shy very quiet Midwestern Ohio boy and I
was completely the opposite of non
conformist I did what I was told and I
believed everything I was told and I
basically continued that way maybe not I
think it’s a product of my my upbringing
I had I had a great family very
supportive but also maybe a bit
protective so it wasn’t until two
thousand and that I went to college and
I went to Ohio State University to study
architecture and following that I went
to the University of Michigan to also
study architecture and this this kind of
eight years of my life where I was away
from home I was being I was much more
independent forced to be more
independent but as well architecture
school as well as kind of education in
general yes it taught me about how to
design buildings and meant about
architecture but what it really taught
me was how to think how to how to
challenge conformity I guess how to
think outside the box how to recognize
vulnerabilities and how to I guess
innovates and so right at the end of my
kind of university experience or career
was the crash of the stock market the
financial crisis in the US and so in
2009
because of that there was absolutely no
work for me in the US as an architect as
a designer because buildings so the
first thing people stop creating when
they don’t have money so rather than
conforming and just staying in Ohio and
you know like many of my colleagues in
school just finding alternate
professions or jobs in 2009 and moved to
Hong Kong and on top of well outside of
my design work and the office I was
working at I started to recognize the
street art and graffiti in Hong Kong and
eventually I started this website which
is HK street art which is just a
photoblog of the documenting the the
street art and graffiti in Hong Kong and
this kind of very non conformist very
subversive art form and I think what was
particularly held my attention
especially different from say the
Midwest the Midwestern u.s. was the kind
of diversity in the street art and
graffiti in Hong Kong because you get
things you get a lot of work from the
local artists but you also get a lot of
international artists coming through and
adding to that that array of artwork and
you get situations like this where you
have kind of religious commentary you
have a plumber or electrician and you
have a on the left which is Kidult he’s
a notorious vandal graffiti writer kind
of all in one place and this is kind of
all over Hong Kong this one is a
collaboration between a local graffiti
writer zine and a UK graffiti writer
artist called insa and they did this
illegally on the street in the middle of
the day actually but it’s these
collaborations that
really like held my attention and this
one as well not really a collaboration
but say a commentary between two
different street artists circle who is
here they are us-based and then a local
artist with the goes by this eject
symbol created this pac-man eating them
as sort of a commentary or kind of a
beginning a dialogue between the two
artists another collaboration this one
however was with permission of the
building owner but between a UK artist
and a local artist but you don’t at the
time you weren’t seeing much of this you
were seeing a lot more of the the
quicker kind of faster things like you
see here because when you’re doing when
artists are creating this work you know
if it’s illegal that to do it fast for a
risk of being arrested and so kind of in
this this pursuit and documentation of
the street on graffiti in Hong Kong I I
realized that the you know because most
of it’s done illegally and the speed
that they want they have to work at
artwork like this was actually being
created off the streets artists would go
to these to these abandoned buildings to
to create works of art with where they
can it’s still illegal but no one’s
there so they can spend hours working on
one piece of work or like drainage
ditches sailed immune long but the and
they create works that you know they’re
stunning but no one really gets to see
them aside from other artists and
potentially yeah potentially herb Xers
certainly but yeah so kind of through
this I guess
no first couple years in web sorry what
else I also noticed is that the
international artists would also come to
create work here so even when
international artists were in town safe
or just holiday or commissioned work
they were also going out to these band
buildings of paint again where no one
can see it so over that time I became
more kind of involved in the scene got
to know a lot of people and with the
kind of commercialization of street art
I guess it became more and more popular
in Hong Kong but the people kind of
beginning to organize events around that
generally didn’t really care much about
the artwork it was generally about
making money off of it in some way for
instance the art fairs in Hong Kong and
so I and other artists became a little
bit frustrated with that but we also
kind of saw a gap basically so you know
we we basically trying to kind of solve
two problems at once or I guess
exploiting a vulnerability in the Hong
Kong art scene we decided could we
provide these artists who are spending
all of the time in hiding creating
beautiful works of art provide them with
public space where they can spend time
legally and the public is to to
experience and enjoy it and so we
basically rounded up as many of our
