Abstract from the letter to Housing, Planning Lands Bureau

          Members of our Society have since studied the brochures presented by the selected Developers on their respective proposed developments and based on the limited Information supplied, we have the following observations:

1. There is consensus among the three Developers that the cultural facilities should be managed by a non-profit making organization. But it is not clear from these brochures who has ownership and control over its contents. This issue is of paramount importance to the proposed Ink Museum's operation, as we must be able to convince prospective donors of art works to the Ink Museum that their prized objects will not be treated inappropriately or worse end up in the private pocket of the developer or creditors in case the museum goes bankrupt. We merely want to underline this point and do not wish to repeat our views here again as they have already been set out in our Position Paper submitted to you and other government departments in December 2003.

   From our understanding the H.K.S.A.R. Government's has residual interests in the Ink Museum (including its contents) in case it takes the Ink Museum back before the expiry or on the expiry of the 30 years' operating period. It is thus, in the interests of the Government that the Ink Museum and its contents be vested in a statutory body with the Government setting the legal and conceptual framework which guides the ongoing stewardship and affects the residual interests of the Government in the Ink Museum or its contents.

   Similar consideration could also be applied to other museums and cultural facilities in this cultural district.
   
   

2. Governance and Membership

   This takes us to the Governance structure of the proposed Ink Museum. We believe that:
   
   

   1. there should be a statutory body set up, one for each of the proposed museums, as each museum will have its own priorities, different modus operandi and specialized concerns arising from the particular art form under consideration.

      In two of the proposals suggested by the Developments for the West Kowloon Cultural District, they advocate the setting up of Museum Committees. One has to point out again that a committee is not a legal entity and cannot, therefore, accept donation from donors, let alone make commitments as to how the art works or cash donation be handled.
      
      

   2. The Ink Museum statutory board will lay down the policy and direction of the Ink Museum and monitor the performance of the Chief Executive Officer (C.E.O.) of the Museum who will be responsible for the administration and day to day operations of the Ink Museum.
      
      

   3. The statutory body should adhere to the policy, practice and direction as may from time to time be issued by the International Council of Museums (ICOM) in particular the ICOM code of Ethics and should as far as possible incorporate the good practices adopted by other world class museums on museum management and operation, including the formulating of policy of receiving and handling donations be they art works or cash from donors.
      
      

   4. In the West Kowloon Cultural District, the H.K.S.A.R. Government wants to try a different mode of museum operation by bringing in the business community. For it to work, the Board of Governors/Directors of the Ink Museum should be made up of at least the following groups:
      
      

      1. business community:
         members from the captains of industries who are willing to bring their insight and business skill into museum operation, coming up with innovative ideas and providing entrepreneurial vision to the museum management.
         
         

      2. people from or related to the arts community:
         such as experts, scholars or other people who are in contact with the arts community and local artists and are conversant with the issues and direction of the ink tradition and its evolution in a modern context. They could be people who have experience in museum administration or understand and respect the curatorial independence (see 5 below) and could readily seize opportunities proposed or offered by the business community. They will form the essential bridge between the arts community and the business community for this new mode of operation.
         
         

      3. philanthropists and collectors:
         they are the pillars of the museum who support the Ink Museum and are willing to finance or donate art works to the Ink Museum. Even though the winning Developer will provide the necessary funds to finance the operation of the Ink Museum, there can never be too much funding or donation if we want to have a world class museum here (see 6 below).
         
         

      4. Experts in other disciplines:
         throughout the life of the Ink Museum, different expertise is required for different phases of development; for example during the construction phase, professionals such as architects and engineers are welcome to advise on the design and construction of the museum and when the museum is in operation, we may need bankers or other financial advisors to monitor the accounting records and the trust fund to be set up and managed. Other expertise such as legal, public relations and marketing are essential to keep the museum working on a high level of professionalism.
         
         

      5. Developer's representative(s):
         it is natural that Developers' representative(s) should be in the Board to give continuity as well as coherent development to the whole cultural district.
         
         

      6. Government's representative(s):
         given the residual interests of the Government in the project, they should have representative(s) in the Board. The Government may even consider that the appointment of board members to the Ink Museum has to be endorsed by the Government.

      The categories of people mentioned above are not mutually exclusive as business leaders can be philanthropists and architects or engineers can be collectors.
      
      

   5. The statutory body should be established as soon as possible who will work closely with the Developer on the planning and construction of the Ink Museum. The first appointment of the members of the statutory board can be made by the Developer and endorsed by the Government for a specified duration, say two years and thereafter, the Board shall elect its own members in case of vacancy.

   
   
   

3. Chief Executive Ofticer (C.E.O.)

   As suggested in our Position Paper in December 2003, there shall be a C.E.O. who will run the Ink Museum to be assisted by a curatorial director and an administration director (the "management team"). The C.E.0, supported by the management team, will be responsible to the Board of Governors/Directors for the activities of the museum. The C.E.O. must have the requisite knowledge and vision to run a world class museum and should be recruited via a worldwide search.
   
   

4. Advisory Board

   To enable the Ink Museum Board to have a global network and to tap the expertise of people in the museum circle and learning institutions, there should be an Advisory Board or Committee set up to assist the Ink Museum's Board. The Ink Society is more than happy to contact its existing advisors who are eminent scholars and curators in this field to find out if they are interested to be advisors to the Ink Museum.
   
   

5. Independent curatorial policy

   It is absolutely essential that the curatorial policy of the Ink Museum should not be compromised in any way by this new mode of operation in Hong Kong. The Director with his or her curatorial staff should be free to design their own programmes and contents as dictated by the subject, save for financial and other logistical constraints.
   
