Assemblies Exhibition: Hong Kong Creativity

“Innovation is at the heart of progress of a nation. It provides an inexhaustible source of inspiration for a country to achieve prosperity and development.” Ambassador Li Baodong, Permanent Representative of China to the United Nations office in Geneva.

Hong Kong ­– the Pearl of the Orient – is a gateway for international trade, attracting to its shores the best of east and west to complement its rich Chinese cultural heritage. The exhibition “HK Creativity – Intellectual Property in Hong Kong, China,” held at WIPO headquarters during the WIPO Assemblies of Member States, celebrated the contribution that IP has made to Hong Kong’s social and economic development, displaying works of art, design, fashion, film and highlighting IP enforcement efforts.

Branding Hong Kong

In 2000 Hong Kong commissioned a team of international communications firms to develop a strategy to position the city on the world stage. This was the launching pad for the Brand Hong Kong project. An international test audience selected the dragon image above, which incorporates the letters H and K and the Chinese characters for Hong Kong.

Art

Ah Chung started his artistic career as one of Hong Kong’s first political cartoonists. In 1984, he started to create a series of ink and color painting, which made him one of Hong Kong’s most popular artists. A collection of his works can be seen in the Hong Kong Museum of Arts.

Broad-minded (1998), Riding the clouds and mounting the mist. Yellow river becomes a brook. (right)

Happy-go-lucky (2005), Easy to be perspicacious. Forbearance is hard. (far right)

Design

The Hong Kong Designers Association (HKDA), founded in 1972, advocates public interest in design and a higher profession status for designers. The Association organizes many events to promote Hong Kong’s designers, such as the HKDA Awards, exhibitions, and seminars to educate designers on protecting their IP rights.

 
In Love with Bamboo by Alan Chan, 2004. The poster replicates the same image joined together horizontally to form a series of verticals that look like bamboo. The Chinese character for the human being is depicted from the Chinese character for bamboo. (far left)

 Flip: Chinese Contemporary Book Design by Freeman Lau, 2004. (left)

Calligraphy

Chinese calligraphy is over 3,000 years old and a revered form of art in China, Japan and Korea. Its practitioners are many – it requires simply paper, ink and brush – but its masters few. Tsang Tsou Choi, a poor, barely literate worker, began to mark the streets of Hong Kong with his calligraphic graffiti at the age of 35. At first considered a nuisance, his work had been elevated to an art form by the time he passed away this year at the age of 86. The fashion designer William Tang created a line using Tsang Tsou Choi’s calligraphy as theme.

Caption of the image goes here.

The graffiti calligraphy of Tsang Tsou Choi documents the contributions of the “Kowloon Emperor” ­­– his self proclaimed title.

William Tang’s fashion designs based on Tsang Tsou Choi’s calligraphy.

Hung Chuen Wa, a master of calligraphy whose works have featured in exhibitions in China, Japan, Korea and across Europe, created four works (three are pictured below) using the WIPO themes for World Intellectual Property Day.

“IP - It starts with an idea” (far left)
“IP a tool for wealth creation” (middle)   “Encouraging creativity – Protect Creativity” (left)

By Sylvie Castonguay, WIPO Magazine Editorial Staff, Communications and Public Outreach Division
Photos courtesy of the Intellectual Property Department of Hong Kong SAR