Simon Go

Simon Go, born in Hong Kong, graduated from the School of Design at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. A former photojournalist and editor, Simon stumbled on the streets over the years to document the whos and whats in the community. He spends his spare time collecting and studying folksy trinkets. Go published multiple books on Hong Kong culture, including Hong Kong Apothecary: A Visual History of Chinese Medicine Packaging (2001), winner at the Hong Kong Print Awards; Hong Kong Old Shops (2008); Memory Forever (2011); Old Objects of Hong Kong (2015), listed as one of Hong Kong´s 20 best books; and Hong Kong Old Shops (2017) Simon's photographic works were auctioned at Sotheby's and exhibited at Pingyao International Photography Festival, the United States, and Russia. His works are collected by the Hong Kong Cultural Museum as well as private curators.

Simon founded the non-profit organisation Hulu Culture in 2009 and serves as its project director, curating numerous exhibitions focused on local culture. In recent years he has been promoting indigenous handicrafts and securing their succession by inviting local artists and designers to work with master artisans in a variety of cultural creative activities.

The organization has received sponsorship from the Hong Kong Jockey Club. The Hong Kong Jockey Club Heritage x Arts x Design Walk Project, featuring different districts, has been organized since 2009. With workshops and community guided tours, the project showcases the history, culture and essence of the districts to ensure the inheritance of local culture and to inject new energy in the community. The project lasted for 10 years and its scaled spread all over 18 districts in Hong Kong. With the success of HAD project, The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charity Trust continue to fund a series of project, HAD Plus, emphasis on thematic topic related to Hong Kong culture. From 2020 to 2022, Simon curated exhibitions which focused on Hong Kong food culture, public housing estate and light industry respectively. Last year, Simon curated an exhibition in The Central Market, focused on Hong Kong toy industry, and this year will focus on family photos.

In recent years, he has organized various activities related to Intangible Cultural Heritage for Hong Kong government, to promote and educate the local history and culture. The project including Muse Fest HK 2018 - "Experiencing the Tales of the Old Hong Kong - Cheongsam & Nanyin Party", and being event partner and program mentor with Intangible Cultural Heritage Office - "The Little ICH Ambassadors Training Course". Also organized the education program for the special edition "Hong Kong Heritage" to promote the Intangible Cultural Heritage to public.

Since 2019, Simon is a curator for Yim Tin Tsai Arts Festival, the Festival organized by the Tourism Commission, is a three-year pilot scheme bringing to local and non-local visitors new travel experience integrating arts, religion, culture, heritage and green elements. As the curator of the Arts Festival, Simon and his team invited local artists and youngsters to co-create with the villagers to turn the Island into an open museum.

In the same year, Simon founded the non-profit association Hulu Culture Promotion Association in Macau and serves as its chairman. The association aimed at promoting the local culture of Macau and its Intangible Cultural Heritage through different format. Under the funding of Galaxy Entertainment Group Foundation, the association started the Intangible Cultural Heritage Scheme in 2020. Under the scheme, cultural specialty of Macau will be introduced through guided tours, workshops, performances, exhibitions and market etc., enhance the public to have a better understanding on Macau Intangible Cultural Heritage. Meanwhile, the association purpose is to discover more potential Macau Intangible Cultural Heritage items, emphasis on the importance of cultural preservation.

In academic aspect, Simon was a part time lecturer in Documentry Photography School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong and he was nominated the Outstanding PolyU Alumni Awards 2017.

Source: Hulu Culture