Newsletter 2022-01-31
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Newsletter from Arts for Good Foundation - January 2022
Welcome to the January newsletter of 2022 from Arts for Good Foundation. When the year of the Tiger is upon us, we strive to make impacts with strength, confidence, and conscientiousness.  Arts for Good Foundation envisions arts as soft power to foster social inclusion through educating the future generations in Hong Kong. We deeply appreciate all the collaborations, support, and connections from our community, and we will continue to reach out for more impactful work. Kung Hei Fat Choi.

Best regards,
Amanda H Sun
Change Maker
Founder& Director
 
New Art Making Project:
Story of Hong Kong: A Story on a Piece of Leased Land

Continuing with our Tsuen Wan Storytelling in December 2021, we are launching Story of Hong Kong- A Story on a Piece of Leased Land  project. We are grateful to collaborate with Artist Justin Hui,  with supports and contributions from Photographers Kelvin Tang and Lau Wing Hong, as well as other cultural enthusiasts.

We started from the Story of Chi Kee Timber and Sawmill factory, which has been a pioneer family factory in the industry from 1947-2021. Chi Kee has gone through number of major transitions and changes together with Hong Kong in the past 74 years. Chi Kee and their surrounding Kwun Tung village will soon be evicted due to the North East New Territories New Development Area Planning in Hong Kong.

By documenting and collecting the family stories in related to Hong Kong local history, transitions and changes, we are hoping to convert them to authentic education materials for children and youths for future art viewing, and art making, such as  drama making, community or socially engaged art making , or via other creative mediums, in order to deepen their sentimental connection with Hong Kong's heritage, history, and people's lives, and also to strengthen their own cultural identities with global mindset. 
 
HKU x Arts For Good
Art Making and Community Service Debriefing

We are grateful to collect the students' feedbacks from the University of Hong Kong, who joined our community services at Hope of the City, and the art making at The Mills in December 2021.

It was so blessed to hear their feedbacks about how arts could help them express their feelings, dismantle language barriers in our community, connect with children and youths from different backgrounds, and embrace the hopeful elements in our lives!

We are hoping to be able to complete the Community Services through Art Viewing once the museums are reopened, and meanwhile looking forward to the future programmes after this pilot.
 
Alike and Unlike, 2021
(Available for Sale, also available in NFT)

We documented the process of the making of the “Alike and Unlike”, which is a painting and collage done by a group of children (aged 6-10), their single mothers from Sham Shui Po, and myself.  In the process, children were encouraged to create freely with the medium of Chinese ink on Japanese Xuan Paper, while their mothers were taught to mimicking goldfish and lily pads on the same medium.

“Alike and Unlike, 2021” tells a story of how our future change of education meets our cultural expectations of being alike versus our individual struggle of being different, particularly for those from marginalised and polarised communities.

We are hoping to provoke forward thinking about the change of our education for the good of Hong Kong in the future. We are continuing to foster ethical and respectful minds of our future generations to embrace differences and seek commonalities in our community.

Special thanks to :
Collaborator: Hong Kong Momtrepreneurs
Venue Sponsor: Hope of The City
Videographer: E
 
Journey of Reflection 2021
(Available for Sale, also available in NFT)

We are delighted to share the artworks of the Journey of Reflection 2021. This collection includes four art making processes: 1) Under the Hong Kong Skyline which is a process of thread winding on nails on a wooden frame; 2) Eye series which is an embroidery art making on one piece of painted canvas; 3) Calendar 2021 which is an embroidery art making  on twelve pieces of painted canvases, each representing different month of 2021; and 4) Art Space Installation at Annex inside The Mills, which was a former textile factory in Hong Kong.  

We documented the monthly social restrictions in 2021. A total of 15 youths (aged 15-22) documented their own feelings and their major happenings in 2021.  They created the whole collection with different kinds of threads on three different mediums.  

During the process, Artist Ane Alfeiran and myself were very glad to share our earlier life in Mexico and China, while listening to theirs in Hong Kong or elsewhere. It was such a great opportunity for all of us to imagine people’s lives in different places. Through reflecting and imagining people’s lives, we are building sentimental connection to the project, and discovering common humanity values in our community together.

Each thread in the textile creations on the canvases and nailed frame, and each thread that was incorporated into the art space installation carries pieces of their indiviudal stories. The collection delivers the collective meanings and memories of the youth community  in 2021 in Hong Kong.

Special thanks to :
Collaborating Artist: Ane Alfeiran
Videographers: E and Skyhorse Creative
Venue Sponsor: The Mills
 
Tsuen Wan Storytelling & Ink Performance Art Making
(Available for Sale, also available in NFT)

This artwork was made by eight youths aged 20-22 with Artist InkWanders, which includes community storytelling, heritage appreciation, and art making. We helped them to gain deeper understanding of the social context that underlies the history of textile making in Hong Kong, how deeply the craft and culture of textile making is connected to Tsuen Wan and the deeper meaning of textile-related artworks in the city.

The ink performance art making allows them to express their own understanding and their personalities by writing the two modified version of the Chinese characters that form Tsuen Wan (荃灣).  The modified version of the characters, which contains cotton (棉) and gauze (紗) on top, carry deeper meaning of the history, the social context, and the status of female in Tsuen Wan. 

During the process, they were given limited space, and motivated to think and work with each others' individual forms of expression through each stroke. At the same time, they were given the opportunity to work collaboratively to produce an artwork that expresses their own individual styles and personalities while also embracing and expressing their peers' intentions and styles.

Special thanks to:
Collaborating Artists: InkWanders, Chau Kwan Long, Ten Days Ten
Videographer: Ten Days Ten,
Venue Sponsor: The Mills
 
NFT Artworks on OpenSea
Press Release (English and Chinese)

We are collaborating with UD (the pioneer blockchain solutions providers in Hong Kong) to launch our first NFT artwork collection, available on OpenSea from 28 January 2022.

The NFT collection has three themes, namely “Journey of Reflection 2021”, “Community Engagement Artworks” and “Student Individual Works”, featuring 15 NFT art pieces.  The "Student Individual Works"  are the works by selected Hong Kong students (aged 14 - 22), who have strong voices for changes for Hong Kong, who are sensitive to people's lives and our community, and who are great storytellers and dreamers for the future of Hong Kong.  

The meaning of minting the collections to NFT is to give our future generations room to imagine, to dream a different world for their future, and to make their voices heard on  a new platform. More importantly, we are hoping to  promote our broader sense of diversity and inclusion in Hong Kong for our future.
To view and purchase our works in NFT, please click this link at OpenSea. For any enquiries, please contact us by Email. Happy Chinese New Year and Kung Hei Fat Choi.
Past Newsletters:
 
Arts for Good Foundation, Hong Kong SAR China