StreetArtOrama = Street + Art + panOrama
Panorama:
a: “an unobstructed or complete view of an area in every direction”
b: “a comprehensive presentation of a subject”
c: “a mental picture of a series of images or events”
Hi there fellow street art lovers,
my name is Alex and with StreetArtOrama I aim to create a panorama of the street art scene in Hong Kong, topping it off here and there with some info on the scenes of surrounding Asian countries.
I know, I know, you are probably thinking now “Aren’t there already enough street art blogs out there?” No doubt, there are a lot of street art blogs out there. But have you come across one dedicated to street art in Hong Kong? Or any other major city in Asia for that matter? I haven’t. And I have searched quite a bit.
I began looking for information on the Hong Kong street art scene and its artists when I first moved to Hong Kong, by then street art hunting was one of my favourite pastimes. While in the early days I was happy with simply locating and snapping pictures of street art, over time I grew increasingly curious about the stories of the art and their creators. Information on street art in the Western hemisphere was abundant but there was next to nothing on Asia (at least not in English).
So I began reaching out to the artists, asking them questions about their art, their career their background. I went to see them paint whenever I could, observing their process, seeing their work in progress, snapping literally thousands of pictures…
All that information came in particularly handy after I acquired my Hong Kong tour guide license and started running street art tours. I was super happy that I could finally share all my stories, info and pictures that I had gathered over the years. To most of my guests, no matter if local, expat or international, seeing street art in Hong Kong often came as a pleasant but unexpected surprise. This made me aware of how little is known about the Hong Kong street art scene.
Obviously, I’m more than happy to positively surprise people by showing them around but I also think, it’s about time that there is more info on the Hong Kong street art scene available online. Hong Kong’s scene might be small but it deserves to be better known. It consists of many wonderful, cool and talented artists, locals and expats alike. Even if you might not care so much about the local art than you might be interested to know that well-known international artists, such as Shepard Fairey, Invader, Kaws or Vhils have left their traces in the streets and on the scene of Hong Kong, too.
Post by post, I hope that StreetArtOrama will surprise and fill in some gaps about the Hong Kong street art scene.
Enjoy your read :).
StreetArtOrama 