian and White Cube do business in Hong Kong. Christie’s and Sotheby’s have major operations here.
The Hong Kong Arts Festival, organised by the Hong Kong Arts Festival Society, takes place in around February and March every year. It is one of the most important international festivals in Asia. Featuring local, Asian and international elite artists and arts groups in an eclectic array of music, dance, opera, theatre and various popular entertainments, the festival has over one hundred programmes, including classical and traditional, as well as creative and novel performances.
Art Basel in Hong Kong, held every year in March, gives galleries from around the world a platform to demonstrate the way they work with artists. For art collectors, artists, dealers, curators, critics and art lovers, this event offers a dynamic cross-cultural exchange only this city can offer. The Asia Contemporary Art Show, on the other hand, brings about 100 galleries from Asia and around the world twice a year.
Many other art events are held in Hong Kong every year, including Le French May in spring, the International Arts Carnival in summer, as well as the New Vision Festival and the World Cultures Festival held in alternate years in autumn etc. These events on one hand provide opportunities for artists around the world to get together for mutual exchange. On the other hand, they also offer high quality cultural programmes for the audience. The Chinese Opera Festival, which takes place every summer, has become an important platform for displaying the art of traditional Chinese opera. Cantonese opera was even officially inscribed onto UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, making it the first item of the world intangible cultural heritage in Hong Kong.
West Kowloon Cultural District
The West Kowloon Cultural District (WKCD) project is an important strategic investment of Hong Kong to meet the long-term infrastructural and development needs of Hong Kong’s art and culture. The WKCD is being developed as an integrated arts and cultural district with world-class facilities. It aims to promote the development of arts and culture, meet the growing cultural needs of the public and strengthen Hong Kong’s position as an international arts and cultural metropolis.
The WKCD site is located at the southern tip of the West Kowloon Reclamation Area with an area of 40 hectares. Within the WKCD, 23 hectares of public open space will be provided for people’s enjoyment. Performing arts venues of different types and scales will be provided in phases. There will also be the M+, a museum focusing on 20th and 21st century visual culture in the WKCD.
Major facilities of the WKCD to be completed in the next few years include the Xiqu Centre, the M+ Museum, the Lyric Theatre Complex, the Freespace, the Art Park and the Hong Kong Palace Museum.
Creative Industries
Creative industries are important economic drivers for Hong Kong, enhancing the economy's innovation capacity and driving its growth in future. Hong Kong has a leading edge in key creative sectors such as film, television, music, design, architecture, advertisement, comics and animation, games and digital entertainment, printing and publishing. The creative industries of Hong Kong have been striving for excellence and received international awards from time to time.
Hong Kong has been promoting the development of creative industries, with a view to building itself as Asia's creative capital. Create Hong Kong, established in June 2009, is a dedicated agency within the Hong Kong Government for promoting the development of creative industries in Hong Kong and providing one-stop services and better support to the creative industries.
Signature creative events are organised annually by industry players. One anchor event is Entertainment Expo Hong Kong, which takes place in March and April every year. It comprises 10 major events, including Hong Kong International Film and TV Market, Hong Kong International Film Festival, Hong Kong Film Awards, Hong Kong Asian-Pop Music Festival etc. Business of Design Week, which is organised at the end of each year by the Hong Kong Design Centre, has become a key design event in the region.
In addition to two existing focal points for creative industries at InnoCentre and Cyberport, Hong Kong has, in a bid to further drive the development of creative industries, transformed the Former Police Married Quarters on Hollywood Road into a creative industries landmark known as PMQ. PMQ commenced operation in April 2014, gathering more than 100 local new entrepreneurs. It provides creative studio, pop-up stores, restaurants and a multi-functional exhibition hall for young designers and newly established creative enterprises to pursue creativity - and design-related work, and to display and sell creative products.