friends and basically went door-to-door
talking to stakeholders tenants building
owners all over Sheung WAN and gathered
permission for about 15 different walls
around Sheung WAN and then invited
artists to come well we set a date
during art basel as kind of an
alternative to the VIP parties and the
the ticketed events which
don’t really represent this section of
this this art form too much aside from
say the bank sees in the Shepard
Fairey’s but so we wanted to kind of
fill that gap and create something that
was actually free and for the public
that they could come and enjoy and
actually engage with the artists so we
invited all the artists to come and
paint paint these walls throughout the
week and we invited the public to come
and basically witness that and see see
how the works created engage with the
artists and created kind of a social
event around that so this is just some
of a few a few of the pieces the first
year i think we painted around 15 15
walls all ensuring lon all within
walking distance so you can kind of make
a short tour of it and we involved i
think 25 artists and so kind of again
always trying to think a bit out of the
box moving into the next year always
kind of trying to challenge not only I
guess the art scene in Hong Kong but
challenge ourselves and the idea of kind
of giving these artists more exposure
and giving the public access to to this
artwork we again painted a number of
murals and pieces of art all through
sheung wan and we even painted a few
what we added this the second year was
we added a second neighborhood so we
were approached by some people who are
based in stanley market and they said
hey you know are the markets great
during the day is Lively’s touristy
people come through but at night it’s
complete
Lee Dead is quite dark and dingy it’s
not it’s just not a super pleasant place
just this narrow dark series of
corridors and they said you know can we
do something here and we said you know
absolutely that sounds that sounds
amazing so we brought in as many artists
as we could basically the week following
we basically extended the festival a
second week in to stanley market and
created I think we painted a number
maybe around like 30 different shutters
all throughout stanley market to kind of
try to bring some life to that too and
some color but so in addition to the
kind of party and events the the social
aspect surrounding all of the painting
we wanted to give back to the artists as
well trying to think about how we could
do better how we could expand what we do
and so we invited artists to to bring
their own artwork and we hired a
temporary space just for the week to
sell it we exhibited it and that that
basically gave the artist a little bit
of kick back for the work they’re
creating but also give the public an
opportunity to buy work from these
artists who are not being represented
elsewhere but who are painting in the
streets so after that experience we
thought okay it was great to move
neighborhoods that way we don’t have to
we don’t have to paint over the same the
same artwork it can stay a little bit
longer but maybe we should try to get
off Hong Kong Island you know it’s a bit
get a more diverse following or impact a
different crowd or a different different
population so we thought what is the
what is the most different from say
sheung wan and we decided on Tom’s repo
and again we painted a number of things
i think it was around 40 different
pieces of artwork all throughout the
throughout scattered across jumped repo
and engaging everything from entire
buildings have to entire buildings this
one’s the golden computer center you go
to get all your electronics to
individual walls the woman who lived
here came to us and said hey you know
people are leaving garbage out in front
of my my building could you paint
something beautiful that maybe they’ll
start to respect and clean up after
themselves um to the the tin houses
which open up during the day and
cell-cell fabrics but so again we
continued with with the print gallery
this the selling selling the artists
work but we added public workshops so we
had about three wheat in three weeks i
think we had 40 public workshops
inviting schools from all over chomps
repo and learning centers and some we’re
open to the public as well to come and
kind of learn how to do the kind of
and this one I can’t really we can’t
really take credit for because we didn’t
organize but a an NGO in geometry poke
came to us and said hey they’re called
Big Brother English and they basically
take take young students in shrunk repo
out of the classroom till to learn
English in real-life situations based on
whatever it is they’re doing that day so
they came and they brought they brought
the students to see all the artwork
being created they got to meet the
artists and basically create their own
little pieces of artwork as well and so
I guess the the kind of yeah the point
is that we’re really just trying to and
you know continue to bring exposure to
these artists continue to bring artwork
into the public because you know you
shouldn’t have to go to a gallery to see
this stuff it should be it should be
available to everyone and
have to obviously continue to try to
challenge our own conformity and how we
operate and how and try to think out of
the box and how we can always do better
so I don’t know we’ll see where 2017
takes us thank you [Applause]