Art Spawned by Hong Kong Protest; Now to Make It Live On

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By JOYCE LAUNOV. 14, 2014

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Art on the Streets

CreditNicolas Asfouri/Getty Images — Agence France-Presse
HONG KONG — Thousands of pastel Post-it notes, marked with messages of support for pro-democracy demonstrators, form a fluttering collage that snakes around the wall of a staircase outside Hong Kong government headquarters. Nearby stands “Umbrella Man,” a 12-foot-tall wood sculpture of a figure holding a bright yellow umbrella.

Above one of the city’s thoroughfares, where demonstrators have been camped out since late September, students have sewn together hundreds of broken umbrellas to form a giant canopy.

The pro-democracy demonstrations that have occupied sections of Hong Kong since September have created more than political statements and traffic jams. The so-called Umbrella Movement has also produced an explosion of public art that has turned the protest sites into enormous outdoor art exhibitions. The art, pointedly political and often witty, has become as much an expression of the protest as the megaphone speeches and the metal street barricades.

But reports that the city may soon clear the protest sites have set preservationists, historians and art lovers scrambling to figure out how to record and preserve the art for posterity.

Because most of the art is still on the streets, the archiving is largely digital. Some digital renditions and objects are already running alongside the “Disobedient Objects” exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

 

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