Outtakes
While Hong Kong police have just about scrubbed away all the pro-democracy artwork in Admiralty, the message has spread to an area that our local police force won’t be able to touch — the streets of Paris.
Occupy art lives on in City of Light
While Hong Kong police have just about scrubbed away all the pro-democracy artwork in Admiralty, the message has spread to an area that our local police force won’t be able to touch — the streets of Paris.
Life-sized black-and-white portraits of Hong Kong and French citizens, umbrellas in hand and displaying an “I want real election” banner, began adorning the walls of various Parisian locations last week, including Place de la République, the Centre Georges Pompidou and the district of Le Marais. These are the works of Joanna Wong Ching-han and a group of street artists known as Le Mouvement.
Wong, 30, a University of Hong Kong graduate now working as a photographer in the French capital, says she was contacted by the street artists about the project.
“I’ve been very vocal about my support of Hong Kong on French blogs, and that drew their attention,” she says. “So we got together, took these photos and began putting them on the street to raise awareness [of the issue].”
The French are, in general, very supportive of Hong Kong’s prodemocracy movement, says Wong.
“These graffiti-style works we’re putting on the streets aren’t illegal; we have authorisation from the mayor,” she says.