Title:
Building Disappearance: Exquisite Corpse; From Brick to Click

Synopsis:
The film is premised on the questions: What happens to Architecture when the ephemeral program changes through time, leaving the building behind? Are old buildings only discarded trash resisting urban regeneration? Or are they artefacts of value sustaining the identity of a place? In the post-economic boom of Hong Kong — when progress has been focused on and measured by financial indices and capital-led developments — custodians struggled to find a cultural identity through the purview of built heritage. Many valued landmarks were eradicated, and the city was reshaped in just a matter of decades. The speed of change has triggered the urgent demands by grassroots groups to call for preserving the imminent and disappearing old buildings. Building on disappearance, Hong Kong reinvents itself every few years, constant rebuilt makes the city subtly unrecognizable. Architecture, because it is always assumed to be somewhere, is the first visual evidence of a city’s putative identity. In this regard, the old-town cityscape of Sham Shui Po exerts a particular fascination. This film explores the potentials of Exquisite Corpse and delves into ideas of heritage transformation through place identity, visual culture, and material memory.