   

6. Relationship with other museums and cultural facilities
   in the West Kowloon Cultural District

   There should be an organization where the Ink Museum representative(s) could meet with representatives of the other museums and cultural facilities as well as the Developer to work out the funding arrangement, and to co-ordinate the activities and management of the whole cultural district. This could take the form of a West Kowloon Cultural District statutory body which has the power to oversee the whole development and management of the entire cultural district.
   
   

7. Resources

   The H.K.S.A.R. Government vouches to have world class museums in the West Kowloon Cultural District. Is this a target or one of the selection criteria? Funding is essential to run a world class museum and funding is a selection criterion in this tender. But what is the level of funding that the Government has in mind to run a world class museum? Let us look at the financial commitments required to make a world class museum work. According to the Financial Statements of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York for 2002-2003, it spent US$251.4 million (or HK$1.96 billion) on its operating expenses of which US$129.6 millions (or HK$1.01 billion) are for curatorial activities, conservation and exhibitions. For the Museum of Modem Art, New York for the corresponding financial period, the total operating expenses amounted to US$92.3 million (or HK$722.2 million) of which US$7.15 million (or HK$55.77 million) was spent on exhibition alone. In Hong Kong, the total amount spent by all 13 museums was HK$523 million for the financial year 2001/02 and on exhibitions, a mere HK$50 million ! (see 4.16, 5.14 and 5.27 of "The Culture and Heritage Commission Consultation Paper 2002" ["the Paper"]).

   We are painfully aware that we cannot compare the costs and expenses of different museums in the world without looking at their respective cultural and socio-economic context. All we want to point out is that the HKSAR Government should negotiate with the successful developer for an Endowment Fund and a financing mode and level far more substantial than the existing funding arrangements with The Hong Kong Museum of Art, if the Government wants The Ink Museum to be a world class museum. To maintain the existing level of funding will not give Hong Kong world class museums.

   According to "An Academic Financial Study for The West Kowloon Cultural District" published by the Centre for Cultural Policy Research of The University of Hong Kong (10th May 2004) ("the Report"), there should be a Trust Fund of HK$11.4 billion left after paying for the construction of the cultural complex required, using the projected income derived from the commercial portion of West Kowloon Cultural District Project.

   The Report reckons that most of the cultural facilities should support themselves save for the museums. However, this surplus sum of HK$11.4 billion will only be sufficient to "acquire art exhibits of values compatible to those of the Hong Kong Art Museum" (which is about the same size of the proposed Ink Museum) "or to cover a franchise fee for exhibiting art works by rotation, if the largest Modem Art Museum in West Kowloon Cultural District were run by co-operating with a royalty museum. The remainder (sic) of The Trust Fund, in either case, could be used for generating income to cover potential operating deficits of the Arts and Cultural Portion". In short, there will not be sufficient funds to run all four museums, let alone world class museums.

   Since the publication of the Report, the property price of luxury premises has rocketed and the H.K.S.A.R. Government should be able to negotiate with the successful bidder funding far more generous than that for the existing Hong Kong Museum of Art to ensure that the Ink Museum can have the necessary finance to run as a world class museum.

   Even with this favorable market situation, it is doubtful if the Government can exact higher premium on land in the West Kowloon Cultural District from the successful bidder to cover the running cost of all four museums. The Government may have to look to other sources of funding either from its own pocket or the private sector or through aggressive commercial marketing to generate sufficient income to run world-class museums.

   Alternatively the H.K.S.A.R. Government may have to take a practical approach and decide which of the 4 museums has or have the potentials of becoming world class museum(s). We believe the Ink Museum has a good chance because Hong Kong collectors have an excellent collection of modern and contemporary works in the ink tradition and given the right conditions and incentives, these collectors can be persuaded to donate or loan their works to the Ink Museum. The Ink Society will do its part to facilitate this arrangement and through its network of advisors bring in art works from collectors in other parts of the world to make this museum a success.

   Further, contemporary art works in ink can still be acquired at an affordable price, relatively speaking. With a focused acquisition policy and strategy, an enviable collection can be built up by the Ink Museum over a short period of time.
   
   

8. Attitude

   We cannot expect that the cultural activities in Hong Kong will blossom solely as a result of the construction of a Bilbao-ish museum complex in Hong Kong. Importantly, we also need audience and arts patrons. Hong Kong does not lack resources and there is audience potential, The Paper states that Hong Kong parents annually spent a staggering 2 billion dollars on educating their children to play musical instruments, (see 3.18 of the Paper). 701% of Hong Kong families encourage their children to take part in cultural activities and there are students participating in various music festivals and drama competitions in their thousands each year. If only a fraction of these students attending various musical, painting and other cultural activity courses, pick up the habit of going to museums, theatres and concert halls, we should have sufficient audience for all our cultural activities.

   The West Kowloon cultural complex offers exciting opportunities - opportunities for Hong Kong to develop world class museums and venues if we can solve the independent governance and critical funding issues and initiate as soon as possible an aggressive cultural education policy to be implemented by the Government to transform the mind set of the parents and their children. If this happens, we will then be able to talk about Hong Kong as a world class city which thrives on innovation with creativity and cultural activities as their driving force.

   The Board of Directors of the Ink Society is committed to helping realize a new vision for culture in Hong Kong, and therefore we welcome your contact and look forward to assisting you in any way to achieve this goal.

Alice King Vice-chairman The Ink Society	David Pong Co-vice Chairman The Ink Society

C. C.     Dr. The Honourable Patrick Ho Chi-ping, JP. Secretary for Home Affairs.