On October 10, 2020, in partnership with cities worldwide that creatively use public space, Zou-no-Hana Terrace held Futurescape Summit Vol. 1 with the aim of exchanging experiences and insights.

In the first part of the summit, four guest speakers from Leeds in the UK and Hong Kong gave presentations.

Speaker： Abbe Robinson (Artistic Director, Light Night Leeds / Leeds, UK)

Hello, my name is Abbe Robinson. I’m Principal Arts Project Officer in the Arts Development Team at Leeds City Council, which is a section of our local government. My responsibility and role is for the artistic programming and the production of arts in the festival Light Night Leeds.

Leeds is perhaps not so well known overseas, but we’re actually the third largest city in the UK after London and Birmingham. It is quite accessible to visitors from both within the UK and from abroad, welcoming about 20 million visitors every year into the city. Leeds grew significantly during industrialization. It was at the center of the woolen textile trades, but is now a financial, legal, and manufacturing hub.

We have three universities in our city as well as four major theaters, sixteen museums, opera and ballet companies, and art galleries. It is a highly cultural place with a fantastic annual calendar of events and festivals in the city, from international film festivals to the West Indian Carnival, and a world-class sculpture festival. Light Night Leeds, which is our arts and light festival, takes place every October and is a very highly anticipated event in the cultural calendar.

Marking its sixteenth edition this year, the festival has grown significantly in scale, particularly over the past five years, due to receiving increasing amounts of Arts Council funding, and also growing levels of corporate sponsorship. For two evenings each year in October, we present over sixty different events all at the same time, across a range of art forms, which includes video mapping, light installations, interactive work, dance, and street theater, in both indoor and outdoor public spaces. In 2019, we welcomed 150,000 visitors over the two nights. We host a mix of hundreds of local, national, and international artists. Over the past few years, we’ve explored a number of international partnerships and opportunities for co-commissioning, as Leeds heads toward hosting a full year of culture in 2023.

Last year, our theme was “mind, body and spirit.” We tend to have community engagement each year with projects that members of the public can get involved in as creators and performers, and this includes our launch parade, which travels through the main streets of the city center on the first night of the event.

As a light festival, we try to connect with other similar events around the world and we are members of several networks. One of those is Light Up the North, a network of six light festivals across the north of England. We meet regularly with staff from those festivals to share best practices and to collaborate on new projects. With that network, we have made a project called Shine, an emerging artists program. We provide opportunities for mentoring as well as project and career development. We also look at touring opportunities for the new smaller scale artworks that they produce and bring them to our festivals. We also have a project called “Light Lab,” which is for mid-career light artists, and for them to develop larger-scale work for inclusion in our events.

We’ve just become part of the International Light Festivals Organisation, a growing network across the world, though predominantly in Europe at the moment. Initially, we’re hosting a piece of work made by one of our partner festivals in Romania.

Because of the coronavirus situation, we can’t present Light Night Leeds in its usual format this year. We will begin with a project called “Laser Light City” from October 22 to October 24, and hold long-term installations and online events. For “Laser Light City,” the artist Seb Lee-Delisle will install huge lasers on seven landmark buildings in the city, and which will create an illuminated spectacle across the Leeds skyline and that will be visible from several miles around. The fantastic thing about this project for us is that members of the public will be able to take control of the movement, color, and pattern of these lasers from their smartphone, tablet, or computer, either in person from somewhere where they have a view of the city, or from home by watching via our livestream video.

We’re also going to install two new semi-permanent light artworks in the waterfront area of the city. These are designed to reflect the experiences of 2020. We have a new text artwork called I Miss You, and also a large, full circle rainbow called Glory, which has been crafted by a neon artist working with local young people from Leeds. That will reflect what’s happened in the UK during the pandemic, where the rainbow symbol has been used for people to thank the National Health Service and people who are the key workers keeping the country going during the pandemic.

