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The Permanent Secretary for Home Affairs, Mrs Carrie Yau, and the Director of Leisure and Cultural Services, Mrs Betty Fung, today (September 17) shared with a group of world-famous artists and curators from Hong Kong, the Mainland and overseas in a luncheon the HKSAR Government¡¦s strategy to establish Hong Kong as a centre for arts and culture in Asia, as well as the progress in taking forward the West Kowloon Cultural District project.
The artists and curators also took the opportunity to exchange experience in the promotion of arts creation and education.
Mrs Yau said: "The Government attaches great importance to promoting visual arts in Hong Kong. Recent activities held included sending a delegation to participate at the Venice Biennale in June. To prepare for the community that action starts now with West Kowloon Cultural District, there will soon be a Hong Kong & Shenzhen Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism and Architecture 2009 held right there on the temporary vacant site in December this year."
The luncheon was hosted for a panel of adjudicators, comprising the above group of world-famous artists and curators. The panel is conducting the final round of adjudication of the Hong Kong Contemporary Art Biennial Awards (HKCABA) 2009.
The HKCABA 2009, which is the 16th of the series, will feature about 100 works in various media to be selected from more than 2,200 entries from an open competition. The works will be presented in the Hong Kong Museum of Art from May to October 2010.
The HKCABA Exhibition, a major local arts competition-cum-exhibition event, has been well supported by local artists. The exhibition aims to stimulate general awareness of and interest in arts in Hong Kong. It serves as a continuous survey of the state of visual arts in Hong Kong and a platform encouraging more artists to participate in artistic creation and fostering young artistic talents.
In line with the scale of the HKCABA 2009 and considering enthusiastic responses from the art community and audience in the past years, the Leisure and Cultural Services Department will render full support to present this major exhibition.
Ends/Thursday, September 17, 2009
Issued at HKT 19:34
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