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​Core Areas of Focus

The RCCAPV will initially focus on three core areas. In each case, the intent is to ensure that the activities of the RCCAPV contribute to the Teaching & Learning of EdUHK, by informing course and programme development, and by enriching co-curricular and extra-curricular offerings.

I. Artistic Projects as Catalysts for Policy Formation

  1. Through innovative artistic projects, the RCCAPV will create spaces for imaginative discussions of pressing societal issues, such as aging, diversity & inclusion, social cohesion, and climate change.

  2. By using art as a catalyst for policy-oriented dialogue, the RCCAPV aims to inspire creative solutions to complex challenges and to advocate for policies that prioritize the well-being of all members of society

  3. Deploying technologies such as holograms and synthetic voices in the context of innovative artistic performances, the RCCAPV will develop much-needed frameworks for the ethical use of AI as it relates to the burgeoning field of Art Tech.

II. The Creative Arts in the Context of Human Flourishing

The RCCAPV will investigate how art can enhance human flourishing by creating inclusive environments for individuals with special needs, restoring hope and social connections during times of illness, and stimulating meaningful experiences for those affected by challenges involving marginalisation. The RCCAPV will develop impactful research projects (many of them team-based, interdisciplinary, and with elements of issues-oriented creative practice), in order to:

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  1. Investigate how art can create inclusive environments for individuals with special needs, restore connections during illness, and stimulate meaningful experiences for those affected by cognitive decline

  2. Promote well-being and resilience through the therapeutic and transformative potential of art

  3. Build a research case for the ‘social prescribing’ of art in Hong Kong, drawing on best practices from other jurisdictions like the United Kingdom and Finland, where the prescribing of culture rather than pharmaceutical products under specific circumstances is encouraged. Research will focus on developing the elements of localisation needed to account fully for Hong Kong’s specificities and those of (parts of) Mainland China

  4. Design interventions in response to government frameworks and invitations, for example with reference to talent development in the context of special needs education

  5. Explore how the creative arts can challenge stereotypes, expand horizons, and foster understanding related to ethnicity, gender, and other critically important aspects of identity formation

  6. Empower marginalised voices through creative expression, in partnership with relevant community and advocacy groups (e.g. “Rare Disease Hong Kong”)

  7. Demonstrate art’s role in facilitating the development of robust life narratives conducive to human flourishing.

III. Issues-based, Solution-oriented Transformative Art: Global Wisdom Exchange in a Virtual Creative Arts Lab

Using the affordances of a VR and AR-based Creative Arts Lab, the RCCAPV will:

 

Create opportunities for practice-based researchers and creative artists in Hong Kong and China to collaborate in ‘grand challenge-style’ ways with members of related communities in other countries, not least those encompassed by China’s ‘Belt and Road’ framework. Special attention will be given to the African continent, where China’s role is significant and growing. Some of the RCCAPV’s scholars have well established ties to the African continent, having, among other things, developed international experiential learning opportunities for EdUHK students in East Africa. Perspectives linked to the African concept of the artist as a ‘griot’ are of interest, with reference to the creative arts as a source of public value. Defined as the guardian of collective memory and charged with its transmission, the griot is a central figure in West African oral traditions. African artists, including filmmakers, have adapted the role of the griot to suit new (technology-based) ways of storytelling, all while retaining the storytellers’ social function, their fundamentally public value.

1. Facilitate purposeful, SDG-informed collaboration between creative practitioners and research teams in selected countries. The RCCAPV will build on the Hong Kong government’s call for East-West exchanges, expanding the scope for meaningful issues-oriented exchanges to include Belt and Road countries in the Global South

2. Foster dialogue between diverse cultural traditions, thereby deepening understanding of the public value of art, in particular with reference to the challenge of designing sustainable futures.

​3. Drawing on the RCCAPV Director’s networks in Morocco, Burkina Faso, South Africa, Kenya, and Tanzania (as evidenced in research fieldwork as well as in the recruitment of African artists [Elkana Ong’esa and Gaston Kaboré] and African students to Hong Kong [through the Global Livingston Institute and the African Leadership Academy]), the RCCAPV will work with universities and third sector organisations across the African continent to facilitate a properly global conversation about the creative arts as engines for the creation of public value. The focus initially will be on Tanzania (especially Zanzibar, where the Faculty of Humanities delivers a summer course involving manifesto-based creative collaboration between students from Hong Kong and Zanzibar, facilitated by Zanzibari practitioners and two EdUHK tutors).

 

EdUHK’s and RCCAPV fellows’ engagement with institutions and practitioners in Belt and Road countries in Central Asia provides a further context for issues-based artistic collaboration.

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