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Following is the speech by the Chief Secretary for Administration, Mr Stephen Lam, at the unveiling ceremony of the sculpture "Vision" and the opening ceremony of the "Beauty-Eternal" photography and sculpture exhibition at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University today (February 16):
Professor (Timothy) Tong (President of PolyU), Professor (Norman) Ko, Professor (Michael) Tse (Chairman of PolyU Culture Promotion Committee), ladies and gentlemen, fellow students,
Good afternoon. I find that this is truly an honour for me to be invited to address the gathering and to join you for the officiating ceremony of "Vision" and of "Beauty-Eternal".
I was particularly interested to hear about the common background which the President and the professor share. Now, who says engineers cannot be artistic?
Also, I read from the CV of Professor Ko that he is a man of many talents. He specialises in paintings, in sculptures and in photography, so probably you share some common origins with Michelangelo. He did architecture, sculpture and paintings. And probably you share some common genes with Vermeer. Vermeer painted very well, and he used a camera, but the camera was sort of this size, in the 15th, 16th century.
But I'm particularly interested and delighted to join you today because this is part of the 75th anniversary celebrations of Polytechnic University. For many generations the university has contributed to the education of young people in Hong Kong, and through that you have contributed to the development of Hong Kong as a modern metropolis. You have trained people of many professions, people who spearhead Hong Kong's developments in many economic spheres. I have no doubt that the vision of Polytechnic University soaring to new heights will be achieved.
Now, I think you have chosen the word "vision" very aptly. And on this occasion I wish to share with all of you three messages which are close to my heart.
Firstly, I think it is very important for Hong Kong to have vision.
We carry with us the responsibility of developing and achieving the visions which we all share in different sectors of Hong Kong community. As Chairman of the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority, it is my responsibility to realise the vision of developing Hong Kong into the leading artistic and cultural hub of Asia. We are working very hard to promote the development of over 10 performance venues in West Kowloon, not very far from here. We got a budget of $21.6 billion allocated by the Legislative Council.
Aside from the hardware, we need a lot of software, and that is why we are working very hard to make sure that the 7 million people of Hong Kong will be able to enjoy the arts and cultural content of West Kowloon when it is developed over the next 10 years. It is also important to Hong Kong to have this properly developed, so that every year, when we welcome over 42 million tourists to Hong Kong, they have somewhere to go.
And my vision is more down to earth, more practical. President, I'd like, in eight to 10 years' time, West Kowloon to be able to offer musicals, ballets, Peking operas, Chinese operas, oil painting exhibitions, modern art exhibitions to everybody who comes to Hong Kong, whether they come as tourists or whether they come to do business in Hong Kong. It is of utmost importance that, aside from creating wealth in Hong Kong, we create artistic talents.
And this brings me to my second point. It is very important for Hong Kong to continue to groom local artistic talents.
I trust, Professor, you are self-groomed as an artist, because you have spent your academic and your practical career teaching students engineering. But in your spare time you have groomed yourself into a local artist. And on the part of the Government, we are also pursuing that agenda.
We have just launched what we call the Springboard Grants so that the smaller arts groups in Hong Kong - the orchestras, the dance groups which are not among the nine leading performing troupes in Hong Kong - will have some financial support to enable them to develop their programmes, their performances, and for them to attract new artists to join this endeavour. We provide this funding at a modest amount of $23 million so that there can be matching contributions from the commercial sector and from private individuals. To develop the West Kowloon area properly, we need to groom local artistic cultural talents.
Thirdly and finally, aside from the talents, we need to grow the local audiences.
It's very important we have fine pieces of artwork like this, but there must be somebody to come and take a look at them and to appreciate them. And that is why I think, Professor, you and the President, the Polytechnic University, are making a very good start. "Vision" is being donated to the Polytechnic University so that students, when they come to attend their tutorials, their lectures, or to do their projects, they have something to look beyond their academic training.
I remember that when I joined the Hong Kong Government back in 1978, after one year in 1979 I was sent to Oxford University for a year of training. And one of the senior colleagues who was in charge of our programme at that time gave us one very important remark: "Stephen, colleagues, during your year in the United Kingdom and in Europe, you should learn to appreciate some of the finer things in life."
That is what I think we are trying to achieve today. We are going to unveil this "Vision" sculpture, but the important thing is we enable the younger generation to appreciate some of the finer things in life, so that when tourists and businessmen, other visitors, come to Hong Kong in future, they can appreciate that Hong Kong offers some of the finer things in life.
Thank you very much, and I do wish you every success in the Year of the Dragon. Thank you.
Ends/Thursday, February 16, 2012
Issued at HKT 21:35
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