The Hong Kong Ghost Signs project has invited members of the public to contribute to its collection through its new interactive online map.
The map, launched last month, was created by data scientist Mart van de Ven in collaboration with the founders of the Hong Kong Ghost Signs project, writer Billy Potts and photographer Ben Marans.
According to its Instagram page, “ghost signs” are “fading signage from times past, leaving a rare, tangible trace of the communities and businesses that have changed or disappeared amidst Hong Kong’s rapid development.”
Potts told HKFP on Friday that his fascination with ghost signs first started when he was around 13 years old.
He noticed a large fading sign on the side of a cold storage building in Aberdeen. “It’s just this massive, massive sign, right up the entire building. I could barely see it, it was just very faint [and] I could tell there were a few characters,” he said.
“I looked at it for a very, very long time and then realised that it was actually an ad for a cigarette brand.”
The Hong Kong Ghost Signs project was launched in May 2022, with Potts and Marans documenting over 300 ghost signs all over Hong Kong. Its official Instagram page has over 2,500 followers.
Potts said that ghost signs do not hold any status as historical artefacts and cannot be easily preserved, leaving photography as the best medium to keep a record.
He hopes that through the map, more people will be aware of ghost signs and take the initiative to record and preserve them through photography.
“Hong Kong is redeveloping at such a rapid pace, so, like, we’re bound to miss something, and you know, and it’s demolished and it’s gone forever,” he said.
Users can add their discoveries to the Hong Kong Ghost Signs collection by accessing the online map hkghostsigns.com on their mobile phones and clicking the plus sign icon in the bottom left corner.
Museum or gallery
When speaking to HKFP on Friday, van de Ven said this design choice was because “a mobile phone is something that people always have in their pockets,” and “if they want to contribute to the map, they can do it there and then.”
He described ghost signs as “an imprint on the city that was,” hoping that through the map, Hongkongers could reframe how they view the city and what it has to offer.
“I think Hong Kong has so many wonderful things to offer,” van de Ven said, but “it’s not always as visible or accessible or as known.”
Potts echoed a similar view. “I want to get people to start getting an understanding that actually, the city around them [is] basically like a museum or like a gallery.”
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As it is the first time the map is going public, Potts also hopes that people will try it out and provide feedback on how to improve the experience.
While the Hong Kong Ghost Signs collection is the first on the map, van de Ven hopes that more people will start their own collections or projects on the wider map. “I’m really excited to have a wide range of collections on the platform, but for the ghost signs, it’s particularly interesting cause these things are often very ephemeral,” he said.
“Being able to document them before they disappear is really… a group effort.”
