It is not surprising that Cantopop crowds the record collections of most Hong Kong households, as the genre exposes the nature of this city.
Cantopop is sumptuous and hollow: it nourishes one's primal senses but leaves no mark on the psyche. The city embodies a similar paradox: it is rich and poor - affluent in material life but spiritually impoverished.
This is not a recent revelation - the economic downturn only galvanised public belief in a truth that has long been shunned as irrelevant cynicism. As Hong Kong prepares to brave a future that has no room for quick bucks through speculation, we have finally discovered we have evolved into a species in want of everything other than greed and luck.
We have long taken for granted the notion of being not only prosperous but economically superior to our regional neighbours. Finding ourselves in a panic is a spectacle that warrants being documented. And that is exactly what a series of visual arts exhibitions at the Hong Kong Arts Centre aims to do.
As part of the centre's annual Festival NOW project, the exhibitions elaborate on 'lack', the central theme to this year's works. That is not only lack of money, it is lack of higher values: creativity, faith, initiative, hope.
The centrepiece exhibition is My Poor Dear Hong Kong, a six-part multi-media show that looks into the concept of poverty in a local context.