Hong Kong Youth Arts Foundation

In 1993 Lindsey McAlister founded the Hong Kong Youth Arts Festival for people aged 5–25 to engage in multidisciplinary arts, regardless of their cultural background, language or ability. Her intention was that she “didn't want anybody to have to pay for anything”,^[2] so needed to find external funding to cover all expenses. Initially, unable to find a sponsor as she had no track record in Hong Kong, she took out a personal overdraft to cover the costs of the first two-week festival. McAlister sent a copy of the festival brochure to everyone she had approached for sponsorship, including Po Chung, the then-head of DHL (Asia). He got in touch with her, asking who her sponsor was. Hearing that McAlister was funding the whole enterprise herself, Po Chung gave her a cheque to cover the first festival's costs, and also paid for the following festival too.^[3][4]

After Chung's donation, “word about the festival was spreading like wildfire” and other sponsors joined including Morgan Stanley, MTR Corporation, ABN Amro, Standard Chartered Hong Kong and Swire Properties.^[5] The first two-week festival took place in 1994.^[6]

HKYAF was located at the Hong Kong Arts Centre from 1995 until 2005 when it moved to its current location in Quarry Bay.^[7] With the move, their facilities grew to include on-site rehearsal and workshop spaces.^[8] In 2006 HKYAF was considered “the world's largest arts programme for young people”, at which point 94% of participants were from 800 local schools, with most projects conducted in Cantonese.^[9]

Each year HKYAF runs approximately 100 events for visual, performing and literary arts.^[24] Its two annual flagship events are a large-scale youth theatre production and Arts in the Park (formerly Arts in the Plaza), a two-day community arts event.

HKYAF has created many visual art events including:

• 
  Fame (2019)
• 
  BEA Beyond Environmental Arts Festival (2022)
• 
  Hashtag (2020)
• 
  Standard Chartered Arts in the Park
• 
  Draw HK (2019)
• 
  Standard Chartered Arts in the Park
• 
  Lee Gardens Street Art Festival
• 
  24.7.365 (2023)
• 
  StArt Up exhibition

Over the course of 30 years, HKYAF has worked with both local and internationally recognised artists, educators and specialists, including:

• Phil Ashcroft, Xenz and Mr Jago^[86] – street artists
• David Branson^[87] – theatre director
• Lola Clavel^[88] - fashion designer
• Violaine Corradi^[89] - composer
• Heidi Duckler^[90] – choreographer
• PatPatKate - illustrator
• Ralph Koltai^[91] – stage designer
• Maysum - visual artist, makeup artist
• Rory Mullarkey^[92] - playwright
• Marsha Roddy^[93] - designer
• Tracy Lee Stum^[94] – artist
• Uncle^[95] – mural artist
• Noble Wong – mural artist

The following are some of the organisations and businesses it has collaborated with:

• City Contemporary Dance Company (CCDC)
• Chung Ying Theatre Company
• International Schools Theatre Association (ISTA)^[96]
• Lantern Co.^[97] – UK prop designers
• National Youth Theatre of Great Britain
• Third Rail Projects - New York site-specific dance company

The following people attended HKYAF events as young people:

• Ansonbean (Anton Chan Ngai-san) - singer
• Cletus Chan - actor^[98]
• Natalie Hsu - actor^[99]
• Sadie Kaye – author, actor, filmmaker and TV presenter
• Matthew Leonhart - actor^[100]
• Jade Ma - actor^[101]
• Shannon Murphy - TV and film director
• Alistair So - actor^[102]
• Isabella Wei - dancer, actor^[103]