Vanished Signages

088

To Kwa Wan, Hong Kong

“Unveil The Vanished Signage” is a series of workshops, exhibitions and sharing sessions. We aim to provide a platform for sharing and researching handwritten calligraphy signage sketches from the 80s to 90s. This will give participants the opportunity to engage in the initial stages of exploration, drawing inspiration from the traces of cultural transitions and to experience the different stages of creation. Led by two mentors from different fields, the event delves into the history, cultural heritage, and creative aspects of signage lettering design through archival research and reinterpretation. We hope this will be an opportunity to foster dialogue and exchange between cultural documentation, innovation, and community practices. The exhibition will showcase a variety of creative works, including handwritten calligraphy signboard sketches and the outcomes of the exploration workshop. Each piece carries traces of To Kwa Wan’s past and incorporates the unique thoughts and creativity of the participants. Through these artworks, we can experience the fusion of To Kwa Wan’s historical culture and contemporary influences, further exploring the connections between the past and the present.

Context:

Begun with the two founders of “Jiksap”, a vintage and antique shop, encountering a cardboard lady who was towing piles of found copies of calligraphy and sign board blueprints to landfill. These copies are bought from the cardboard lady by Jiksap from landfill, slowly discovered as works produced by a signmaker named Nip activate in the same neighbourhood in the past.

Concept:

The project is designed in two parts including four days of community workshops and exhibition, where workshop participants discover the changes happening in To Kwa Wan through looking at the story of the sign maker and accompanied by understanding and hands-on experimentation of traditional sign making techniques. Participants record their impression towards the future of signboards, the district and the city, and create new signs from their feelings towards the neighbourhood.

Process:

Organised in four long sessions of workshops, participants are gathered to excavate the history and the craft of words and signages in Hong Kong. The project first introduced the types of texts, their presence and changes as seen in the district, the conventional methods of making signages such as tracing, die cutting and stencils. And the eventual creative adaptation of the knowledge into making new signs for assembling an imaginative street as the main piece of the exhibition.

Production:

Outcomes of the workshops are organised into an exhibition at the Cattle Depot Artist Village, divided into mainly three spaces: Introduction of the signmaker, Mr Nip, and the signs made by him, a central street of new signs made by the workshop participants, and an archive of works and documents produced during the workshops by the participants.

  • Client:

    Hong Kong Design Centre, Jiksap

    Occasion:

    bodw CityProg

    Typology:

    Curation, Workshop, Exhibition

    Status:

    Completion

    Location:

    To Kwa Wan, Hong Kong

    Year:

    2023

  • Project Team:

    Anthony Ko

    Workshop:

    House of To Kwa Wan Stories

    Exhibition:

    Jiksap

    Anthony Ko

    Photography:

    Anthony Ko

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