Hong Kong building that’s a hotbed of political thought amid the protests, and how cheap rents allowed artistic community to flourish there

Flats let at below-market rates to emerging artists and community activists have transformed a Wan Chai block. Critics have labelled it a base for rioters

Public-policy researchers, an artists’ collective, and an online publisher talk about what they do in the Foo Tak Building in Wan Chai

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The Art & Culture Outreach (ACO) bookshop in the Foo Tak Building, Wan Chai. ACO manages spaces in the buildings let at below market rate to emerging artists and grass-roots organisations. Photo: Tory Ho

Published: 1:33pm, 25 Nov 2019Updated: 6:38pm, 25 Nov 2019

The Art & Cultural Outreach (ACO) isn’t the sexiest of Hong Kong non-profits – the kind hosting gala auctions or offering big-ticket grants and funding.

Its chief purpose is to lease and manage a number of spaces in the Foo Tak Building on Hennessy Road, Wan Chai, most of which are owned by the same landlady and are let at a preferential rate – below half the market price – to emerging artists, usually for up to three years, until they can stand on their own two feet.

It also runs an exhibition space and a bookshop. Of late, the venue has evolved into a hotbed of social activism and political thought. Among the activists is Susi Law Wai-shan, the manager of ACO.

With a background in curation, Law had been with ACO for five years before deciding in June to stand for election to the Wan Chai district council as an independent. In Sunday’s election she defeated pro-establishment candidate Muk Ka-chun, of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, in the Oi Kwan constituency.

Susi Law outside the Foo Tak Building in Wan Chai. Photo: Tory Ho

Art has an intrinsic relationship with politics, usually in the form of crazy canvases and outspoken performance pieces. Law was able to mobilise a network of like-minded supporters through the Foo Tak Building, which has nurtured a burgeoning cultural community in the district over the past decade.