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At site of Hong Kong’s first artists’ village, art has come full circle – the story of Oil Street, North Point, and how it earned its name

  • Named for a fuel depot and once the site of a power station, cemetery depot and government warehouse, Oil Street was colonised by artists in the 1990s
  • Their artists’ village was short-lived, but art returned with the conversion of a former Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club clubhouse into community art centre Oi!

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Oi!, a community art centre in Oil Street, North Point that was formerly the clubhouse of the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club. Art has come full circle in the street, which was the site of Hong Kong’s first artists’ village. Photo: Christopher DeWolf

Che Hung-yuen is standing over a pot of simmering broth in a pitched-roof cafe on Oil Street. “I actually do not know how to cook,” he says. But the silver-haired storyteller has to learn if he wants to make his grandmother’s tomato soup.

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Che is planning to talk about his grandmother as he cooks for a special storytelling session hosted by Oi!, a government-run art space housed in a former clubhouse of the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club. “During the meal, people will have a tray, you know, the Japanese eating style, and on each tray there will be a napkin,” he says. “I have five different napkins with five different stories. People can read one of the stories during the meal.”

The session is one of many community art activities that take place at Oi!, which also hosts contemporary art and architecture exhibitions. It isn’t the first time this dead-end street in North Point has been the site of cultural exchange.

Che remembers when, 20 years ago, it was home to a thriving cluster of art studios and performance spaces. “There was a lot of energy,” he says. “That was the first artists’ village of its kind in Hong Kong. People were really hoping it could last. But that did not happen.”

The Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club in North Point in 1927.
The Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club in North Point in 1927.
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Oil Street is just a speck on the map, a two-lane road that runs for less than 300 metres (1,000 feet), but its legacy can be felt all over Hong Kong. The story begins in 1897, when the Dutch Oil Company – the precursor to Royal Dutch Shell – built a kerosene depot and pier on the shore at North Point, which at the time was a rural hinterland popular for its beaches.

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