In February, I attended my very first TEDx event here in Hong Kong, the annual TEDx Lingnan University event, with the 2017 theme being “Unbelievable”. The conference featured nine speakers who has done or developed (and are still working on!) “unbelievable” things in a variety of fields.

It was an inspiring weekend afternoon of being introduced to new ideas and incredible work from the speakers, so I wanted to share briefly about my favourite talks from the event! (Note: All the TEDx talks from the event will be available on Youtube soon, and I will update this post again when they’re up.)

Below I have included brief descriptions of these speakers and videos representing their work, which I found fascinating and wanted to share. I believe the speakers themselves are the best people to talk about their work, so I will link their TEDx talks once they’re available!

• Nicola Fan: Filmmaker

Nicola Fan is a multi-talented graphic designer, director and producer. The focus of her TEDx talk though, was on her Hong Kong based documentary She Objects, a project to highlight the (often negative) portrayal of women in the media and the consequences that result from it. Her project resonated with me and it explores an issue that is important and relevant and very present.

Here is the trailer for She Objects, and if you’re interested in seeing more, you can view a 10 minute version of the full documentary here.

• HK Urbex: urban explorers

HK Urbex are a group of explorers, who in their own words are “visual creators and storytellers”. I have briefly heard about the group before, so I was very excited to hear them speak about what they do, which is to explore and capture closed or abandoned sites in Hong Kong (and sometimes other cities too) in video and photographs. It’s pretty amazing! Check out one of their videos below and more on their Youtube channel.

• Elaine Ng: Founder of The Fabrick Lab

Elaine Ng is a multi-media artist, including elements such as textiles and electronics in her work. She focused her TEDx talk on her project collaborating with villagers who are weavers in Guizhou, China, to continue their traditional craft skills and selling their work to urban consumers. I really enjoyed hearing from Elaine about her journey in working with these women and seeing the results of their craft during her TEDx talk. To learn more about the project, the video below talks about it in more detail.

• Jessie Siu: Artist & Art Teacher

Jessie Siu is both an artist and art teacher at MBA Art Workshop, which she founded. She believes in making it possible for everyone to create art and have fun while doing it! As someone who absolutely has zero ability in creating anything art related, I was quite skeptical at first, but as Jessie shared various ideas and techniques she came up with to simplify the process of creating art for every beginner, I was really excited to hear it and I’m glad it allows for everyone to have a go at creating something. :) She shares much more in her TEDx talk, but for now, here’s a short video where she talks about how anyone can create their own pop art portrait. Fun stuff!

(Video is in Cantonese with Chinese subtitles.)

TEDx Lingnan University

Website – Facebook