Media

HKU weekly notice (from January 16 to 23, 2016)

15 Jan 2016

 

“The Governance of China” international conference

 With the rise of Xi Jinping, are some of the assumptions which have shaped our view of China in the post-Mao era now in need of revision?

The Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Hong Kong and the New York Review of Books Foundation of New York City are jointly holding a conference on January 15-16 (Friday and Saturday) on the subject of 'The Governance of China'.

The conference will be introduced by Professor Peter Mathieson, President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hong Kong; Robert Silvers, Editor of the New York Review of Books, and Georg Fredrik Rieber-Mohn, Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Fritt-Ord Foundation of Norway, a leading conference sponsor.

A focus for all the conference panels will be whether, with the rise of Xi Jinping as General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, a number of ideological and historical themes may be coming together to form a vision of China's present and future course which may differ significantly from those inherited from the era of Deng Xiaoping. These may include: the concept of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and within it an enhanced role of state owned sectors of the economy.

Also to be discussed include the concept of the Chinese Dream as a vision of economic and national rejuvenation which may including a stronger emphasis on China's global role,  with a possible impact on China's relations with Hong Kong; and a greater emphasis on the ideological dimension  of education, literature, the arts, the law, and the media, and especially the social media.

Speakers on the conference's seven panels will include distinguished participants from Hong Kong, Mainland China, the US and Europe. They include Professor John P Burns, Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at HKU; Professor Fu Hualing, the Head of the Department of Law at HKU; Professor Yuen-Ying Chan, Founding Director of the Journalism and Media Studies Center at HKU and Professor Willy Wo-Lap Lam of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. 

Participants from the Mainland include Professors Pan Wei and Hu Yong of Peking University; and Professors Wang Hui, Wang Zhenmin and Liu Yu from Tsinghua University. Participants from the United States include Professor Andrew Nathan of Columbia University, New York, and Professor Perry Link of the University of California, Riverside.  

Details of the conference are as follows:

Date and time:

January 15, 2016 (Friday): 9:30am (opening ceremony) to 6:15pm

January 16, 2016 (Saturday): 10am to 4pm

Venue: Hall 2, Lee Shau Kee Lecture Centre, at the University's Centennial Campus on Pokfulam Road.

Visit the conference website at: http://www.socsc.hku.hk/icgc/

For media enquiries, please contact Miss Vanessa Sit, Assistant Registrar of the HKU Faculty of Social Sciences, tel: 3917 1203, email: vansit@hku.hk.

Science, Mathematics, and Art (SMArt) Project 2016 for junior secondary school students

The Faculty of Science of the University of Hong Kong (the Faculty) and the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation (HKSTP) are both dedicated to enhancing scientific and technological literacy in society, as well as nurturing the passion and interest of our younger generation in science and technology. The Science, Mathematics and Art (SMArt) Project 2016, co-organised by the Faculty and the HKSTP, aims to achieve these objectives through offering to participants interactive lectures and hands-on workshops that integrate science, mathematics and art. The project seeks to inspire more junior secondary school students to be well-rounded who can appreciate the integration between science, technology, mathematics and art. The artworks of participants from the two-day workshops will be showcased in a series of exhibitions at venues such as MTR Central station, Hong Kong Cultural Centre, HKSTP, InnoCentre, HKU and various schools.

Media representatives are invited to join the event, details is as follows:
Date: January 16th , 2016 (University of Hong Kong) and January 17th, 2016 (HKSTP)
Time: 9am – 6pm

Closing Ceremony
Date: January 17th, 2016
Time: 4:30pm
Venue: Charles K. Kao Auditorium, Science Park E Ave, Science Park

Highlights of the SMArt programme include:
    (16th January, 2016 at the University of Hong Kong)

• Sugar connoisseurs, Vimi and Keith from Doux, will demonstrate and teach how to make sugar art, while Professor Aleksandra Djurišić from HKU will explain the underlying scientific principle;
• Professional photographers, Ms. Ceci Liu and Mr. Stanley Ng, from Studio de Dimension de Tofu will teach how to make DIY pin-hole cameras and develop films in a darkroom; Dr. Chi-wang Chan from HKU will discuss the scientific principle behind photography and the evolution of cameras.
• Participants will have hands-on activities in HKU laboratories to experience the strange behavior of ferrofluid and super-hydrophobic surface.
• Ceramics artists, Mr. Terence Lee and his assistants, from Gitone will instruct our participants to create their own ceramics, while Dr. Edmond Leung from HKU will elaborate on ceramics science.
  
