Few cities have transformed as dramatically as Hong Kong. Over the past two centuries, a harbour of fishing villages became one of the world’s great financial centres and a place shaped by continual migration, exchange and reinvention. Made in Hong Kong: From the Collection considers the city of Hong Kong through its visual art and artists.

As one of the world’s great cities, Hong Kong has multiple features. For scholars, it is a gateway to China. For the financial community, it remains one of the world’s most lucrative financial centres. For artists, Hong Kong’s colourful history and dramatic landscape provide inspiration and vivid settings for their work.

Presenting approximately 35 artists and drawn entirely from the permanent collection, this exhibition provides a selection of modern and contemporary art from Hong Kong. Spanning six decades, the exhibition maps the creative evolution of Hong Kong through three transformative periods in its modern history, from 1950 to the present. These periods of change in the city’s social, political and economic landscape created conditions that necessitated experimentation in local artistic production.

Organized by a loose chronology that explores the city’s artistic identity through painting, ink art, photography, video and installation, the exhibition illustrates how Hong Kong itself encourages artistic experimentation. From experiments with modern ink and oil painting in the 1960s and 1970s; to experiments in installation, performance and institution-building in the 1980s and 1990s; to socially engaged practices shaped by civic participation, global circulation and the diaspora in the 2000s, the exhibition reveals an artistic culture defined by continual adaptation rather than a single stable identity or artistic language.

For more information please visit the Vancouver Art Gallery website.

Tagged 09/11.