Urban hacking: the versatile forms of cultural resilience in Hong Kong

Abstract

The current understanding of urban resilience focuses on economic, environmental, and social responses. While the significance of art in enhancing social resistance has been acknowledged, the full potential of (un)authorised artistic and creative practices in initiating and strengthening the strategies of urban resilience is not yet recognised. Based on extensive fieldwork in 2012–2017, this paper delineates how urban hacking challenges the sociopolitical and spatio-aesthetic dynamics of the urban public space in Hong Kong as a form of cultural resilience that can contribute to a more holistic understanding of urban resilience. The diversity of urban hacking is indicated in an analysis of selected case studies of urban knitting and digital hacking that question the prevailing perceptions emphasising hacking as a method of illegal and arbitrary destruction. I posit that varied forms of urban hacking have a growing power to raise awareness of sociopolitical issues, enhance solidarity, and renegotiate space for new strategies and subjectivities aiming for more versatile co-authorship of the city.