When Hong Kong illustrator Liu Chi-leung walked past his old primary school in Western District a few years ago, he noticed familiar streetscapes disappearing under redevelopment.
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Liu, who goes by the pen name LeE-papa, sketched one of the buildings and shared it online.
“I put it on Facebook, and old classmates and neighbours recognised it. Some shared their memories, which gave me the motivation to keep going.”
That small act grew into Archimprint, his ongoing project to preserve Hong Kong’s urban memory through detailed drawings, and it has now earned him a place as a finalist in this year’s Spirit of Hong Kong Awards in the culture category.
Liu continued to create illustrations of endangered pawnshops, cafes and post-war buildings, or “tong lau”, turning them into a visual archive of Hong Kong’s built heritage.
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