Case Studies/A Map of Our Own:Kwun Tong Culture and Histories

A Map of Our Own:Kwun Tong Culture and Histories is a multimedia web site for the discussion of urban renewal through the capturing and preserving of the vital essence of the Kwun Tong community.

It is important to promote diversity both in the views and practices of copyright to encourage creativity and sharing. — Anson Mak

Overview

Kwun Tong (a town in East Kowloon of Hong Kong) will be undergoing the largest urban renewal plan in Hong Kong started in 2009. A Map Of Our Own – Kwun Tong Culture and Histories does not just aim at tracing its 60 years of community history and documenting the urban landscape and its culture that only lives in its unique ways of spatial practices. We also hope to encourage people to do media creations of their own and to raise public attention to the changes in the town in the coming 12 years of time.

Briefly, this project is a participatory web-based interactive and locative archive on Kwun Tong culture. It supports multiple contributors and various types of media works (sound, still image and moving image). Visitors can interact with this archive in various ways including search on map/time-line/categories; sharing of media works in other web 2.0 platforms; audio-visual mix and rendering of itineraries for Kwun Tong walk.

The instigators believe that Hong Kong needs more projects with artistic, cultural and historical concerns to go with the advancement of technology. This site was launched in early 2009 and they plan to continue until the end of urban renewal plan in Kwun Tong Town Centre as earliest as in 2021.

License Usage

All six licences are available for contributors to release their works under. They can just select the appropriate licence tags during the upload process and they will be displayed side-by-side with the works.

BY 3.0 HK	0%
BY-NC 3.0 HK	1%
BY-NC-ND 3.0 HK	64%
BY-NC-SA 3.0 HK	12%
BY-ND 3.0 HK	12%
BY-SA 3.0 HK	11%

Though the above statistics is obtained, since the site is still relatively new, more feedback is being collected to understand the pros and cons of the licensing scheme.

Motivations

One of the instigators of the site, Anson Mak, took up an Asian Cultural Council fellowship in the USA between 2004-5. She encountered Creative Commons on the news and followed up by reading Lessig's writings. When the site was being designed, Anson was able to convince the group on the importance to promote diversity both in the views and practices of copyright to encourage creativity and sharing. All six licences are available for works hosted on the web site.