Performing Alterity : creative practice as postcolonial intervention in the tactics of cultural politics

Divergent forms of creative practice intervening with contemporary politics allow civic struggles to respond to the erosion of ordinary values and ways of life through acts of affectively engaging social performance. With a view on how civic subjects confront the status quo and perform their intervention, I discuss people’s tactical moves to dissent under semi-authoritarian governance and examine the ways in which they engage alterity in collective identity struggles. Drawing on recent Hong Kong experiences, I study creative practice as critical intervention in postcolonial cultural politics with reference to: the climber-protestors Hong Kong Spidie, who hung a huge banner off the Lion Rock Hill during the 2014 Umbrella Movement; democracy advocate Benny Tai’s Occupy Central action; filmmaker Johnnie To’s promotional video Dinner with Master To, made for a losing Chief Executive campaign; and journalist Connie Lo’s documentary Vanished Archives on the notorious pro-Cultural Revolution 1967 riots in Hong Kong.