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Alfred Cheong, left, and Sion Yip, hope the exhibition will attract about 200,000 visitors and offer s designed as though it is Burton’s house, offeringpeople the opportunity to walk through the stages of Tim Burton’s life. Photo: K. Y. Cheng

Proportion of ticket sales at Hong Kong’s World of Tim Burton exhibition to be donated to Operation Santa Claus

More than 500 works by Burton are on show in event that has toured internationally since 2009 and visited Shanghai between June and October

Operation Santa Claus will benefit from an exhibition chronicling the artwork of US filmmaker Tim Burton.

A proportion of this month’s ticket sales for The World of Tim Burton , which runs until January 23 at ArtisTree in Taikoo Place, Quarry Bay, will be given to the campaign. Coordinators of the exhibition hope to donate about HK$150,000.

More than 500 works by Burton are on show in an event that has toured internationally since 2009, and visited Shanghai between June and October.

It charts the artist’s early career from an aspiring cartoonist and writer, to sketches that influenced his latest film, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children .

It was brought together by curator Jenny He, who spent hours with Burton, 58, trawling the house of his grandmother for items.

The exhibition, which aims to attract about 200,000 visitors, takes the form of his house and offers people the opportunity to walk through the stages of his life.

Creative director Sion Yip said it was encouraging that schoolchildren were having an opportunity to study the artwork of Burton, as art was often a neglected subject in schools.

“I’ve seen them drawing their own sketches,” he said. “Tim thinks the drawings are a way to express himself. Through them, he can tell you what he is thinking, even when he is just drawing on a napkin on his journeys around the world.”

Exhibition producer Alfred Cheong said visitors seemed particularly interested in the early works, which included a cartoon book Burton drafted at 17 as a high school student. Titled The Giant Zlig, the book was rejected by publishers but received positive feedback.

“I think people can see in that room how he developed his cartoons,” he said, adding that he hoped the high-profile nature of Burton’s films would draw the crowds.

“In Hong Kong, we do not have a lot of museums and people do not always have the inclination to visit them,” he said. “So we’re trying to make people understand Tim Burton — his latest movie has attracted people to come here.”

Consultant Nellie Chan said the event provided a quiet space for people to appreciate the work of Burton, in contrast to the significant number of exhibitions in malls.

“Here people can really focus,” she said. “They do not have the distraction of a shopping mall.”

Yip added that visitors so far appeared split on how they perceived Burton’s work.

“Tim has so much black humour,” he said. “Some people think he is interesting and some people think he is crazy.”

The World of Tim Burton, ArtisTree, Cornwall House, TaiKoo Place, 979 King’s Road, Quarry Bay. 10am-10pm. HK$180-HK$220.

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