This collection is a research and archiving initiative surrounding the personal archives of Oscar Ho Hing Kay (b. 1956). An artist, curator, art critic, and educator, Ho has held various prominent positions in established art organisations and higher education institutions in Hong Kong and China since his return from the US in 1984. He is currently the Programme Director of the MA programme in Cultural Management at CUHK. He was appointed the Exhibition Director at the Hong Kong Arts Centre (HKAC), the Senior Research Officer at the Home Affairs Bureau of the Hong Kong Government, Founding Director of Museum of Contemporary Art in Shanghai, and a member of the Museum Advisory Group for the West Kowloon Cultural District, just to name a few. Although his résumé indicates a longstanding collaboration with local arts and cultural establishments, throughout the thirty-five years of his professional career he has made conscious attempts to not only retain a critical distance with institutions, but also to steer reformations from within.

Ho was influenced by his early study of anthropology, and his encounter with the anti-elitist Funk Art Movement introduced by his tutors at the University of California, Davis, during the early 1980s. His curatorial practices and writings advocate for the understanding of arts in the broader context of visual culture, as well as art’s accessibility to the public, highlighting its role in the construction of Hong Kong’s cultural identities. These lines of enquiry motivate Ho to take on his many roles that drive art and cultural development in Hong Kong, in a way that is responsive to the drastic changes the city has seen in the past three decades.   

Comprising documentation of his curatorial projects, clippings, conference proceedings, notes from discussions around art education and art policies in Hong Kong, personal correspondence, and much more, Oscar Ho Hing Kay Archive provides a holistic view of Ho’s trajectory, as well as a window into Hong Kong’s art scene from the 1980s to present. The pilot phase of this project (2020–21) provides substantial documentation of Ho’s role as the Exhibition Director at the HKAC, a job title that no longer exists after his departure in 2001. The digitised materials in this phase are also available physically for consultation on-site at Asia Art Archive Library. Detailed scoping and further digitisation for the remaining archival materials will be carried out in late 2021. For more information, please contact the Collections Team at library@aaa.org.hk.

The archive was digitised and prepared by Ali Wong, Lydia Lam, and Elaine Lin, with support from John Tain.