We’re hoping that Light Night Leeds can return to its full program in 2021, but things are still uncertain and we might need to look at alternative projects. We didn’t get our usual Arts Council grant this year and the corporate sponsorship we’ve built up might not be available in the future.

At this point, I’d like to hand over to my colleague Lucy Dusgate, who works with us as Night Light Leeds on our international partnerships.

Speaker: Lucy Dusgate (Creative Producer / Leeds, UK)

I became involved in light art through my fascination in technology and the beauty that it can make. A light festival can have performances, such as NVA’s Speed of Light, which was performed in Yokohama in 2014. I also presented this performance of moving light using over 120 illuminated runners in 2012.

There are many examples excellent artists and organizations professionally dedicated to outdoor art. Sometimes the artist works on site-specific commissions. Sometimes they create a work that is flexible enough to tour to multiple festivals. I’ve worked to deliver these kinds of works as a commissioner, producer, and curator for different festival organizations.

This year, we managed to achieve a new co-commissioning between Light Night Leeds and the Canadian festival organization Quartier des Spectacles. From initial discussions, we created an organization-to-organization contract of business, and were then able to commit to developing a new co-commission with an artist. These are complex international negotiations between cultural organizations. Having someone like myself in the network and dedicated time to develop the business-to-business agreements is vital for this process.

Speaker： Ada Wong (Chairperson, Make a Difference Institute [MaD] / Hong Kong, China)

I would like to share with you what is happening in Hong Kong from the citizens’ perspective. Make a Difference Institute (MaD) is a nonprofit that organizes events. But we don’t see them as mere events; we see them as building our public culture for Hong Kong. Our mission is to explore how creativity can encourage the citizens of Hong Kong to participate.

The Hong Kong government has committed to developing a new cultural district in West Kowloon. One of the major areas within that district is a park that is open to everyone and overlooks the beautiful Victoria Harbour. More than eight years ago, as people were wondering about what the park should be, we worked with the West Kowloon authority, which is a government organization. It let us curate the experimental event “Freespace Happening” on this piece of land.

We had a festival called Lawn Fest on the big lawn with eight hours of music from bands recruited by an open call. In Hong Kong, to have a large area where there is continuous band show is actually very rare. People enjoyed watching the bands and sat on the grass having picnics.

Creative young people told us: “We want to have a creative market not just for buying and selling, but perhaps to showcase what we have done.” We created a market but one without a fee for vendors, and so all forms of creative sharing could happen. A lot of the people are not really selling anything, but rather exhibiting what they made and simply sharing their ideas.

The artist Kasey Wong made a workshop in public space called “Instant Skyline,” in which people came and built their own skyscrapers just by putting the on the railing. These were small pieces of creativity that echoed the real skyscrapers on the other side of the harbor.

In Hong Kong, we have a light show every night called “A Symphony of Lights.” But some people of Hong Kong don’t really like the light show, so we decided to have a small show for them. It was “people’s version” of the show with just a few fireworks. The result was a fabulous evening that made a lot of people happy. I think that is how spaces should be created and how events should be created.

MaD is ten years old and we have been invited to participate in various festivals. “Freespace Fest” also uses West Kowloon Park but with a focus more on collaboration. We hope that artists can collaborate with people to come up with different artworks. It could be an installation on the grass or a very playful installation where children and parents can make sounds. We also had a group of architects build a very nice pavilion alongside the harbor. It became a showcase of life and culture.

One thing about Hong Kong that you might not know is that 90 percent of parks do not allow pets inside. This has been the case for a very long time, since the law is based on the idea of parks from the Victorian era, back when Hong Kong was still a colony. But we know that lots of people love pets in Hong Kong. With the permission of the government authorities, we have done events where we try to talk to people about the issues related to having pets inside parks, how we can address the concerns of people who are very afraid of dogs, and so on. A very good discussion came out of this and has continued on a Facebook page. We then compiled the proposals that emerged and submitted them to the government.

