城邦/Chéngbāng/Polis - Presentation, Exhibition, Interaction

Fellow arts and city enthusiasts, some of the presentations made at this symposium are now available to purchase as a non-profit publication.

The catalogue contains essays, poetry and artwork by undergraduates who studied at HKU for the year 2012/13 and featuring special contributions by international artist Wen Yau, and graduate student Julianne Yang.

http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/4526350-polis-symposium-catalogue

Polis Symposium Catalogue The full colour catalogue of critical and creative contributions by speakers at the Chéngāng/Polis Symposium May 31st 2013, Hong Kong

The symposium report with photos has been published online- take a look!
Many thanks to all who took part, your work was truly appreciated.

http://chengbangpolis.wordpress.com/

城邦/Chéngbāng/Polis Presentation, Exhibition, Interaction: An Undergraduate Symposium on the Arts in Hong Kong

Photos taken on the day of the Symposium- photo authorship remains with Jannis Hamida and Chris Chan where appropriate.

At 14.00 our second plenary speaker, artist and writer Wen Yau will take the floor, and then the Panel Session 3 - "Deliveries: Presentations of the City" with presenters Alfredo Terrado, Carman Fung, and Guillermo Serra!
Everyone more than welcome to attend!

The first plenary session has ended after the intervention of HKU teacher assistant Julianne Yang. Now we have moved to the Panel Session 2 - "Theory and Practice in Creativity". Don't miss the presentations from Valencia Tong, Elaine Wong, and Sam O'Hana!
Seats available!

The symposium has just started with an introduction by Sam O'Hana!
Don't miss the Panel Session 1 - "Looking Forward, Writing Back: Postcolonial Perspectives" starting at 10.00 AM with presenters Hun Law, Jessie Ng, and Serene Chan.
Don't miss out!

The 城邦/Chéngbāng/Polis symposium starts tomorrow at 9.30 AM! We hope you are all as excited as we are!

Don't forget that the room number is 813, 8/F, Jockey Club Tower, Centennial Campus, The University of Hong Kong.
Should you need any help getting there, please contact the Conference Curator, Mr. Sam Downes (97889124).

[...] Sometimes late at night

cars droned and paled: Splurge and repent-
wasn't that the idea? It was your initiative
that brought us here, through the difficult part

of a city. Some angels
seemed to teeter on the wooden fence.
Were we all they knew?

Or are we part of their mind-cleansing
ritual, necessary and discardable?
Doesn't that make more sense?

- from 'Quick Question' by John Ashbery

FINAL DEADLINE for submissions of abstracts is TONIGHT (Friday, May 17) at MIDNIGHT (Hong Kong time). This is the last opportunity to get your voice heard about the prospect of arts, the metropolis and Hong Kong. For submissions please send your abstracts or creative projects to:

[email protected] (Abstracts)
[email protected] (Creative works)

Hong Kong has consistently ranked at the top of economic freedom indexes (Heritage Foundation, and Fraser Institute), and Nobel-prize winner and economist Milton Friedman has praised Hong Kong for its freedom, and the entrepreneurship of its inhabitants.

How has the economic system in Hong Kong shaped the architecture of the city? Are the arts in Hong Kong affected positively or negatively by the economic system? How is Hong Kong's art scene different to that of other metropolis?

Would you like to answer these questions? Do you think you have something to add to the debate? Participate in our symposium, submit an abstract!

FINAL DEADLINE for submissions of abstracts is TONIGHT (Friday, May 17) at MIDNIGHT (Hong Kong time). This is the last opportunity to get your voice heard about the prospect of arts, the metropolis and Hong Kong. For submissions please send your abstracts or creative projects to:

[email protected] (Abstracts)
[email protected] (Creative works)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqh0zXSd4vc

*The organisers of 城邦/Chéngbāng/Polis neither endorse, nor reject, the ideas exposed by Milton Friedman, or the submitters of the Youtube video shared in this post.

Milton Friedman Describes Hong Kong as an Example of the Free Market System To Watch the Entire Free to Choose series: http://commonsensecapitalism.blogspot.com/p/free-to-choose.html Website: http://commonsensecapitalism.blogspot.com...

FINAL DEADLINE for submissions of abstracts is TOMORROW at MIDNIGHT (Hong Kong time). This is the last opportunity to get your voice heard about the prospect of arts, the metropolis and Hong Kong. For submissions please send your abstracts or creative projects to:

[email protected] (Abstracts)
[email protected] (Creative works)

Those of you going into graduate employment or study after the summer, this event is a free pass to cultivate skills in public speaking, discussion, networking and an appreciation for interdisciplinarity.

An example abstract for a creative presentation is below, last call for those of an upcoming generation with something to say about the direction of creativity in and of our urban spaces.

'Taking Hong Kong For A Walk feat. Bangkok'

"Writing the city and reading the city lead often to unemotional encounters with architecture, eroded landscape, migrated populations and the commercial transactions. Negotiating a personal route through the space of urbanity requires skill as well as courage in the process of decipherment. What is chosen to signify the city also obscures it, therefore the emblematic elements that one can use to write the city need to be chosen carefully, or not at all. Selections of panoramas, scenes of unsurpassable resonance in the haze of the quotidian, and pocket-kept artifacts from a space constructed in accordance with overwhelmingly quantitative measure can form an intuitive framework to write the urban experience. Journalism aside, what are the subjective criteria for such a practice? The option to adopt an Impressionistic approach in only painting what comes to the eye in fact makes for an eye-watering result in poetry. The city is out of control in its visual offerings, nothing, I believe can be shown as it really is, not just because of the ‘disappearing’ prospect of Hong Kong that Ackbar Abbas suggests, but because what comes seems relevant is in fact the reasonable ‘takes’ one can make of urbanity. Covering the scenarios partially and recording only momentarily, the prospect of writing the city requires vigilance of aperture as well as a nod to the notion of frenzy- take a shot at what’s being raised in the moment and hold it there in words."

"The tower can live on itself: one can dream there, eat there, observe there, understand there, marvel there, shop there; as on an ocean liner, on can feel oneself cut off from from the world and yet the owner of a world" -Roland Barthes

Hong Kong is Home. Hong Kong is Home. I remember when I first arrived in Hong Kong almost a decade ago, I felt like I had walked into an actual movie set. It was a place that I…