Talk: How Hong Kong’s Visual Storytelling Shapes Creativity

Description

Moderated by writer Slavica Habjanovic, four cross-disciplinary speakers will discuss Hong Kong’s multifaceted visual culture. Part of the Hong Kong International Literary Festival 2026, the talk will be held on 5 March from 18:30 to 20:30. 

Architect, photographer and co-founder of signboard heritage conservation platform @streetsignhk, Kevin Mak explores the cultural memory embedded in the city’s vanishing neon signs through a photographic perspective. His works are featured in Zolima Culture Guide Volume 2 — Neon Is Not Dead: The Future of a Hong Kong Icon and is a regular contributing photographer to Zolima CityMag. 

Meanwhile, Lynn Yau, founder and CEO of award-winning charity pioneering Arts for Change education Arts for Transforming Education and Communities and author of Evolving Creative Mindsets: Thinking Through the Arts, shares how walking, mapping and close observation offer new ways of seeing the city’s landscapes and histories.

Derek Ting is a filmmaker and writer, who is known to have directed and starred in the Hollywood movie, Agent Recon and credited for bringing legendary action icon, Chuck Norris, back to the big screen. In this talk, he reflects on how cinema and storytelling capture the city’s transnational energy, ambition, and contradictions.

Alicia Sing, multidisciplinary creative producer and author of Iconic Hikes Hong Kong, maps overlooked trails with narrative descriptions and vintage-style posters, revealing the city’s natural and cultural depths.