Gallery · Hong Kong
The Foo Tak Building is a vibrant "vertical art village" hidden in plain sight within an unassuming, 14-storey 1960s residential tenement block on Hennessy Road in Wan Chai. Its transformation began in 2003 when a private, forward-thinking landlady—wishing to support the local creative community—approached veteran independent artist and cultural advocate May Fung to manage her vacant units. Fung subsequently established the non-profit organization Art and Cultural Outreach (ACO) to officially oversee the spaces, a structure that became permanent in 2015 when the owner generously donated 21 of the building's 30 units directly to ACO. ACO's core mission is to release precious spatial resources to help develop grassroots art, culture, and a diverse civil society in a city notorious for skyrocketing rents. By offering heavily subsidized, low-rent studios, ACO functions as a crucial independent incubator for a tightly knit community of visual artists, researchers, calligraphers, independent publishers, and filmmakers. Today, the building serves as a unique cultural ecosystem, welcoming the public to explore its sticker-clad elevator, independent bookstores, experimental galleries, and localized workshops stacked floor by floor.