Hong Kong Ghost Signs
Hong Kong’s unique signage landscape tells the city’s story in brilliant calligraphy, vibrant colours, and creative characters. Hidden amongst this visual riot are Ghost Signs – fading signage from times past, leaving a rare, tangible, trace of the communities and businesses that have changed or disappeared amidst Hong Kong’s rapid development.
Hong Kong’s unique signage landscape tells the city’s story in brilliant calligraphy, vibrant colours, and creative characters. Hidden amongst this visual riot are Ghost Signs – fading signage from times past, leaving a rare, tangible, trace of the communities and businesses that have changed or disappeared amidst Hong Kong’s rapid development.
Hong Kong Ghost Signs are a little documented record of the past. These artefacts carry valuable information about Chinese calligraphic scripts, local sign painting craft, and collective memories of what came before.
This is the first effort at the preservation and documentation of Hong Kong’s Ghost Signs.
This project will tell the story of this fading and fascinating part of Hong Kong’s culture while also celebrating the local communities as they change and prosper. Via a book, walking tours, an online interactive tool, this project will engage Hongkongers to discover and document the characters of their past.
- 2022
- Grantee: Ben Marans and Billy Potts
Ben Marans is a visual storyteller focusing on people and the planet. As a professional photographer based in Hong Kong, Ben has spent countless hours on foot criss-crossing the city and documenting the people and places that make Hong Kong special. Ben’s passion lies in telling stories about those dedicated to building a better community. Ben is an accredited member of the Hong Kong Press Photographers Association and he regularly shoots for SOPA Images.
Billy Potts is a Hong Kong-born writer and designer passionate about his home’s cultural heritage. For over a decade, Billy has been writing about Hong Kong’s heady mix of Eastern and Western folk traditions and how this esoteric combination exists in a metropolis that is simultaneously hyper modern and traditional. Billy is the founder of Handsome Co. and Watt Studio, two design practices focused on Hong Kong’s cultural heritage.