Installation Arts Under the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong Admiralty: Looking into the symbolism

Installation Arts Under the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong Admiralty: Looking into the symbolism

Hong Kong, a city that was regarded as politics apathetic, has changed gradually over these few years due to social. On 28 September 2014, a total number of eighty-seven tear gas bombs and pepper stray provoked over ten thousands of pro-democracy protesters rushed to, occupied and camped in Admiralty. This is the birth of the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement, which blossomed the occupied area into a vibrant exhibition of different forms of arts by both local and foreign artists or protesters.

With the Hong Kong government’s poor act of keep turning a blind eyes towards pro-democracy protesters who wish to achieve universal suffrage, the whole occupied area had turned into a huge canvas by the protesters to express their opinion over two months. From creative posters showing digital arts to banners full of inspiring slogans; countless photos or drawings featuring the Umbrella Movement to several mind-blowing installation artworks, artworks are everywhere in the occupied area. All the artworks are intended to show support to the civil disobedience movement, express their feelings towards the government office and encourage more people to join the movement.

In this essay, it is hoped to have a deeper look into two of the most significant installation artworks inside the occupied area of Admiralty. The two installation artworks include ‘The Umbrella Man’ statue and ‘The Spirit of the Gadfly’, created by local and foreign artists respectively. The symbolism behind these artworks will be focused on, analyzed and compared in the following.

‘The Umbrella Man’

In the early stage of the Umbrella Movement, a 12 foot-tall wood statue was presented and exhibited in the Umbrella Square, where the main zone of the occupied area in Admiralty. It has become the iconic artwork in the Umbrella Movement, which contributed to inspire more creation of artworks.

This artwork is named as ‘The Umbrella Man’, which features a man made of tons of tiny wood boards, holding up a light yellow umbrella. The head of the man is in white color, while no color is painted on his body. The idea of this installation is created and developed by a young local artist name Milk, and built up with the help of many other artists. According to the artist Milk, he was inspired by a picture of a man holding up an umbrella on the Internet, and then spent about three days to build and finish this artwork with the help of his friends.

‘The Umbrella Man’ is one is the most significant installation artworks in the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement, as it features symbols in the Umbrella Revolution, such as the yellow color of umbrella, white colored head, and the gesture of holding up an umbrella. It represents the Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters in Umbrella Movement.

The symbol of yellow color can be traced back to few weeks before the start of the Umbrella Movement, at the time that The Hong Kong Federation of Students launched a one-week-long class boycott in other to show discontent towards the ‘831 Decision’ by the Beijing government, which is suspected to be a unfair plan of Chief Executive election in 2017. At that stage, the yellow ribbon is symbolized as a sign to support the class boycott and a hope to achieve universal suffrage.

However, after the raise of Umbrella Movement, the meaning of yellow ribbon gradually changed into the sign of supporting the civil disobedience movement, mainly refer to the Umbrella Movement, and also a hope to achieve universal suffrage. And the yellow color was no longer only appear on the ribbons, but also other objects. Therefore, it is noted that the yellow color symbolizes the hope and support for achieving genuine universal suffrage as well as the Umbrella Movement.

Also, the white head of the wood statue symbolize the desire of ‘wanting peace and freedom’, explained by artist Milk in an interview. As white is often refer to a feeling of innocent, naive and peaceful, the artist would like to show that Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters are having the mind or principle of being peaceful during the protest, hence white color was put on the wood statue’s head.

For the gesture of holding up an umbrella, it symbolizes the courage of Hong Kong people who are willing to achieve universal suffrage despite of any obstacles. On 28 September 2014, geared police used pepper stray and tear gas bomb to disperse armless people on the road. Umbrellas, goggles and plastic wraps are the only thing to protect protesters from the attacks. This shows that the demonstrators were protesting while adopting the principal of peaceful and non-violent. It also shows that Hong Kong people are not afraid of the government; no matter how painful of the pepper stray or tear gas, pro-democracy protesters would still holding up the umbrella, and refuse to ‘accept’ unfair election of the Chief Executive.

This gesture has been well-known after the famous Time magazine featured a Hong Kong protester with a mask, holding up two hands, one with an opened umbrella and one with a closed one, in the dramatic grey tear gas on the cover of the magazine on the first week of the Umbrella Movement. The sign of holding up an umbrella is therefore spread to the world. Umbrella has become the symbol of the movement while holding up an umbrella become an iconic gesture symbolizing Hong Kong fighting for universal suffrage.

