Mapping public dissent through Hong Kong’s vibrant 2019 Lennon walls

Analysing improvised protest spaces provides insights into political contexts and the ways publics mobilise.

For Dr Yao-Tai Li, documenting protest walls in 2019 Hong Kong was a matter of both self-preservation and enabling collective memory. These improvised spaces of dissent, known as Lennon walls, house image- and text-based materials posted by the public.

The first Lennon wall appeared in the Czech Republic after John Lennon’s murder in 1980. An unknown artist painted a mural of the English musician and activist in Prague’s Maltese Gardens.

More and more people expanded on it over time, protesting diverse local and global causes. It came to represent freedom of expression in the then-communist country and the subsequent walls it inspired.

“Lennon walls play a unique role in communicating social movements and mobilising publics. We’ve seen this in Beijing, Prague, Berlin, Hong Kong, Lebanon, Iraq, Taiwan, and many other places,” says Dr Li from UNSW’s School of Social Sciences.

“They’re quite different from marches, occupation, petitions or other forms of protest. The creators can leave the space and the space itself has its own identity. Even after it’s taken down, people can walk past and still remember it.”

They can be adapted across diverse local contexts and used to gain international media attention, he says.

“Their complex language of symbols and spatial practices offer insights into the relationship between activists, their claims and their government or institutional targets that are not evident in other protest performances.”

Dr Li examines contentious politics in Hong Kong through urban sociology, cultural politics, global networks, data activism and other perspectives. His research on Hong Kong protest walls was recognised at the 25^th Human Rights Press Awards, the 45th Golden Tripod Awards for Publication, and Google News’s Sigma Awards for Data Journalism.

This kind of political activism can be traced back as early as the French Revolution when the public pasted brochures and marked public spaces with forms of graffiti, the senior lecturer in sociology and social policy says.

Lennon walls began to emerge in Hong Kong in response to proposed amendments to the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance. The bill sought to allow the extradition of criminal suspects – or anyone deemed of questionable political loyalty – to any jurisdiction, including to mainland China.

More than two million people took to the streets to demonstrate against the bill and the subsequent National Security Law. It was the largest series of protests in Hong Kong history.

Contemporaneously, Lennon walls began to spring up across Hong Kong’s 18 districts: vibrant co-authored spaces plastered with satirical posters, chalk drawings, origami pigs, post-it notes, political flyers, graffiti and other ephemera in response to the political climate.

The walls enabled people without access to social media, such as older generations, to keep up to date with protest schedules and express political sentiment.

“They provided pen and paper to promote community participation, and it was anonymous. You could quickly drop a line to support the movement – ‘Let's go, Hong Kongers!’, ‘Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times!’ – and that decreased the political risk.”

Many felt the extradition bill and the National Security Law undermined the autonomy of Hong Kong’s judicial system and the “One country, two systems” constitutional principle upon which China’s governance of the region is grounded, Dr Li says. The principle allows Hong Kong to maintain separate economic, legal and social systems.

The National Security Law defined crimes of secession, subversion and collusion with foreign forces in broad terms.

“Students went on protests, boycotted class or brought the protests into the classrooms saying there was no use in studying … we need real-world impact.

“That kind of anxiety about Hong Kong’s future made not just students, but academics doubt the meaning of doing research, of working in the university – the Ivory Tower. That kind of anxiety meant you couldn’t just focus on your daily routine.”

Dr Li began documenting this viral protest sentiment on his commute to campus, inspired by the speed the walls were updated and removed. It was part coping mechanism, part desire to preserve these resources for researchers, activists and community organisers, he says.

“These Lennon walls appeared – not just near major metro stations, underpasses or bridges, but everywhere, even in restaurants. The protests integrated with everyday life, and they were updated every day.

“There were diversities of form – Lennon buses and Lennon people wearing post-it notes – integrating COVID-related discourse, for example, the government not providing enough masks, and [content from] movies and other cultural appropriations,” he says.

“They also posted on the floors, [so that people would step on] images of politicians’ faces ... All these symbolic gestures differentiated these Lennon walls from those of the past and gave them local nuance.”

Less than a year later, after the National Security Law passed, all the physical Lennon Walls would be gone. “They just painted all those walls in harmonious colours as if nothing had happened,” Dr Li says.

“For those who experienced the protests, they knew this wasn’t real, but for the younger generation … they may just receive the government rhetoric.”