Update | Hong Kong Fringe Club to have lease renewed on Old Dairy Farm Depot, its iconic base for 40 years; C Y Leung’s wife, Regina Leung, joins its board

Future of a pillar of the Hong Kong arts scene is assured with government approval to extend its lease of the South Block of the Old Dairy Farm Depot in Central
Two directors have joined Fringe Club board, including a former Hong Kong chief executive’s wife. Meanwhile, another art space under a cloud finds a new home

Performing arts in Hong Kong

Enid Tsui

Published: 5:16pm, 28 Dec 2023

Why you can trust SCMP

The year 2023 is ending on a high note for the Hong Kong Fringe Club after it received approval from the government to continue operating in its home of 40 years in the city’s Central district.

This comes with three months left in a make-or-break trial period for a new management that took over the arts venue after the departure of Fringe Club founder Benny Chia Chun-heng in August 2022.

On Thursday, the government announced that the incumbent tenant had seen off proposals from five rival bidders to run the South Block of the Old Dairy Farm Depot at 2 Lower Albert Road as an arts and culture venue.

There has been much drama over the future of the non-profit arts centre, set up by Chia in 1983 as the home for the Fringe Festival before turning it into a permanent exhibition and performance space.

Founder of the Hong Kong Fringe Club Benny Chia Chun-heng outside the club. He resigned in 2022 and sued the club for back pay. A new management team and board were installed. Photo: Jonathan Wong

It is one of Hong Kong’s best known cultural landmarks thanks to its pioneering role in the arts as well as its distinctive building – a 110-year-old brick and stucco former ice warehouse which came under the management of the government’s Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau in 2022.

For decades, Chia and long-time administrator Catherine Lau Kam-ling ran the club as a charity with support from the government’s Home Affairs Bureau, and the lease for the government-owned Grade 1-listed historic building was renewed regularly every five years.

The Fringe Club first occupied part of the Old Dairy Farm Block in 1983 to stage the Fringe Festival, and later made it a permanent performance and exhibition space. Photo: Yik Yeung-man

However, in spring 2022, the lease was renewed for just one year amid a row between the club’s management and board. Chia and Lau had struggled to run the club during the Covid-19 pandemic and they adopted an increasingly hands-off approach to programming – Chia had argued that “decentralised” management was a strategy.

The row erupted into the open in August 2022, when Chia and Lau stepped down and later sued Hong Kong Festival Fringe Limited, the company behind the club, for millions of dollars in unpaid salaries. On Thursday, Chia said a settlement was reached some months ago.

Since last year, a provisional team led by acting chairman Anson Chan Yiu-cheung, whose family have been a major donor to the Fringe Club, took over the running of the club under a temporary arrangement with the Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau, and held exhibitions, concerts as well as reinstating a popular weekly swing-dancing session, while its income continues to be supplemented by rent received from Chinese restaurant Nove on the second floor of the building.

“Farewell to the Fringe Club”, a party held at the club in August 2022 when its future appeared uncertain. Photo: Yik Yeung-man

The club was one of six bidders for a new three-year service agreement with the culture bureau that will take effect from April 2024. The agreement details 10 key performance indicators for the operator of the venue, as well as the now ubiquitous requirement in all government contracts for parties to “safeguard national security”.

Under the agreement, the operator does not pay rent to the government. A new board will be elected after the current operation term expires on March 31, 2024.

“According to the plan of the [Hong Kong Festival Fringe Limited], it will continue to operate the Fringe Club and introduce [a] series of new programmes featuring arts tech, cross-genre showcases and Chinese culture at the premises.

“The HKFFL also plans to maintain the premises as an iconic arts and culture landmark in Central and Hong Kong, so as to showcase our role as an East-meets-West centre for international cultural exchange,” the government said in announcing the lease renewal.

Conductor and composer Gustav Mak Ka-lok has joined the board of the Fringe Club. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

In its own statement about the lease renewal, the Fringe Club said Regina Leung Tong Ching-yee, the wife of former Hong Kong chief executive Leung Chun-ying, had joined its board.

Leung Chun-ying has been a vocal opponent of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club that occupies the North Block of the same building as the Fringe Club, and a leading voice among nationalists who warn against foreign interference in Hong Kong.

Also joining the Fringe Club board is Gustav Mak Ka-lok, founder of the Global Symphony Orchestra and the composer of an opera about Confucius that was first performed in 2022.

In related news, non-profit art space Current Plans announced on Christmas Eve that it was moving from Wong Chuk Street, Sham Shui Po, to the Wong Chuk Hang art district on Hong Kong Island.

Eunice Tsang, founder of Current Plans, feared her independent arts space in Sham Shui Po would have to close, but it will now move to Wong Chuk Hang. Photo: Current Plans

Founder Eunice Tsang had earlier said that “a friend” had offered her use of an industrial space on a temporary basis after the independent gallery was told by its landlord in July to move out of its space in Kowloon. That friend turns out to be Mimi Brown, owner of Spring Workshop, which presented regular art exhibitions, talks and other cultural events from 2012-17.

Tsang told the Post that she and Brown had been in discussion since 2022 about how the latter could support Current Plans, but their plans were derailed when Tsang became ill. “In October, when she knew about the eviction she offered to host us in Spring Workshop,” Tsang says.

Spring Workshop is a 14,500 sq ft space with a large terrace in the Remex Centre near the Wong Chuk Hang MTR station. During its five years as a public art space, it became a popular space with Hong Kong and international artists, curators, musicians and occasionally farmers and writers, who would gather there, put on exhibitions, collaborate or just socialise.