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Kacey Wong & his provocative pink tank at Hong Kong’s 1 July marches

Last updated: September 1, 2023
2 minutes of reading
Performances, Sculptures
2012, Activist art, Art & tanks, Art in public, Artistic protests, Artworks & exhibitions by Asian artists, Artworks & exhibitions by Chinese artists, Artworks & exhibitions in Asia, Artworks & exhibitions in China, Artworks & exhibitions in Hong Kong, Kacey Wong, Pink art
Kacey Wong -- The Real Cultural Bureau Tank, 2012, cardboard, wood
Kacey Wong – The Real Cultural Bureau Tank, 2012, cardboard, wood
  • 1 Hongkongers flood the streets & protest for democracy
  • 2 The origins of Hong Kong’s 1 July protests
  • 3 Kacey Wong’s pink tank
  • 4 Throwing fake money at real politicians
  • 5 Exhibition with Public Delivery

Hongkongers flood the streets & protest for democracy

The Hong Kong 1 July protests are a surprising sight on the often chaotic stress. This day marks the transfer of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to China (PRC)1 and is a public holiday it was originally thought to be a day of celebration. However, now it is mostly known for hundreds of thousands of people flooding the streets who protest for democracy, universal suffrage, and other political concerns.

Kacey Wong - The Real Cultural Bureau Tank, 2012, cardboard, wood
Kacey Wong – The Real Cultural Bureau Tank, 2012, cardboard, wood
Kacey Wong - The Real Cultural Bureau Tank, 2012, cardboard, wood
Kacey Wong – The Real Cultural Bureau Tank, 2012, cardboard, wood

The origins of Hong Kong’s 1 July protests

This annual protest2 rally started in 1997, the year of the handover, and in 2003 brought out as much as 500.000 Hong Kongers. Only the protest in May 1989 in favor of the participants of the Tiananmen Square3 protests4 was bigger with 1.5 million participants.

Kacey Wong - The Real Cultural Bureau Tank, 2012, cardboard, wood
Kacey Wong – The Real Cultural Bureau Tank, 2012, cardboard, wood
Kacey Wong - The Real Cultural Bureau Tank, 2012, cardboard, wood
Kacey Wong – The Real Cultural Bureau Tank, 2012, cardboard, wood

Kacey Wong’s pink tank

In 2012, 400.000 other citizens participated in the protest, among them Hong Kong artist Kacey Wong. He paraded the streets, using a pink tank made out of cardboard.

His artwork called The Real Culture Bureau and the Real Culture Bureau director aims to reflect the changing political and cultural situation of Hong Kong by portraying a corrupted government official who, for the artist, embodies money and violence often seen in mainland China.

文化號 The Real Culture Bureau by Kacey Wong.mpg

3 min 40 sec

Throwing fake money at real politicians

Kacey Wong threw fake money (100 million dollars bill) to real politicians and other authentic, local political parties to prevent them from putting up resistance against the Pink Party and demanded harmonious silence from them.

kacey-wong-real-culture-bureau-apc-hong-kong-2012-4
Kacey Wong – The Real Cultural Bureau Tank, 2012, cardboard, wood
kacey-wong-real-culture-bureau-apc-hong-kong-2012-5
Kacey Wong – The Real Cultural Bureau Tank, 2012, cardboard, wood
kacey-wong-real-culture-bureau-apc-hong-kong-2012-6
Kacey Wong – The Real Cultural Bureau Tank, 2012, cardboard, wood

Exhibition with Public Delivery

Kacey Wong - The Real Culture Bureau, 2012, Total Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, South Korea
Kacey Wong – The Real Culture Bureau, 2012, installation view, Total Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, South Korea, 2014
Kacey Wong – The Real Culture Bureau, 2012, installation view, Total Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, South Korea, 2014
Kacey Wong – The Real Culture Bureau, 2012, installation view, Total Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, South Korea, 2014
Kacey Wong – The Real Culture Bureau, 2012, installation view, Total Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, South Korea, 2014

All images: Kacey Wong unless otherwise noted.

More by Kacey Wong

Footnotes

  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handover_of_Hong_Kong
  2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_1_July_marches
  3. https://publicdelivery.org/tag/tiananmen-square/
  4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests
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