(Hong Kong) Ten years after the success of its first visit, the giant yellow duck, a work by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman that has become a symbol of peace, returned to Hong Kong Bay on Friday, this time in the company of its twin brother.
“At a time of pandemics, political tensions, I think it’s the right time for luck to return”, as if “two ducks were twice as lucky”, said Florentijn Hofman in presenting his floating installation made up of two inflatable ducks 18 meters high.
Named “Double Ducks”, she will be stationed for two weeks in the port, opposite the Central financial district, in the heart of Hong Kong Bay.
It will be “twice as much fun, twice as much happiness”, underlined in a press release the 46-year-old artist, who ensures that his work “emphasizes friendship and the creation of links”.
During his first visit to Hong Kong in 2013, when he came solo, he caused a stir as far as Beijing, Internet users having at the time hijacked the famous photo of the “man in the tank” of Tiananmen Square in replacing tanks… with ducks.
The photo of this single man trying to stop a column of armored vehicles has become the symbol of the bloody repression of the pro-democracy demonstrations of June 4, 1989 in Beijing.
For more than 30 years, thousands of people have gathered each year in Victoria Park in central Hong Kong for a candlelight vigil in memory of the more than 1,000 peaceful protesters who were shot dead that day.
But since Beijing imposed a national security law on Hong Kong in 2020, authorities have put an end to such gatherings. June 3, eve of 34e anniversary of the Tiananmen events, the Hong Kong police preventively arrested several artists or performers in the lively district of Causeway Bay.
As this year’s anniversary approaches, authorities have repeatedly refused to confirm whether public commemoration of the event is illegal, saying only that “everyone should act according to the law”.