Community Building-Circle Painting
Center for Community Cultural Development - Mok Chiu Yu

1. What is circle painting?
It is a community art for community building through cultural activities. The cultural activities also promote solidarity, dialogue, communication, tolerance, and diversity in cultural development in the face of the onslaught of the homogenizing force of globalization. The process and participation are meant to vest members of the community to own the means of creative expression to voice/speak out. Community Cultural Development work is where the work of the artists and social workers blend.

It will be at its best if the artists command the skills and understanding commanded by the social workers and the liberatory pedagogies of the educationists or when the social workers can be proficient artist-facilitators who are truly about to provide space for participatory shared learning in the collective creative process. Many cultural workers have developed different methodologies which are used widely in community cultural development work including theatre of the oppressed (Augusto Boal), transformance (Dan Baron Cohen), basic integrated theatre arts workshop (Philippine Educational Theatre Association), community music (Peter Moser and others), symbiotic dance (developed from DanceAbility by Hong Kong cultural worker Yuenjie), playforward theatre (developed from playback and forum theatre by Hong Kong cultural worker Banky Yeung) Circle painting is one such methodology development by American Vietnamese Hiep Nguyen.

The keywords for Circle Painting are Connect, Create and Celebrate. Circle Painting brings people together to make art at social and community events. It provides an enlivening, engaging, and positive process for participants to make stunning large-scale paintings designed around the circle theme.

2. What would you expect to bring to HK through this project?
There exist many approaches to community arts, community building through cultural activities, or community cultural development. These terms mean different things to different people but for our organization, we organize and promote cultural activities (which include not just the arts like dance, music, theatre, visual art, etc. but also heritage preservation, landscaping, oral history, multimedia arts, the new media, etc.) that empower the underprivileged, in particular persons with disabilities, migrant workers, ethnic minorities, persons living in poverty.

Since our existence, we have tried to familiarize Hong Kong with the theory and practice of community cultural development in the artist/social work and educational communities and the society at large. We have introduced different community cultural development methodologies and approaches to Hong Kong - first by inviting various specialists/masters to workshop and develop programmes in Hong Kong to test out effective use of such methods and then to continue such activities with the view that the methods will eventually attain a local flavor and sustainability. It is the same as Circle Painting. We anticipate that it will be popularized and used creatively by the social worker/community organizers/community cultural development workers in the future.

3. How to make use of circle painting to outline/carve the domestic culture of HK community as well as promote the community culture of disadvantaged?
It will be up to people who have learnt and experienced it. Circle painting is a creative playful and innovative art project that promotes connection, harmony, and goodwill. It can be used to further the mission of the community organizations

4. What are the difficulties to bring community art to HK?
As I said earlier, there are different kinds of interpretation of community art. People will say that we have community art all along in Hong Kong and that is true. The majority of community art manifested in Hong Kong however may be regarded as consumerist. The Leisure and Cultural Services Department, the District Boards, or the art groups bring performances and works to a park, a square, a football pitch, etc. but what we would like to see is the members of the communities become active creators of dance, theatre, murals.

Of course, this is not easy - because firstly, the Hong Kong people have got too much used to be a passive consumer of TV, pop culture and we have a task of convincing them that there is a better, more life fulfilling alternative. Secondly, we need more artists/ social workers/ educators learning the facilitation skills that can steer away from the "follow me" approach to allow the gold mine of creativity embedded in everyone to be truly revealed and unleashed. We must find/train more artists who are willing to work in/with communities and who not have their minds geared to the applause or glamour they may find on the City Hall or Cultural Centre or the Hunghom Sports Stadium. We should persuade the social workers, teachers and their trainers that the arts are an additional means to "serve", to empower and so on.

5. Is there any plan to sustain it?
Yes. We will tell people how it works, that it is interactive, simple and colorful. We will tell people that Circle Painting in itself is a great joyous community event that can happen at a school or mass gatherings organized by social service groups. We will also tell them that it can also bring a great addition to any event, because it: • draws attendance. • attract people of all ages & abilities. • adapt well to any venue and group size. • underscores environment, educational, & social causes.

If people are interested, we will send our trained artists.

As Hiep Nguyen, the innovator of Circle Painting says, "creativity holds enormous power to impact changes, we all must use our creative power". CCD is determined to promote all round creativity through community cultural development work with the hope to impact changes.