Last week, we featured an artist with a bleak outlook of the future. But it seems like other young artists have a more optimistic view of the world they will grow up in.

Henderson Land launched the Realising Your Imagination competition last December, encouraging students and designers to imagine a future living space with the concept of sustainability.

The participants were divided into two groups: a student group for full-time students in Hong Kong, and an open group for contestants aged 18 and above.

At a ceremony held on May 31, 17 works received awards. The winning works will be on show at H Queen until June 14.

For the student group, the award went to A Letter from the Future, a short film made by three students from the Hong Kong Baptist School.

The film captures landmark locations in Hong Kong while the voiceover reads a letter from the future describing the changes in the landscape and community.

Luna Chui, the director of the short film, is a year-one student majoring in acting. She said it was her first time directing a short film.

"I learned about the competition from my friend, Louis," Chui said. "He convinced me this is a good opportunity for me to try directing."

Louis Dong, who was also on the team, said they wanted to use the letter as a romantic medium to express their love for the community.

During the month-long process of making the film, they used big data to select the most representative places in Hong Kong to film.

"We want to preserve the collective memories of the community," said Chui.

The film incorporates their personal memories. One clip was taken at a park in Yau Ma Tai, which Chui said was the place her grandparents used to go for afternoon tea.

An unforgettable memory during the shooting was when they were trying to get a view of Hong Kong from the top of Lion Rock.

"It was misty around the days we were planning to take the shot, so everyone was worried that the mist would ruin the scene," said Chui.

However, when they got to the top, all the mist miraculously disappeared, and they were able to shoot the most beautiful night view of Hong Kong.

Memory is the keyword for Generated Memories - ArtLane, the winning entry from the open group.

The artist, Gerry Li, chose ArtLane among the many properties of Henderson Land because he saw it as a place that blended art into the community.

He used various technologies, including light scanning, point cloud, and VR to create an immersive space for viewers.

To him, the ever-changing lights in the artwork represent our memories.

When we live in a city like Hong Kong, public spaces like ArtLane take up an important part of our memories.

"I want to recreate the feeling that memories get reconstructed constantly, and create a space people can enter and experience the flow of memories," said Li.

The exhibition has four immersive zones.

Zone 1, themed "Imagine Your Future", will showcase award-winning artworks using a range of digital technologies, weaving together a reimagined future.

Six of these artworks will be enhanced with augmented reality effects in Zone 2, allowing visitors to interact with them.

In Zone 3, visitors will be transported into a Web3 Creative Space, where they can create and collect personalized NFT souvenirs and place them in a special NFT wallet.

The final zone has a 270-degree immersive space, where visitors can join the creators on a journey of discovery.

See into the future