The warrior of the arts talks strategy

A Zen ink painting with just one broad, black, horizontal stroke hangs in Professor John Aiken's neat office at Baptist University's new Communication and Visual Arts Building in Kowloon Tong.

"I like this stroke," says Aiken, who left London to become the director of the university's Academy of Visual Arts in August. "I thought it was a very appropriate image for AVA."

The minimalist work is by the academy's associate professor Daniel Lau Chak-kwong. Aiken says the calligraphy symbolises "oneness" - especially apt as his arrival coincided with the university's fight to keep hold of its original campus.

"We had all those debates about one school, two campuses," added the ex-director of University College London's prestigious Slade School of Fine Art.

AVA has just submitted proposals to the government on how it plans to use its original Kai Tak campus, which the arts school almost lost last summer when a new lease pushed up the monthly rent from HK$50,000 to HK$300,000.

In August the government agreed to extend the lease for another year at the same concessionary rate of HK$50,000 which the university has been paying since leasing the site in 2005.