Also, the materials used in making this installation artwork also have a symbolic meaning behind. In ‘The Umbrella Man’ is made by numerous tiny wood broads, with metal inside to build the basic structure of the statue. The wood broads can represent the protesters; only one wood board cannot create the whole artwork, but tons of those can build up a 12-foot tall statue, and each of them are important.

In ‘The Umbrella Man’ statue, the symbols of yellow color and gesture of holding up umbrella have been merged. With the white colored head, sign of holding up a yellow umbrella, it makes this installation artwork more powerful and has delivered a strong message.

This installation artwork has been compared with other statue, such as the ‘Goddess of Democracy’ sculpture stood in Beijing's Tiananmen Square during the protests there in 1989. The similarity between the ‘Goddess of Democracy’ and ‘The Umbrella Man’ is the statues both raise up one of its hand, one holding up fire, latter holding an umbrella. They both symbolize a message of fighting for democracy, and the courage to fight against the injustice and unfairness. While the ‘Goddess of Democracy’ have represented fighting democracy for a long time, ‘The Umbrella Man’ represents the Umbrella Movement itself. There is also a difference of the motive of these two statues. Although ‘The Umbrella Movement’ becomes one of a symbol of the Umbrella Movement, the artist Milk mentioned that he was not intended to create the artwork to become a symbol of fighting against government, instead, he simply wanted to express his feeling in an artistic way. The idea of ‘The movement needs something just to stand here’ is the initial reason that Milk created this iconic ‘The Umbrella Man’.

‘The Spirit of the Gadfly’

A large set of sculptures made from different materials appeared in Admiralty protest site in a rather late stage of the movement. The theme of the work is ‘The Spirit of the Gadfly’, created by Miso Zo, a New York-based artist and student protester in Beijing in 1989, with the help of volunteers.

Miso Zo was an art student in 1989; he joined the protest in Beijing and leave China after the explosion of June Fourth Incident. He travelled around the world and stays in New York as an artist. The emerge of Umbrella Movement inspired him to arrive Hong Kong so as to show support to the Hong Kong student pro-democracy protesters.

‘The Spirit of the Gadfly’ is a mixed media installation. The whole artwork includes banners showing the meaning of the work, few sculptures of fly and a huge sculpture of tear spray bottle. Sculptures of fly and a huge bottle of tear spray are made by tents, helmets, plastic bottles, discarded umbrella, and flotsam… etc.; all the materials were found from the protest site.

Unlike other installation artworks or posters, this huge piece of installation art did not feature any yellow ribbon of umbrella to symbolize the Umbrella Movement. Instead of showing support to the movement directly, the artist wants the spirit of Hong Kong pro-democracy protest movement to be embodied in the fly. There is a hidden symbolic meaning of the fly, which the artist would like share the spirit of the fly to the protesters, and hope to support the movement.

The symbolic meaning of the fly can be traced back to a translated novel, Ethel Lilian Voynich’s ‘The Gadfly’, which is about a rebellious Italian youth in 1840s. The artist Miso read this novel when he was in China; he was inspired by the courage of the character, as well as the spirit in the story. ‘Then I am a happy fly, if I live or die’, this is one of the slogan used by the artist to express the meaning of the spirit of gadfly, which is a quote from in the novel. The artist believes that the fly keeps on flying for as long as it can, and willing to die in order to hold its belief. Even the fly will die at the end, it is happy to die as long as it holds its belief.

The gadfly symbolizes the spirit of the Hong Kong pro-democracy protester in Umbrella Movement. As the fly keeps on flying until death, like the Hong Kong protesters are willing to achieve universal suffrage no matter how the Hong Kong and Beijing governments suppress or how the aggressive police treat to them. The artist would like to spread the spirit of gadfly of continuing to hold its belief, and willing to give up anything to order to uphold and achieve its goal. Instead of looking down the protester as fly, artist wants to symbolize the spirit of gadfly into his work, and hope to spread the spirit and support to the Hong Kong people.

To the government, the pro-democracy protesters or students are similar to flies, which are annoying and causing ‘trouble’. The artist intended to symbolize protesters who are fighting for democracy as fly, which will never give up on its belief. The symbolization of the fly is to show a strong message to the government that they may destroy the protest sites or disperse all the protesters, but the fly will come back, ‘we are here, there and everywhere’.

