HKIA Arts and Culture Festival highlights Hong Kong’s rich cultural heritage and creativity

Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) Arts and Culture Festival 2024 held its opening ceremony today. From today until 31 October, a series of art exhibitions will be presented in the terminal. The festival will feature displays of artworks by Hong Kong artists and talents, showcasing their creativity while promoting Hong Kong’s unique culture to travellers from around the globe. Apart from exhibiting artworks, the festival also presented a wide range of stage performances to travellers last month.

Airport Authority Hong Kong (AAHK) has partnered with M+, MobArt Gallery, Art Promotion Office of the Leisure and Cultural Services Department, and Hong Kong Arts Centre to present art exhibitions that highlight the diversity of the local arts scene. Representatives from Hong Kong’s arts and cultural institutions gathered at the airport to mark the opening, including Esa Leung, Assistant Director (Heritage & Museums), Leisure and Cultural Services Department; Suhanya Raffel, Museum Director, M+; Rebecca Ip, Executive Director, Hong Kong Arts Centre; and Shirley Chung, Director, MobArt Gallery.

Vivian Cheung, Acting Chief Executive Officer of AAHK, said at the event, “As the gateway to Hong Kong, HKIA stands as an ideal venue to showcase the diverse cultural landscape of our vibrant city. HKIA has been providing a valuable platform for both established and emerging local artists to share their work with a global audience since 2015. The Arts and Culture Festival will enrich the journey of every traveller passing through the airport. The completion of the Three-runway System this year will also enable more travellers to visit Hong Kong and experience the city’s diverse culture and vibrant arts scene.”

The festival will include four exhibitions spanning diverse themes, from traditional crafts to digital arts. Local traditional craftsmanship, long recognised as Hong Kong’s intangible cultural heritage, is presented with life-sized replicas of items such as bamboo steamers as well as mahjong tiles. Visitors can personalise their own postcards of Hong Kong street scenes by using stamps made with “Lee Hon Kong Kai” fonts, a signature calligraphy that commonly used in Hong Kong’s signs since 1970s. Visitors can also receive limited-edition luggage stickers designed by local artists.

Visitors will also be able to explore a series of gongbi paintings, traditional Chinese paintings delicately and exquisitely outlining natural beauties, which have been transformed via multimedia digital technology into dynamic visuals and interactive artworks at the Ground Transportation Centre. The artists have employed modern innovations to add ingenious touches, creating custom filters through augmented reality and motion graphics design. Visitors can pick their favourite paintings and match them with their chosen materials and colour palettes to craft animations of their own in the virtual world.

The airport’s giant digital screen will feature four animated paintings created by local artists and 260 secondary school students. The collection explores Hong Kong’s dynamic culture from different perspectives while giving visitors a sense of “home” at the airport, a place of farewell. Each artwork has been brought to life through digital technology. In addition, more than 20 watercolour paintings by the renowned local artist Kong Kai-ming, depicting Hong Kong’s natural beauty are being showcased in the Departures Hall.