Wenyi and its discontents A study of creative practices and politics in Hong Kong

“Time will pass while our voice will last,” I titled the conclusion of this project with this line of lyrics, which I wrote in 2022. This line points to a key question of this project: How and when is wenyi politically engaged in the protests in Hong Kong? With the accelerating integration into China, and a definite return to Beijing looming in the year 2047 (Sino-British Declaration 1984), the future is increasingly unspeakable. Whilst it is often claimed that the future belongs to the young, a group of young literary practitioners, wenyi, have been involved in and struggling with, if not failing, their engagement with the anti- Extradition Law Amendment Bill movement in Hong Kong. This project asks when and how the creative practices of this group of wenyi practitioners– ranging from flash mobs to art, and from music to poetry – and politics intersect during the Anti-ELAB protests.
The Hong Kong protests provide a unique prism through which to study the entanglement between creative practices, wenyi culture, and politics. Among the eruption of large protests worldwide, Hong Kong was a reference of Chilean and Catalonia protests. This project explores the relations between creativity, youth, and politics in Hong Kong by zooming in on wenyi practitioners – local young creative practitioners involved in different phases of the protests, from the beginning to the period of abeyance.