In Memory of June 4 — Global Instagram AR Filter Campaign

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Project: CAM-001
Date: 4 June 2021

For thirty-two years, Hong Kongers gathered at Victoria Park on June 4 to hold candlelight in memory of those killed in the Tiananmen Massacre. In 2021, authorities blocked the vigil for the second consecutive year — citing COVID restrictions, while deploying riot police around the park's perimeter.

The question was how to commemorate when the physical space of commemoration had been closed.

Lady Liberty Hong Kong created an Instagram AR filter, "In Memory of June 4," that places the yellow Lady Liberty statue — a low-polygon rendering of the original sculpture, raised fist extended — into any environment the user chooses to photograph. The filter could be applied anywhere in the world: a living room, a street, a landmark, a candlelit table.

The concept drew on the principle that memory cannot be contained by a perimeter. Victoria Park had been locked, but the vigil could be displaced — into 13,600 photographs taken in homes, restaurants, and public squares across Amsterdam, Hamburg, Toronto (Hart House, University of Toronto), Taipei, Tokyo (Shinjuku), Berlin (Brandenburg Gate), London (Tower Bridge), and beyond.

Participants were invited to tag their photos with #8964 and #198964, and to challenge friends to capture the statue in increasingly unexpected locations. The phrase 維園 is Everywhere — "Victoria Park is Everywhere" — emerged from the submissions as the campaign's unofficial caption.

By 7 June, the filter had reached 120,000 views and generated 13,600 photos and videos. Given that Victoria Park had been sealed and Hong Kongers inside Hong Kong faced legal risk for public commemoration, the reach of the digital action — distributed across the diaspora — demonstrated that the desire to remember had not been suppressed. It had been redistributed.

The AR filter remains accessible at: https://www.instagram.com/ar/225021535817632/