This artist is keeping Hong Kong's neon heritage alive

CNN

5 days ago

The neon signs that once illuminated Hong Kong have mostly gone dark. The lights were once synonymous with the city, but in recent years, the government has tightened regulations over safety concerns about unwieldy signs, and many have been removed.
But inside a workspace in the Wong Chuk Hang neighborhood, neon lights are shining bright.
Jive Lau founded the Kowloneon studio in 2021, with the hopes of preserving the craft of neon making.
He had long been interested in neon when, in 2019, he took a week off from his job as a graphic designer to fly to Taiwan for a neon-making course. When Lau, now 42, was laid off during the Covid-19 pandemic, he took it as a sign to devote himself to neon full-time. Now he's achieving commercial success with his designs — including an elaborate neon popup shop façade for the US fashion brand Coach, a sign for a Louis Vuitton event, and light installations for the Hong Kong Ballet.
Through his work, Lau hopes he can help reverse neon's decline in the city. 'Neon is not replaceable,' he tells CNN from his workshop, illuminated by a neon cow shaking maracas mounted on the wall behind him. 'It's magical.'
Neon signs were first introduced in Hong Kong in the 1920s. As the city's economy flourished from the 1950s to the 1980s, neon did also, according to Brian Kwok, an associate professor of design at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and author of 'Fading Neon Lights, an Archive of Hong Kong's Visual Culture.'
The lights were once used to advertise everything from tailor shops and bars to seafood restaurants, but in recent decades, the neon industry has been in decline.
In 2011, the city's Buildings Department found there were about 120,000 signboards in the city, including neon, many of them unauthorized. Stricter regulation has led to the removal of many signs, like a well-known neon cow measuring three meters (10 feet) hanging above Sammy's Kitchen, a steakhouse, which was taken down in 2015 after being deemed an illegal structure.
Some local business owners have willingly replaced the signs with newer technology, including LED lights, which are cheaper. Societal factors, like an association with seediness, have also contributed to neon's decline, according to the city's M+ Museum.
Kwok tells CNN that in 2018 and 2019, when he was doing research for his book, there were about 470 neon signs left in the five Hong Kong districts he surveyed. Today, he thinks that only about 10% of those remain.
Making neon signs is a delicate and difficult task that entails using powerful burners to heat and shape glass tubes and injecting the right mixture of gas into the tubes, which must be connected seamlessly so the joints can't be seen.
There aren't many people left that know how to do the painstaking and delicate work. Kwok estimates that there are about three to five remaining neon masters in Hong Kong, with only one or two actively working in the craft.
In recent years, there has been an increasing focus on the disappearing neon, which has drawn media and public attention.
A few artists like Lau have started working with neon at a time when the city is undergoing rapid changes. That includes a Beijing-led crackdown on dissent, following pro-democracy protests in 2019, which critics say has stifled creative expression and subdued the once freewheeling city. Many young Hong Kongers have left the city.
'Neon is representative of Hong Kong,' says Lau. 'If the most beautiful and representative things of Hong Kong fade out, I will be really sad,' he adds.
Some Hong Kong brands continue to incorporate neon into their stores. Lau has designed signs for a gelato shop and a large neon installation he created sits atop the flagship store of local retailer Goods of Desire (G.O.D) in the central nightlife area Lan Kwai Fong.
He says that unlike the old neon masters, who largely made signs with just the name of the shop they advertised, he takes a more creative approach to his designs. His sign above G.O.D., for example, depicts characters holding a wine glass and pouring tea.
In his studio, where he receives subsidized rent from the government-backed Hong Kong Arts Development Council, tools cover the walls, and are scattered across worktop tables, while the remnants of broken tubes litter the floor. He shows CNN a neon sign taller than him, with intricately bent neon depicting a phoenix and a dragon — symbols common as a backdrop for Chinese wedding photos — which he says took him a month to make.
He also uses neon to create sculptures and is planning for an upcoming exhibition. And he's working to open a store that will sell neon objects suitable for Hong Kong's notoriously cramped apartments. He shows CNN a small sculptural neon lightning bolt mounted on a base. 'I want to reach a different kind of consumer,' says Lau.
Kwok sees similar trends among Hong Kong's handful of neon makers. 'The whole industry has shifted to more art-related projects, or small-scale projects for interior decoration,' he says.
Lau wants to encourage more people into the art form and late last year, he launched a three-month internship program to teach other young people the craft.
His initial batch of eight apprentices included students and professionals working in fields ranging from technology to art repair. He plans to run a second internship program later this year.
'Some people say to me, 'don't create competition for yourself,'' Lau says. 'But we have to make the community bigger for the future.'