Timelines and
chronological thinking
Chronology is our mental scaffolding for organizing historical reasoning. It provides us with a strong sense of the continuity and incidences of time – of when things happened – in order to understand historical causality. The Hong Kong Art History (HKAH) Timeline project is the first to provide a temporal map tracing events from the 1930s to the present. Our Principal Timeline, with over 300 entries, includes relevant social and political events including the establishment of museums, art institutions, art criticism practices, government policies and shifts in financial or educational sectors. We also have a section called “Satellite Timelines” that are narrow focused studies that show how time is always in action, whether in linear directions or alternative patterns where time pauses, reflects, returns, or reimagines.
This project was part of the Hong Kong Art Workshop, a HKU class taught by Dr. Yeewan Koon of HKU, in collaboration with Asia Art Archive (AAA) with Michelle Wong and Anthony Yung. This website and content was helped by many, and especially by Yi Ting Lee and Nicole Martin Nepomuceno. Technical support was provided by TELI, Daryl Bakhuis, and Andrew Lenczycki. Tiffany Luk and Georgina Challen were our copy-editors. Polly Hui and Jocelin Kee helped with fact-checking. The design of this updated timeline is by Nicole Martin Nepomuceno who supervised the updating of this timeline project into its current form.
We acknowledge, however, that our Principal Timeline provides an overview that excludes more than it includes. Moreover, with linear timelines there is also the assumption of advances and progress, but developments can also take the shape of departures and loss. It is with the understanding of this, that we have also launched smaller “satellite” timeline research projects. These are case studies by students from the Hong Kong Art Workshop class. They explore the inconsistencies, overlaps and disruptions to speak about issues such as independent art spaces in relationship to activism, women artists as institutional builders, the presence (and absence) of minorities in Hong Kong’s art world, the development of art criticism and the relationship between grassroot art education practices and local knowledge. The aim of these smaller projects is to build different thresholds from which others may discover new ideas for future research. They also operate as standalone projects that collectively help to form the moving parts of a history of Hong Kong art.
The Department of Art History recognizes the importance of sharing, and this website is an open-access tool which we hope will be an entrance point for meaningful conversations about Hong Kong art history. We invite comments and feedback that are made in the spirit of critical sharing and hive-minds to help us identify any mistakes we might have made. We also ask any usage of information found on this site to follow international practice of citation.
The satellite timeline projects are supported by The Hong Kong University's Special Grant for Strategic Development of Virtual Teaching and Learning, Kong Ai Jun Foundation, and Kwai Fung Hin Art Foundation,
How it all began
The origins of this timeline project can be traced back to a workshop, held at Asia Art Archives, on Teaching Hong Kong Art History in 2015. During the workshop, scholars expressed their frustrations with the prevailing belief that studying Hong Kong art history was an impossible task. One aspect contributing to this perception was the scarcity of secondary literature. Additionally, there was a debate surrounding the question of who should have the authority to write a comprehensive survey text or whether such a book created canonical timelines that excluded the diversity of artists, artworks, and institutions in Hong Kong. These are questions that have continued to fuel critical debates that have provided the foundation as well as the reason for starting this timeline project.
More specifically, the HKAH timeline project began life in the classrooms of 2020 and 2023. It was an accidental project that emerged from the disruptions caused by COVID-19. The question of how to position what is Hong Kong in a post-pandemic world with shifting world powers has prompted us to make this timeline project as a response to the urgency of recording historical moments that are dynamic, slippery as well as those that are foundational to the role of art, its institutions, communities and people in Hong Kong.
We would like to acknowledge our Department of Art History’s long-standing relationship with Asia Art Archive. The success of this project is a testimony to the importance of collaboration and generosity of AAA.
There were also many other partners and friends who provided helpful feedback including those who attended the students’ presentations: Claire Hsu, Anqi Li, Alex Seno, Chris Mattison, and Caroline Chiu.
Dr. Yeewan Koon
Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Art History,
The University of Hong Kong
Supervisor of the Hong Kong Art Timeline Project