  (17th January, 2016 at HKSTP)
• About 100 participants will use balloons to construct together a fractal pyramid as high as 7m; the mathematical concepts behind fractals will be explained by a lecturer from HKU.

For program rundown, please visit (link)
For more information about the event, please visit: www.scifac.hku.hk/smart/
For media enquiries, please contact Dr. Benny Ng, Project Director, HKU Faculty of Science, at tel: 5410 3822 or email ngbenny@hku.hk.

UMAG exhibitions
1. “Illustrious Illuminations: Christian Manuscripts from the High Gothic to the High Renaissance (1250-1500)” An exhibition of 40 exquisite selections of illuminated manuscripts and sculptures

Period: December 11, 2015 (Friday) to February 28, 2016 (Sunday)

The University Museum and Art Gallery (UMAG), in collaboration with the McCarthy Collection, displays for the first time in Hong Kong 41 exquisite selections of Gothic and Renaissance illuminated manuscripts and 7 sculptures.

Illuminated manuscript is a form of miniature painting. European manuscripts are typically Christian texts in which the image illustrates and further explains the word. Decorations in tempera paint, ink and gold on vellum (high-quality parchment) help to both clarify and beautify the text. Long treasured as visual presentations of the Christian Gospel, these miniature paintings give evidence of the talent and culture connected to the art of book illustration.

At a time when large parts of society remained illiterate, both text and image in rare books, such as Bibles and Books of Hours, presented an art form to which only a few community members had access. Books of Hours are Christian devotional books that were popular in the Middle Ages or Medieval Times (5th–14th centuries AD). Being the most common type of surviving medieval illuminated manuscript, they contained prayers appropriate for the various times/hours in the liturgical day. Today, in a flood of visual information, these exceptional documents highlight the important historic and cultural context from which they emerge.

English guided tours
18 December 2015 (Friday) 13:00 – 13:30
12 & 19 February 2016 (Friday) 13:30 – 14:00

Cantonese guided tours
19 December 2015, 9 January & 27 February 2016 (Saturday) 16:00 – 16:30

2. “Erich Lessing: The Pulse of Time—Capturing Social Change in Post-war Europe”

Period: November 27, 2015 (Friday) to February 14, 2016 (Sunday)

The University Museum and Art Gallery (UMAG) collaborates with the Austrian Consulate for Hong Kong and Macau as well as the Erich Lessing Archive to present the photography of celebrated Magnum photographer Erich Lessing. Lessing began working for the Associated Press in 1947, and joined Magnum Photos as one of its first members in 1951. He documented political events in post-war Europe, primarily in the former Communist countries.

The Pulse of Time includes nearly 100 documentary images from the pinnacle of Lessing’s career in the 1950s and 1960s, which illustrate the journalist’s ability to be working in the right place at the right time. Lessing reported on many of the most significant political event in post-war Europe and his, now historical, photographs record social and economic change in ever developing societies in both Eastern and Western Europe. Some of his works include Enthusiastic Austrians in the park at the Belvedere, which was photographed in 1955; Traffic check at the Brandenburg Gate, which was photograph in 1959 showed the division of Berlin, while a border guard at the center of the Brandenburg Gate controlled the city’s residents moving from one sector to another; and Vienna Opera Ball, was photographed in 1960. 

English guided tours:
December 17, 2015 & January 7, 2016 (Thursday) – 13:30 – 14:00
February 12, 2016 (Friday) – 13:00 – 13:30

Cantonese guided tours:
December 19, 2015 & January 9 & 23, 2016 (Saturday) – 16:30 – 17:00

UMAG Opening Hours:
09:30 – 18:00 (Monday to Saturday)
13:00 – 18:00 (Sunday)
Closed on University and Public Holidays
Venue: 1/F, T.T. Tsui Building, UMAG, 90 Bonham Road, Pokfulam
Tel/Email: (852) 2241 5500 (General Enquiry) / museum@hku.hk
Admission: Free
Website: www.umag.hku.hk/en/

Connect with UMAG on social media:
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/umag.hku
Twitter: http://twitter.com/UMAG_HKU
Weibo: http://www.weibo.com/5411839295/profile?topnav=1&wvr=6

Media enquiries:
UMAG Communication Officer Miss Elena Cheung, Tel: (852) 2241 5512, Email: elenac@hku.hk