School Tours at Asia Society Hong Kong Center
Schools and universities are a focus area for the Asia Society Hong Kong Center. In the past 5 years, over 70,000 people have participated in our programs and exhibitions, over 10 percent of them were students.
Thanks to The Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation’s full support, Asia Society Hong Kong Center has developed an exciting education program for primary and secondary school students to increase their knowledge on the inaugural exhibition, Transforming Minds: Buddhism in Art, and helps them appreciate the artworks in greater depth.
After weeks of dedicated marketing and outreaching efforts in the past 6 weeks, over 1000 students have registered for the educational program, one of them is the Hong Kong Buddhist Tai Hung College. On March 16, 2012, they made their second visit with a group of more than 40 secondary level students. All students received an activity package that explained the educational program and attended a heritage site tour and a gallery docent tour. Students were first escorted to the Miller Theatre where they enjoyed a National Geographic documentary- Light at the Edge of the World, The Science of Mind, giving them an in-depth experimental perspective about Buddhism practice and how transformational it can be to one’s spiritual mind. The students were then separated into guided groups where they learn more about the site and exhibition, such as the adaptive reuse of the Former Explosive Magazines, challenges in preserving the heritage site, appreciation of traditional and contemporary artworks, and the concept of how Buddhism art sustained throughout time and cultures.
Ms. Lok, teacher of Buddhism Teaching at Hong Kong Buddhist Tai Hung College said after the tour, “this educational program was “perfectly organized. The program itself is very attractive as it displays artworks of over 2000 years old and the 150 year-old Grade 1 heritage site. It is also very nice of Asia Society Hong Kong Center to subsidize transportation allowances for schools and enable students to partake this enriching experience with zero expense.” Throughout the site tour, one of the students was lost in the beauty of the roof-top garden. He expressed that the “open space in the roof-top garden gave him a feeling of tranquility.” While for most of the students, the exhibition artworks imprinted an everlasting memory. Most of them suggested that the mix of traditional and contemporary artworks is brilliant and it brought out the core concept of sustainability. One of the teachers concluded, the educational field trip was indeed “unique and transformational”.
Reported by Natalie Lai
Presenting Sponsor