“What’s this? A road?” Ling says.

“No! It’s the MTR,” insist the teens, referring to Hong Kong’s public rail network. And they show him how the tape – representing a rail line – connects the homes.

Ling steps back as the teens put the finishing touches on their multicoloured village.

“I enjoy working with SEN kids – they think out of the box,” says Ling, referring to those with special educational needs. “They want to create different things. They are concerned about being individuals.”

This session at CCC Mongkok Church Kai Oi School, a school for students with special needs, was facilitated by Hass Lab, a collective of artists and cross-disciplinary producers dedicated to advocating art and artist thinking as a new way of understanding and valuing society.

“We want to achieve more inclusivity and celebrate the strengths of SEN kids and other vulnerable communities,” says Cherry Chan, who co-founded the initiative with visual artist Pak Sheung-chuen in June 2022.

Hass Lab grew out of Pak’s three-year project with the Boys’ and Girls’ Clubs Association of Hong Kong, called Arts Make SENse, which developed lesson plans for SEN kids.

It had been hoped that social workers might take on the programmes, but recognising the constraints – a shortage of social workers and limited resources – they decided to set up the collective to ensure the work continued.

“We have two goals: to have artistic thinking permeate in society, and to have some kind of true inclusivity in recognising the talent of SEN kids,” Chan says.

The collective is made up of six artists and producers, with another two joining soon.

Artist Yim Sui-fong, co-founder of the artist-run organisation Rooftop Institute, has been with Hass Lab from the start. She enjoys the directness and immediacy of working with SEN students.

“SEN kids are very observant. They can be very sensitive and go into details. In the normal classroom this is ignored because it’s more language-driven, and then it’s about the exams,” Yim says.

SEN students make up about 30 per cent of students in lower-band schools and fewer in elite schools, Chan says. Typically, in secondary schools, if one grade is divided into five classes, the SEN students will make up the two weaker classes, she adds.

Hass Lab brings its programme into schools – both special needs and conventional schools – with one artist as a facilitator lead for every 20 students.

As SEN students typically don’t learn through language, the focus is on the senses. A recent class led by artist Miki Ho used fresh and fallen leaves.

“The dry ones are crunchy, there’s a sound, and the fresh ones have no sound,” Yim says. “We let them explore the texture, let them touch and smell.”

Antony, whose 15-year-old son Manfred has joined several Hass Lab workshops, says the classes have increased his son’s confidence.

“Manfred didn’t have any talent in art, never showed any interest in it, but after the first workshop he did his best colouring-in ever. He realised he enjoys art now,” Antony says.

The village constructed of tape at CCC Mongkok Church Kai Oi School teaches children about objects in two dimensions and three dimensions, and how the objects relate to each other.

Hong Kong’s special needs schools are mostly well run and funded, but the issue for SEN students is when they leave the school system aged 18 or 19.

Hass Lab wants to support these young adults by pairing them with an artist and hopefully setting them on the path to being an artist.

“That’s a long path and will depend on whether they have the mental and emotional stability to work, but giving them the initial exposure and creating that awareness is a first step,” Chan says.

Eventually, she hopes Hass Lab might have the opportunity to link SEN artists with a commercial creative firm, in the same way as design studio La Casa de Carlota in Barcelona, Spain.

The studio recognises that bringing different brain types together can help create new ideas.

“We wanted to experience what happens when we take the creative process to the limit,” the studio’s website says.

Chan’s eyes light up at the suggestion Hass Lab might bring the Spanish studio’s model to Hong Kong.

“If I could get a big creative firm to work with us and bring in these individuals, say one day a week, that would be considered a huge success,” she says.

This represents an opportunity for a progressive Hong Kong design firm that wants to generate fresh ideas.

“Every society needs creativity. We hope with this artist thinking, using these methods, we are unleashing creativity, not only with the SEN kids, but with vulnerable communities,” Chan says.

“We can all use more creativity and more visual sensitivity and visual communication.”