Local cultural supporters - of new art as well as the preservation of old heritage - were at the Cat Street Gallery on Thursday for the opening of a three-day exhibition and sale to aid Dragon Garden in Sham Tseng. Artists and photographers were commissioned to create works inspired by the 60-year-old private garden of philanthropist Lee Lu-cheung, seen in the 1974 James Bond film The Man With The Golden Gun, which was saved from developers' bulldozers in 2006. The exhibit came about after Cynthia Lee Hong-yee, Lee's granddaughter, invited Cat Street Gallery owner Mandy D'Abo to visit the garden.

'This is totally a community project,' Lee said. 'Mandy came and fell in love with the place and she got all the artists involved. I've been really struggling trying to preserve the garden. I even went back to class to study and make sure we came up with the right sustainable plan and feasibility study. But to do this, we also need funding. The biggest struggle has been to get the government to listen to what people want. For example, none of them took up my invitation to this opening.'

Among the recruited was fashion photographer Olaf Mueller (pictured), who then asked pop star Kay Tse On-kei (pictured) to be his muse for some fantastical images of the eight-hectare garden. 'When I saw the place, I was quite amazed the owner was already mixing East and West elements in the 1940s. I like things surreal, so to work in a place like that was a dream come true.'