“There is nothing to do in Hong Kong!”
That is a sentence you might have heard from one of Hong Kong’s young residents, some of whom struggle to find somewhere to spend their free time.
But M+, which opened in 2021 after nearly a decade of planning, has become one option. The museum, whose name means “Museum + more”, celebrated its fifth anniversary this Sunday, with free admission and special events attracting audiences.
High attendance
At the M+, the Artist Square entrance saw a steady flow of visitors taking advantage of the free admission.
Part-time employee Dennis Chan Nam, who was specifically called in to handle the larger crowd, estimated that attendance was 10-15% higher than normal.
“There are much more people than normal. One of the specific reasons must be the free admission, but I’m not sure that they know it’s because of the anniversary,” Nam said.
3D view from when WestK largely unfinished and under construction. The land reclamation for West Kowloon finished in 2003, with the southern tip being largely empty until contruction for WestK started in 2013. 3D model: Google Earth Studio.
The cultureless city
To understand how M+ ended up being a cultural driving force in Hong Kong, we have to go back nearly three decades.
By the end of the 20th century, the Hong Kong government was looking to diversify the economy beyond being just a financial capital. A 1996 survey by the Hong Kong Tourism Board revealed that tourists found that Hong Kong lacked cultural opportunities, an opinion shared by locals.
The solution became turning the newly reclaimed area of West Kowloon into a large cultural district called “WestK”. By 2002, a full design proposal by Foster + Partners was revealed, infamously featuring a giant “canopy” over the district.
Since then, the project has gone through multiple development hurdles and redesigns, and it was only by 2013 that the WestK we know today, with M+ as its crown jewel, was penned down.
After multiple construction delays, M+ finally opened in 2021, four years behind schedule. M+ is Asia’s first, and so far the only, global museum for contemporary art, notably featuring a large collection of Chinese contemporary art.
More than a museum
After five years of M+, it can be argued that the museum and its surroundings fill the gap in cultural activities that used to be prominent in Hong Kong.
“M+ is a good choice for us, because we don’t know where else to go,” says 25-year-old nurse Ruby Chan Ying Tung, who visited the museum with her boyfriend.
23-year-old nurse Ray Ting agreed with Tung’s viewpoint. “Hong Kong is quite a boring city. There is not much leisure to choose from, so M+ gives us somewhere to go,” he said.
Ting visited on Sunday with his girlfriend, 22-year-old student Rexa Lai, who likes the interactive elements of M+.
Lai said, “I visit M+ with my friends all the time. Sometimes they have activities, like writing a letter or playing minigames, which is much fun. They also have the cinema and table tennis, so I think it’s much more than just a museum.”
One of the main points of the 2013 redoing of the WestK masterplan was to make the area an open park, providing green space for the city’s residents to escape the concrete jungle. This is evident, as the grassy hill outside M+ is usually filled with people picnicking with blankets and tents. Something that 30-year-old Ms. Koon enjoys.
“I come here once a week on average,” she said, travelling from the New Territories to be in this specific park.
Her friend Ms. Tang added, “I really like this location. The seaside view is amazing. We really love it here.”
Neither of them was aware of the fifth anniversary, and even though they have visited the museum in the past, they mostly come here for the park, implying that the area can be as big a draw as the art museum itself.
The Paraguayan band The Recycled Orchestra performing outside M+. The band is known for playing on instruments assembled from scrap materials. Video: Noah Jensen Sørensen.
As Paraguayan band “The Recycled Orchestra” took the stage at the museum’s Artist Square, many people were still around as the anniversary celebrations were coming to an end on Sunday.
A large crowd has gathered around, many perpetuating the evening by filming the concert, emphasizing that M+’s pull goes way beyond the contemporary art that birthed it. Although it took its time, M+ has finally given the people of Hong Kong “somewhere to go.”