October 19, 1996, was just another day for many Hongkongers, apart from a minor typhoon which brought heavy rain. Some enjoyed time with their families that Saturday, others went to the races, a few went to church.
The weather that day failed to deter art lovers, with 122 separate events staged across the city. In those final months of British colonial rule, there were few boundaries between art and politics.
Earlier in 1996 a play had been performed which featured Article 23 of the Basic Law, due to come into force after the Handover to China on July 1, 1997. There was also much speculation about who the city’s new leader would be, typified by an exhibition entitled Head of H.K.SAR.
Mainland Chinese artist Pun Sing-lui made his mark in September 1996, splashing red paint over the statue of Queen Victoria in the park named after her, to express his anger at colonialism. He was sentenced to 28 days in prison.
Almost 28 years later, researchers at the Asia Art Archive (AAA), a Hong Kong-based NGO, have brought memories of October 19,1996, back to life through an exhibition called Another Day in Hong Kong.
On display until August 31, it recaptures the stories and events of that day through art archives, old newspapers, television programmes, audio records and interviews with Hongkongers. Seven local artists were also invited to create works for the exhibition.
AAA hosts a huge collection of artistic memorabilia ranging from programmes, photos and documentaries to magazines and books, with a focus on independent art. In January, after reviewing all the material, researchers found the median date of all the materials in their care was October 19, 1996.
Anthony Yung, a researcher with AAA and one of the exhibition’s curators, told HKFP that Another Day in Hong Kong aimed to revive memories of one particular day in Hong Kong from a granular, personal perspective.
“A book can depict a history of 10 years in probably 300 pages. But that’s too general and 99 per cent of events that occurred will not be documented,” Yung said in Cantonese. “We hope to offer a micro perspective… as too many things can take place in one day.”
“While we’re talking about the past, it’s not for the sake of nostalgia. Rather, [we hope] to restore history based on facts and seek inspiration from the past.”
How to tell the Hong Kong story
Oscar Ho vividly recalls October 19,1996, since it fell four days before an exhibition that he had been commissioned by the colonial British government to curate. Opening in the UK, the exhibition was called Hong Kong, a City of Tomorrow.
“In 1996, Hong Kong was very energetic, with so many ideas and activities… Many people migrated to other countries in the 1980s… but those who stayed wanted to explore what Hong Kong was,” Ho told HKFP in Cantonese.
“It was right before the Handover, and the-then government wanted to hold an exhibition in Edinburgh about Hong Kong, from an architectural perspective. I was invited to curate it, ” Ho said.
He came up with the idea recreating a Hong Kong public housing unit, saying “culture is people’s way of living.”
“In the small space of public housing units, Hongkongers developed special furniture like bunk beds or sofas which can also be used as drawers.” Ho said. “But no matter how small the home is, people have Mahjong tables, televisions, and some like to display nice brandy.”
Ho shipped furniture he had borrowed and bought from Hong Kong to Edinburgh for the installation. But when he arrived at the venue on October 19, 1996, after a long-haul flight, the public housing unit had already been set up with all new furniture from Ikea.
“Employees of the Housing Department had changed all the displays, making it like the government’s model public housing units,” Ho said, recalling an outburst of anger at the venue. Ultimately, the exhibits were replaced with Ho’s selection.
Ho said, when it came to the narrative of Hong Kong, there had always been competing ideologies.
“One tries to depict the city as developed and modern – just like a model unit with Ikea furniture. Another one views Hong Kong from a colonial perspective,” Ho said. “A third view, which is also my belief, is to present Hong Kong as Hong Kong, to understand its uniqueness.”
The question of what is Hong Kong and what makes Hongkongers had preoccupied Ho for years. In 1990, he invited ordinary people to take photos of their daily lives on September 7 that year to try and help him find the answers. It became the exhibition One Day in Hong Kong.
It captured moments of daily life: people flooding into an MTR station at rush hour; a man fishing near the sea; people enjoying food in a dai pai dong on Temple Street; a foreigner having his fortune told; children enjoying a birthday cake; early morning workers in the fruit market…
Roots in the past
Anthony Yung said it was One Day in Hong Kong that inspired him and Hazel Kwok, another researcher at AAA, to curate Another Day in Hong Kong. But not everyone remembers a random day almost 28 years ago.
Hong Kong artist Tozer Pak, whose work often focuses on personal, political or historical memories, could recall with some degree of certainty what he had been doing that day.
“It was a Saturday and it was my last year of secondary school. Ever since I converted to Christianity, I spent every Saturday in church during high school,” Pak told HKFP in Cantonese.
After migrating to Hong Kong with his family from Fujian province as a child, Pak lived with his parents and three siblings in a subdivided flat in Sham Shui Po before the family was allocated a public housing unit. Growing up in a poor family, Pak said he had no role model but found a community at church.
“The church was such a warm place to me, with lots of kind sisters and brothers. And I did learn a lot from many of them – how to devote oneself to what you believe,” Pak said.
On October 19, 1996, Pak travelled to his church in Sham Shui Po. “I spent the whole afternoon there, singing songs, praying and sharing… Afterwards I usually went to Garden Hill with brothers from the church and sang hymns,” Pak said.
“My mom worked as a cleaner at nights so I took care of myself. Most nights, I spent time reading the Bible.”
Pak no longer goes to church. “I gradually grew apart from the church. Instead, I pursue art,” he said. But his experiences from 1996 are still an influence today.
Pak, who represented Hong Kong at the 53rd Venice Biennale in 2009, pays attention in his works to social and political issues in Hong Kong. After the Umbrella Movement civil disobedience campaign in 2014, he frequently went to court to observe trials linked to social movements. From courtroom sketches, he created artworks in various forms.
In recent years, he said, it had become more difficult to produce artwork with political themes and he now focuses more on sharing stories of underprivileged groups.
“Now Hong Kong is facing a new situation. Let’s see what we can do in this new environment,” Pak said. “There are faiths in my artworks, or to put it another way, there is a faith in staying in Hong Kong.”
Dialogue with a young girl
For the younger generation, memories of 1996 are too vague to capture. Florence Lam was four. To try to recapture memories, she asked her parents.
They remembered a little girl who loved spaghetti bolognese, dreamed of having a large farm when she grew up, and enjoyed swimming.
“None of these dreams came true,” Lam told HKFP. She became a vegetarian, no longer swam and could not afford a farm.
For Another Day in Hong Kong, Lam, now 31, produced a picture book imagining a dialogue with her four-year-old self.
“In the book, the little girl cries when she finds out her dreams do not come true in the end, ” Lam said, “but the older Lam said it’s OK and she is now realising her dreams in another way. ”
Lam is now a performance artist in Hong Kong. After spending almost 10 years in Europe studying for her bachelor and master’s degrees, she returned to the city during the Covid-19 pandemic.
In the small exhibition space at AAA, newspaper clippings from 1996 are displayed on the window. A recording broadcasts the announcement that used to be heard on the Kowloon-Canton Railway, now the MTR’s East Rail Line.
“The next station is Lo Wu station, please ensure you have all your belongings with you. And mind the platform gap. Thank you for using our services.”
The curator Yung said, it is a coincidence that the year 1996 and 2024 actually share the same calendar. “28 years make a cycle,” Yung said. While Hong Kong has changed a lot, artistic expression continues.
Another Day in Hong Kong is on display at Asia Art Archive until August 31.
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