Resonance of Democracy — Facets • Perspectives • Voices

Resonance of Democracy — Facets • Perspectives • Voices — 3 of 8

Resonance of Democracy — Facets • Perspectives • Voices — 4 of 8

Resonance of Democracy — Facets • Perspectives • Voices — 5 of 8

Resonance of Democracy — Facets • Perspectives • Voices — 6 of 8

Resonance of Democracy — Facets • Perspectives • Voices — 7 of 8

Resonance of Democracy — Facets • Perspectives • Voices — 8 of 8

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Project: EXH-026
Location: Haus der Demokratie und Menschenrechte, Berlin, Germany
Date: 6–8 December 2024
Partners: Hongkonger in Deutschland e.V.

Resonanz der Demokratie — Facetten • Sichtweisen • Stimmen

Held at the Haus der Demokratie und Menschenrechte in Berlin from 6 to 8 December 2024, Resonance of Democracy marked a dual anniversary: ten years since the 2014 Umbrella Movement, and five years since the 2019 anti-extradition protests. The three-day programme — organised by Haus der Demokratie und Menschenrechte and Hongkonger in Deutschland e.V., with Lady Liberty HK as a cooperation partner — brought together protest art, statue unveilings, panel discussions, and hands-on workshops, and was free and open to the public.

The vernissage on Friday 6 December opened with the unveiling of three statues: the original head of the 4-metre Lady Liberty HK, a 0.5-metre Global Lady Liberty, and a 2-metre Lady Liberty from a Hong Kong university. The opening panel, Facets of Liberty, brought together Alric — founder of Lady Liberty HK and Executive Director of the Japan Hong Kong Democracy Alliance — alongside Jasper, one of the German students behind the Global Lady Liberty crowdfunding campaign, and Elsa, a researcher studying the anti-extradition movement in Europe.

Saturday 7 December featured a panel on Perspectives of Global Solidarity with Philip — initiator of the Global Lady Liberty and Vice-Chairman of Hongkonger in Deutschland e.V. — and Chris, a Berlin-based filmmaker and artist, and member of the Deutsch-Taiwanische Gesellschaft e.V.

Sunday 8 December opened with a screening of the documentary Ten Years of Umbrellas: The Testimony of a Centenarian, followed by the panel Voices of Courage and Resistance in Exile, featuring artist Kacey Wong, Professor Kin Man Chan, and activist Finn Lau — founder of Hong Kong Liberty and Stand with Hong Kong. A hands-on workshop later in the afternoon invited participants to make protest signs from the wooden crates that had carried the Lady Liberty statues from Hong Kong to Germany — objects that could not have been used for that purpose in Hong Kong itself.