While the fly symbolizes the spirit of the Hong Kong demonstrators in Umbrella Movement, the giant tear spray symbolizes the Hong Kong government. Police have been using tear spray and pepper spray in dispersing people who are engage in ‘illegal assembly’, that is occupying the streets or road. Although Hong Kong people have the right to join protest and walk on the street, police is now restricting this right. The incidents of police using pepper or tear spray or even baton to attack or ‘clear’ armless Hong Kong citizens without warning have been exposed for many time by the press and media over the recent months, especially in Mong Kok. The Hong Kong police are supposed to operate under the law and regulation; however, they are now become the political tool to control and suppress Hong Kong people, the freedom of Hong Kong people is being neglected.

Police have become the tool of the Hong Kong government to deal with and suppress the social unrest caused by the political problem or people’s anger towards the government officers. The giant tear spray in Miso’s ‘The spirit of the Gadfly’ represent the riot control of the Hong Kong police, but it is intended to symbolize the Hong Kong government, which refuse to listen and turn a blind eye to all the criticism against the government. As the government, in other words, CY Leung, is suspected to be the one that order the police to treat the armless protesters in this aggressive way; police is just one of his or the government’s tool to suppress people’s voice. Hence the giant tear spray symbolizes the government.

The choice of tear spray rather than pepper spray, which is more often used by the police, has a meaning inside as well. When facing the unreasonable spray attack by the police, the Hong Kong people is not just disappointed to the riot act, but also deeply disappointed to the Hong Kong government. The tear spray is used against the peaceful protesters, it is used to hurt people by making them in pain, but at the same time, people who are not getting attack feel pain as well, the pain is not just sign of empathy, but also the huge sadness, disappointment and anger towards the government.

‘The spirit of Gadfly’ is already destroyed after the massive clearance of Admiralty occupy site. The process of destroy is also part of Miso’s creation, as he wants the police to confront with the artwork and feel the spirit of gadfly. The destroy of the installation arts do not represent the death of the fly, instead, the process and result of destroying artworks symbolize the spirit of not giving up and the message of clearing the road can not clear people’s mind of achieving universal suffrage.

Comparison of ‘The Umbrella Man’ and ‘The spirit of the Gadfly’

‘The Umbrella Man’ statue symbolizes the Umbrella Movement itself, with a famous and classic gesture of holding up a light yellow umbrella, while ‘The spirit of the Gadfly’ is intended to symbolize the spirit of the Hong Kong protesters who wish to achieve universal suffrage. The symbolic meaning of ‘The Umbrella Man’ is quite obvious and easily understandable, due to the statue’s gesture; choose of colors and the yellow umbrella. It represents the Umbrella Movement. On the other hand, the meaning behind ‘The spirit of the Gadfly’ is not obvious when compare to ‘The umbrella Man’. The idea is obtained from a novel, and it is created to support the Hong Kong protesters and intended to show the government that as long as the goal of achieving universal suffrage is not completed, protests will not be ended even they clear the road.

The similarity between these two installation arts is that they both express support to the Umbrella Movement and are inspired by the peaceful protests in Hong Kong.

Conclusion

All in all, two iconic installation artworks in the Umbrella Movement have been introduced and analyzed in an aspect of symbolism. Both ‘The Umbrella Man’ and ‘The spirit of Gadfly’ are inspired by the peaceful and non-violence protests in Hong Kong and want to show support to the movement. These artworks are well appreciated and became the icon of the movement due to the symbolic meaning behind.

Reference:

An interview with the artist behind Umbrella Man: Occupy Hong Kong. (n.d.). Retrieved December 9, 2014, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocQFS1X540s

Art Radar. (n.d.). Retrieved December 7, 2014, from http://artradarjournal.com/2014/10/10/occupy-central-hong-kong-streets-art-galleries/

New Image of the Hong Kong Protests: 'Umbrella Man' (2014, October 5). Retrieved December 11, 2014, from http://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/10/05/new-symbol-of-hong-kong-protests-umbrella-man/

New Image of the Hong Kong Protests: 'Umbrella Man' (2014, October 5). Retrieved December 11, 2014, from http://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/10/05/new-symbol-of-hong-kong-protests-umbrella-man

#aesthetic