In addition to West Kowloon, we have worked with many other communities. Near the University of Hong Kong, there is a very steep road. We organized a project called “Experience Hands Up.” We engaged four artists from Copenhagen from Denmark to teach how to build street furniture for this road. We held an open call and young people came from everywhere and for three weekends designed furniture using very simple, old discarded wood. Because it’s a steep road, the legs of the stools and chairs had to vary. Most of the finished furniture was left there for the community, turning the street into a communal living room. And on the last day, we had a party and the residents came down to join in.

The final project I want to talk to you about is called “Social Lab.” We visited the Leisure and Cultural Services Department, where Lo Yan-yan works, and together with the civil servants and residents, we created prototypes for a free and happy park. We created six different proposals: Park for People and Pets; Dialogue in the Park; Parkour in Parks; Park in the Dark, where the park transforms into an outdoor movie theater; WeWet Festival, a water festival; and Park Lab 2.0. These things are not allowed in Hong Kong yet and that is why we need to conduct these experiments to show the government that people would enjoy doing them. And then we can gradually try to introduce new ideas. The Leisure and Cultural Services Department worked with the district council on the “pet corner” idea, and there are now six parks in Hong Kong that allow pets in certain sections.

Speaker: Lo Yan-yan (Curator, Art Promotion Office, Leisure and Cultural Services Department, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government / Hong Kong, China)

The Leisure and Cultural Services Department’s Art Promotion Office was established in 2001 as a dedicated government office for the promotion of community art and corporate art. Our office is responsible for the management of two art spaces: the Hong Kong Visual Arts Center (vA!), which contains studios and professional facilities that artists can rent; and Oil Street Art Space (Oi!), an experimental platform that aims to nurture young artists.

For displaying public art, we use public spaces in Hong Kong, such as parks, government buildings, cultural centers, or even the countryside. Most recent commissions have been for artists to create site-specific public artworks based on local history.

Public art in the twenty-first century has emphasized how our work engages the public. The “City Dress Up: Seats. Together” project featured twenty sets of public artworks in the form of aesthetically appealing and functional furniture, installed at different open spaces, including parks, waterfronts, and playgrounds. This project hopes to enhance people’s interpretation of public space by transforming the artistic furniture into creative platforms for neighborhood community interaction.

The architect Robert Wong believes that facilities should be designed with the participation of users in ways best suited to their needs. For “City Dress Up,” he invited senior citizens from neighboring communities to participate in developing the artistic concepts. During the design process, he listened to what the locals shared regarding their needs.

In this same project, One Bite Design Studio designed TingTing for one recreation site that makes it easier for people to strike up conversations. Six seats are arranged in three groups, forming a “sound mirror” that allows users to listen to songs in the surroundings while speaking with other visitors at the same time.

Still part of “City Dress Up,” visual artist Roy Ng designed Ocean Chair for a venue with a musical instrument installed in each armchair that plays the sounds of waves. Visitors sitting there feel the rhythm of nature as if they are right next to the sea. The artist hopes to beat the heart and soul of visitors, and purify the commotion of the city.

Hack-a-Bench by designers Dylan Kwok and Hinz Pak aims to remodel park benches based on the regular uses and functions. Through the addition of simple parts, they made a creative space for relaxing, playing games, exercising, and performance.

Design team MIRO made improvements to the original seats in a park by adding a backrest, armrest, and tables, bringing the comforts of home to an open space.

Inspired by the shoreline and the motion of water, architect Eric Tong designed special artistic furniture in Waterfall Bay Park. This incredibly long and thin, streamlined bench is like a waterfall frozen in time. The spherical chairs serve as recreation facilities that promote good health and wellbeing.

The colorful public furniture that KaCaMa Design Lab designed for another public forms a creative platform for various cultural activities.

“City Dress Up” not only produces pieces of public furniture or artworks, but also dynamic, creative spaces. It aims not just for pleasant aesthetic experiences, but also social impact. It is encouraging that the project has won thirteen in various specialist fields.

