While June 4's protest art was a little rough and ready - in the same way that faux tombstone and the Pillar of Shame are not exactly the best executed sculptures - it highlighted the increasingly political nature of the city's creative types. 'Of course, this is art, too,' says veteran curator and art critic Oscar Ho Hing-kay. 'It fulfils the function of political art: to create collective symbols that arouse the people's passions.'

That same night, the Hong Kong Arts Centre (HKAC) held an event called Fifteen Years on: Special Programmes on the Remembrance of June 4th, 1989 Incident. Programme director Connie Lam Suk-yee says the centre has been holding June 4 memorials for years, has never been pressured to stop, and will continue, despite Beijing's recent hardline stance in Hong Kong. The HKAC is different from most other arts organisations because it takes no direct government subsidies. And although Lam feels confident in her work there, she worries that others are not. 'The most crucial thing for the local arts scene is that artists don't give in to self-censorship,' says Lam. 'There's no use in being afraid.'

There's growing concern among artists in Hong Kong - where an inordinate number of arts and performance venues are government-run or funded - that riskier, controversial art is getting pushed aside for works that are more politically correct and mainland-friendly. And as the arts community becomes more involved in politics, a debate has arisen about whether or not there is censorship or self-censorship.

On May 26, The Times of London reported that 'Officials from the mainland have accused Hong Kong citizens repeatedly of not being patriotic enough ... Even public art galleries have been told to toe the line, with the emphasis on Chinese exhibitions to the exclusion of Western art'.

Dr Christina Chu Kam-leun, chief curator of the government-run Hong Kong Museum of Art, denies this. 'You can only make that claim if you have clear evidence that the government has deliberately created obstacles to block artists and or sponsors - and there is no such thing,' she says. 'You can't claim that the government has taken control or monopolised culture in Hong Kong.'

Chu uses the 2004 Hong Kong Art Biennial as an example. 'Look at our panel of adjudicators. There were no museum or government staff. They were all from the outside. And for the last two Biennials, we invited international curators in. Do you think we can control them?'

There were artworks there that never could have made it into a mainland museum, such as a large piece by young artist Tsang Kin-wah, who used a swirling script and rather foul language to convey the anger and fear some Hongkongers felt about the handover.

Nevertheless, art insiders such as Ho feel there's been a shift during the past seven years. 'Before the handover, there were lots more overseas shows and exhibitions with political commentary. Now, some still exist, but there are fewer. Young artists who want to succeed are rightfully anxious about the environment and what their future holds, so they're proceeding carefully. They're not taking risks. They're trying to second guess what they're allowed or not allowed to do,' says Ho, who worked as a curator at the Hong Kong Arts Centre and as a cultural policy adviser to the Hong Kong government.

'There are two types of suppression. We don't have artists thrown in jail or banned. But, if you're holding a politically sensitive exhibition, your venue might suddenly become not available, or someone might pull out on funding. I had one case where I wanted to bring down a mainland artist whose works had a political element. Just before his Hong Kong show he was - not formally arrested - but 'held for investigation' in China and couldn't make it down. It's the kind of censorship you can't quite pin down, but you know it's there.'

Art scholar Dr Jen Webb recently visited Hong Kong for research into her project, Art and Human Rights: the Limits of Tolerance in the 21st Century, and gave a talk on May 20 at the Asia Art Archive. Webb, the director of research into communication, media and cultural studies at the University of Canberra, has been travelling around the Asia-Pacific region and studying the relationship between creative practice and human rights.

Webb saw as many art spaces as she could, including commercial SoHo galleries and government and university museums. 'I didn't see much new, original Hong Kong art,' she says. 'What I saw was mostly very traditional Chinese art, such as historic photos, calligraphy or ink drawings of landscapes. It was beautiful, but it didn't take chances. It's as if the tourism board came by to many of the places with their official stamp of approval.'

As someone who grew up in pre-apartheid South Africa and whose three grown children are all practising artists, Webb has long been interested in the role art can play in a politically charged environment. 'When I was growing up, there were unspeakable abuses against journalists,' she says. 'But strangely, criticism of the government was allowed in the live theatre, and it was amazing how much they got away with. Maybe it was because the government thought it was an elite form and few people would see it or be affected by it. It was also interesting that, in the visual arts, blacks and whites could work together in a way they couldn't in other fields.

'The problem in Hong Kong is that it seems as if free expression is 'tolerated', meaning the government will put up with it for now,' she says. 'But it doesn't seem to be an intrinsic guaranteed right, meaning it might change in the future.'

When Webb asked the 20-odd Hong Kong curators, critics and artists at her talk what issues concerned them, Ho brought up the resignations of three popular radio hosts - Albert Cheng King-hon, Wong Yuk-man and Allen Lee Peng-fei - who say they were the victims of intimidation campaigns. 'We issued a statement condemning it,' says Ho, on behalf of the International Art Critics Association, Hong Kong. There might not be an obvious connection between fine arts and phone-in talk shows, but the fear among local artists and performers is that, if political pressure were to be tolerated in one form of expression, it could spread to others. 'Freedom of expression is essential for the intellectual and cultural development of a society,' the statement said. 'We urge members of the cultural community to voice their protests against this emerging threat to our basic right.'

There's also a common and long-running complaint that there aren't enough alternative, privately funded art spaces in Hong Kong that operate outside government control. Even Chu agrees that 'there aren't enough other, independent sources of funding in the cultural scene'.

'The government might not always be deliberately oppressive, but the system doesn't allow for creativity,' says long-time gallery owner John Batten, one of the panelists at Webb's Arts and Human Rights talk. 'There's no room for other views, and there's no discourse. And, in this way, the freedom of expression is hampered.'

Ho says museums and most of the performing arts are run by the government. 'Smaller community art groups rely on funding from the Arts Development Council,' he says. 'And, theoretically, all exhibitions have to be licensed by the government, and there are many bodies that can govern what we show: the Broadcasting Authority, the Obscene Articles Tribunal, and the Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority. Theoretically, a police officer could come in and stop a show or exhibition. They don't, for now, but the power to do so is there.'

For now, it seems, Hong Kong will continue to test the limits by producing independently minded art, whether it's the Fringe Club's upcoming photo exhibition about sites of human rights violations, or the dozens of crude papier-mache Tung Chee-hwa creations likely to be out in force at the July 1 rallies.

'Art is like a canary,' Webb said at her Asia Art Archive talk. 'In the old days, coal miners would bring a canary down into the mines with them. And it would sing, sing, sing. And when it fell silent because it had been poisoned by some gas in the air, the miners knew they had to get out quick. The same with art. If you see that artistic expression is stopping, then you know you have a problem.'