Better City, Better Life - Sham Shui Po Chapter
We are excited to spotlight our Better City, Better Life - Sham Shui Po Chapter, recently held on 12th February 2026 at Concordia Lutheran School in Sham Shui Po. We extend our heartfelt thanks to the school for their press release, which captured valuable feedback from the head teacher, students, and school principal on the project impact. Over the past six weeks, it has been a great pleasure to witness the learning, creativity and community engagement that blossomed through this initiative. We are thrilled to see the project featured in the Hong Kong Economic Journal on 25th February 2026, as well as in other two local newspapers on 27th February. For more details, please refer to the following links: Link1.
Moving forward, our goal to promote the project across all 18 districts of Hong Kong. We are actively seeking meaningful collaborations in each district as we strive to create a lasting impact on younger generations and foster creative connections among diverse communities and neighborhoods in Hong Kong.
Press Release In English Follows:
Secondary Students Revisit Sham Shui Po Through the Lens of Along the River During Qingming Festival Scroll Bustling Streets Mirror the Prosperity of the Northern Song Dynasty
Students: Bustling Streets Reflect Community Vitality
Hong Kong — A group of secondary students stepped beyond the classroom, with sketchbooks and cameras in hand, to rediscover Sham Shui Po through the lens of the Northern Song dynasty masterpiece “Along the River During Qingming Festival” under the guidance of the Arts for Good Foundation. What they once regarded as "crowded" and "bustling" streets began to take on new meanings. Drawing parallels with the prosperity of the Song dynasty capital of Bianjing depicted in the ancient scroll, the students came to see scenes of everyday activity as signs of prosperity and community vitality. Their observations were later transformed into long scroll poster and mixed-media collages, as they sought to reimagine their neighborhood through art making and creative processes.
Concordia Lutheran School recently partnered with Arts for Good Foundation to launch the cross-disciplinary experiential learning project “Better Community, Better Living: Along the River During Qingming Festival and Sham Shui Po Community Walk and Observation”. Moving beyond traditional art sketching, instructors introduced students to the painting's "shifting perspective" --- a distinctive approach in classical Chinese aesthetics that invites viewers to move through scenes, allowing space and time to unfold gradually. By adopting this way of seeing, students were encouraged to look at their neighborhood as an interconnected environment where everyday lives coexist and shape one another.
Students put this approach into practice through community walks within a three-kilometre radius of the school, documenting daily life along Apliu Street, Ki Lung Street and Pei Ho Street. They gained new inspiration from modern streets scenes, drawing connections between past and present.
"The Bustle of Sham Shui Po Mirrors the Societal Prosperity of the Northern Song"
Students presented their works on campus yesterday. One group juxtaposed the electronics stalls of Apliu Street with bridge-side vendors depicted in the ancient painting, noting striking similarities between the two.
Form Four student Lau Yu-ping said she used to think of Sham Shui Po as merely crowded with traffic and filled with noise. After studying the scroll more closely, however, her perspective shifted. "The 'liveliness' in the painting feels remarkably similar to Sham Shui Po", she said. "The overlapping sounds and street activities teeming with people — whether in the Northern Song or today — show how alive a place can be."
Another Form Four student, Liu Kun Hung, used contemporary collage techniques to recreate the street-stall scene of Ki Lung Street. He observed that the vendors in the painting, striving to make a living on the streets, were not so different from today's neighborhood shopkeepers. "Even a thousand years later, the vibrancy of street life and human connection remains the same," he said. "That's the unique value and connectivity of our community."
Citizenship and social development panel head Poon Sing Yu, who led the programme, said the project was designed to encourage students to "slow down and read the community with their eyes", applying classical aesthetics to contemporary life and transferring to community-based creativity.
Principal: Art as a Catalyst to Rediscover the Overlooked Everyday
Principal Chan Yuen Ling Gloria said the school encourages students to step outside the classroom and reconnect with the places they live. "They usually rush past these streets every day and take everything for granted," she said. "When they began looking at their surroundings through these shifting perspectives, they started noticing details and inspiration they had never really seen before."
She added that she was impressed by the students' shift in mindset — from viewing the neighborhood as unpleasant and chaotic to recognising the vitality within it. Through the process, students developed a stronger sense of belonging and empathy toward their community.
Co-organiser: Moving Beyond Stereotypes to Reimagine Modern Stories, Students Offer Fresh Perspectives on a Familiar Neighborhood
Amanda Sun, Director at Arts for Good Foundation, said adults often approach Sham Shui Po with preconceived impressions, while students bring openness and imagination to a future that they live in.
The six-week programme aimed to help students understand that artistic creation does not exist only in museums, but in everyday life. "In an era shaped by AI, students' ability to walk through their community, to experience its lived vibrancy and human texture and to translate those experiences into creative work through different media is something technology cannot replace," she said.
Among the highlights of the exhibition was the student-created "Sham Shui Po Community Scroll", a heartfelt reinterpretation of home and everyday living through the eyes of these youngsters.
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