In recent years, we have taken a keen interest in imagining how a park is used and in extending that significance further. In addition to being a place for relaxation, appreciating nature, and friends and family to gather, can a park be a home? Or a library? We hope to initiate an art project in the parks to help strengthen the residents’ sense of belonging to the community, as well as enhance the cohesion and impact of mutual support networks.

“Take PARK in Art” is a series of experimental public events that took place in different parks in Hong Kong.

We organized “City BioBlitz,” inviting participants to observe and make a record of the birds, butterflies, and flowering plants in the parks. They also turned the record of their observations into drawings together with eco artists. Some of their works were selected and transformed into signage displays for the parks.

In “Experience the Community Soundscape,” participants explore the sounds of nature, collected the sounds of the city, and co-created a sound map of the district.

In “Reappearance of Memoryprint,” a group of people both elderly and young collected community stories and improvised a performance of them in public space.

In “Swap! In the Park,” designers brought a mobile wardrobe to travel around the city with old clothes and accessories, aiming to promote ideas of the sharing economy and reducing unnecessary consumption.

“WeWeave” was a public art co-creation activity. Participants learned ways to upcycle old clothes and weave fabric strips, and thought about the possibilities for public space. They acquired the idea of upcycling to reduce unnecessary waste.

The “Toy Regenerated” project placed a toy collection box in the park, where everyone could give and take home toys from fast food chains. Participants were then invited to create and build their own toys using the remaining toys as materials. They had a lot of fun playing with the regenerated toys.

In “i Light Aldrich Bay,” artists led the community in upcycling glass bottles and plastics into a light art installation that illuminates the park.

Other activities included flash mobs, concerts, dance performances, storytelling picnics, workshops about meditation, upcycling musical instruments, and planting. We hope these activities could help city residents get to know their neighbors. It was our aim to apply more flexible management structures to the parks, making public space more fun and enjoyable for all park users.

The development of Tuen Mun New Town started in the 1960s in Hong Kong. However, most residents think that Tuen Mun is remote and has no convenient transport links. By bringing art into this community, we hope to foster a sense of pride among residents. This year, we launched “Viva! River,” a public art project featuring a number of local artists, to offer new inspiration for the development of Tuen Mun. Various collaborations have taken place in communities, where residents and artists exchange ideas to envision a more vital model of public space from the perspective of art and design.

Each district in Hong Kong has its own unique characteristics and Tuen Mun is no exception, boasting an infinite number of narrative fragments. The art group Cold Ears Factory set up street booths to collect residents’ memories, feelings, and fantasies about the community. The team produced a series of six bronze sculptures based on the history of the district and its strange and intriguing stories. One of the stories shared by a local kid is about a magical hole in a wall. If, the story goes, a child passes through the hole on one side, his body would be stretched. But if he passed through the hole from the other side, his body would shrink. This series of works aims to stir people’s imaginations about Tuen Mun.

The art group La Belle Époque visited different corners of Tuen Mun and discovered signs of feline life, and then exhibited a series of knitted cat sculptures, Meowy Go Round the River, inspired by the harmonious coexistence between humans and cats in the area. Over three years, the artists are regularly changing the clothing of the cats, which are on display by the Tuen Mun River. They also held knitting workshops for residents.

Sound of Rebound is a novel-looking ping-pong table that we found, made up of two circles. The tabletop is a glockenspiel: random notes are produced when the ball rebounds onto the table, leading to a melody created by a group of people playing together. The circular design can accommodate multiple players at the same time, symbolizing harmony. Musicians make use of the ping-pong table as a performing stage.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, people could not travel and instead went outdoors locally to seek amusement. As a result they rediscovered scenery they had forgotten and learned to appreciate the beauty of the city. “Hi! Flora, Fauna” is an art project that promotes the Hong Kong Zoological and Botanical Gardens. Seventeen groups of artists took inspiration from the flora and fauna in the park to make work with a range of different media to bring visitors closer to nature. This project will be held in December this year.