A mirror of Hong Kong protest art twitter threads.
Sep 28, 2019
Yellow is the colour of the HK democracy mvmt, and has been for many yrs, representing desire for suffrage. Our art is steeped in yellow and all that it implies, a symbol for where we came from, and where we hope to go. 1/8
Yellow is our collective memory. The yellow umbrella was the symbol of HK’s fight for democracy 5ys ago; we failed then, but did not forget, and have returned stronger today. Yellow tells us, we’re just part of a bigger fight in history, and that we must keep the flame alive. 2/8
Yellow is HKer’s defiance. Our yellow hardhats protect our frontline (and journalists!) from the hail of tear gas canisters and projectiles from the HKPF. They say we can withstand anything you throw at us. Yellow tells us, we mean business. 3/8
Yellow is our freedom of expression. Yellow Post-Its adorn our dynamic, ever-growing, every-renewing Lennon walls, loud splashes of colour that defy to be tamed. Yellow tells us that as long as we can, as long as our city’s walls stands, we will make ourselves heard. 4/8
Yellow is our grief and remembrance. The yellow raincoat has become a symbol for all those we’ve lost along the way, ever since a raincoat-clad HKer fell to his death at the start of the mvmt. Yellow tells us, we have to honour the dead, and win for the living. 5/8
We are yellow, and so HKers were livid when the HKPF described a man they were filmed assaulting as ‘a yellow object’. In the authorities’ eyes, we aren’t even human. It’s particularly bad when you consider who’s calling the HKer “yellow object” in a crisp English accent. 6/8
For the diaspora & HKers who’ve lived abroad, a familiar pang of pain - we’re reduced to our ethnicity, an ethnicity that’s often elided with political, national and cultural identities that don’t entirely describe how HKers feel abt themselves. 7/8
We are ‘yellow’ and we dream of yellow, but we’re constantly being told that one is incompatible with the other. This cannot be. And that’s why we fight, so that the Goddess of Democracy, wrapped in yellow and with yellow umbrella in hard, can make landfall on this country. 8/8