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From trash to art: Heritage performance and the heritagisation of neon signs in Hong Kong
Author(s)
Date Issued
2025
Publisher
Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN
9781035321070
9781035321087
Citation
In Nomeikaite, L., & Haldrup, M. (Eds). (2025). Arts, heritage and performative politics (pp. 151-163). Edward Elgar Publishing.
Type
Book Chapter
Abstract
Recently, the demolition of half-century-old iconic neon signs – a newfound form of art and heritage in Hong Kong – has attracted the attention of visual art and sociolinguistic scholars. Engaging with critical heritage studies and actor network theories, this chapter aims to better understand the heritagisation process through which human and non-human actor networks enable new forms of heritage performance that are individual and visual in nature. Employing participant observation and digital ethnography, it explores demolition cases of neon signs that brought together experts and non-experts. These actors engaged in knowledge production by documenting local history, advocating for the signs’ protection, constructing new heritage values and discourses and building post-colonial identity within the evolving sociopolitical context. The study concludes that heritage knowledge and authorised aesthetics are shaped and co-produced by both experts and ordinary citizens throughout the heritagisation process.
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