M+, Asia’s global museum of contemporary visual culture in the West Kowloon Cultural District (WestK) in Hong Kong, is delighted to unveil the new M+ Facade commission HK:PM (2025) by internationally acclaimed photographer Greg Girard. This thrilling work is a visual journey through Hong Kong’s cityscape. HK:PM will be shown on the M+ Facade every night from Friday, 4 July to Sunday, 28 September 2025.

HK:PM animates analogue photographs from Girard’s personal collection, shot between the 1970s and 1990s. They portray the bustling streets of Central, featuring students, fashionistas, and workers going about their daily lives. Girard also weaves in rare photographs of the now-demolished Kowloon Walled City. In other scenes, neon-lit streets, lively nightclubs, and magical celebrity moments come to life. There is a sense of perpetual motion, from airplanes soaring between dense skyscrapers near old Kai Tak Airport to the constant activity along Victoria Harbour.

Girard is renowned for capturing cities in transformation, and HK:PM returns his photographs to the site of their creation. In this new format, incidental situations become lasting images, and their sequence unfolds like a film. As a keen-eyed urban explorer, Girard considers how intimate moments and personal memories together shape a collective history, connecting the past with the present.

Suhanya Raffel, Museum Director, M+, says, ‘Greg Girard’s HK:PM embodies M+’s commitment to visual culture in Asia, illuminating the beauty and complexity of Hong Kong life. This commission not only celebrates the city’s distinctive visual identity but also encapsulates our dedication to presenting works that resonate with our audiences. We are proud to make visual culture accessible, dynamic, and vibrantly alive for everyone through the M+ Facade.’

Silke Schmickl, CHANEL Senior Curator, Head of Moving Image, M+, says, ‘We are thrilled to work with Greg Girard again following our collaboration on Greg Girard: Hong Kong Made Me in 2024. HK:PM is a striking body of photography that evokes cinematic drama within still images. It testifies to Hong Kong’s powerful and persistent capacity to inspire artists to capture the many stories that unfold within its dense urban fabric.’

Greg Girard says, ‘Creating HK:PM has been a journey of rediscovery. When I first took the bulk of these Hong Kong images as a young photographer in the 1970s, I never imagined them resonating with an audience, let alone shown to an entire city. This M+ Facade commission offers me the unique opportunity to revisit these photographs, transforming fragments of Hong Kong’s recent past into a cinematic sequence. HK:PM weaves together photographic artifacts, memories, and stories—both told and lived. I am honoured to see these images anew and alive, decades later, as part of the skyline of the city that inspired them.’

About the artist

Greg Girard (Canadian, born 1955) is a world-renowned photographer. He is celebrated for his archival records of life in the now-demolished Kowloon Walled City. Beginning his photography career in the 1970s, Girard spent over three decades exploring Asian metropolises, including Tokyo, Shanghai, and Hong Kong, capturing their social and physical transformations. His work is part of the collections of M+, the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and other public and private collections. His most notable works include Phantom Shanghai (2007), City of Darkness Revisited (2014), and HK:PM (2017).

The new M+ Facade commission, HK:PM, follows the 2024 programme Hong Kong Made Me. This extraordinary live-cinema event at M+ was a collaboration between Girard and the Beijing rock band Gong Gong Gong, which transformed Girard’s photography into an unforgettable cinematic sequence.

About the M+ Facade Commissions

The M+ Facade is an expansive, light-powered canvas featuring thousands of LEDs on the south face of the M+ building, making it one of the largest media screens in the world. Overlooking Victoria Harbour, the facade showcases a dynamic mix of works from the M+ Collections, moving image commissions, and the museum’s identity, offering moments of play, humour, poetry, intellectual reflection, and artistic contemplation to thousands of onlookers each evening. Throughout the year, M+ collaborates with leading artists from all over the world, commissioning works for the facade that champion new moving image practices and deepen the museum’s connection with a global audience. These commissions speak to M+’s role as a pioneering global museum of contemporary visual culture engaged with technology and digital media while contributing to the thriving arts scene in Hong Kong.

About M+

M+ is Asia’s global museum of contemporary visual culture. Located in Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District (WestK), it is dedicated to collecting, exhibiting, and interpreting visual art, design and architecture, moving image, and Hong Kong visual culture of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The landmark M+ building on Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbourfront was designed by the world-renowned architectural firm Herzog & de Meuron in partnership with TFP Farrells and Arup. It spans a total floor area of 65,000 square metres, featuring thirty-three galleries alongside a Learning Hub, Moving Image Centre, Research Centre, and Roof Garden, among other event and programming spaces. The M+ Facade is one of the largest LED screens in the world, showcasing commissioned artworks on the Hong Kong skyline every evening. The museum stewards a multidisciplinary permanent collection that includes objects from regions across Asia and beyond. A highlight is the M+ Sigg Collection, one of the world’s most extensive collections of Chinese contemporary art. Today, M+ is a nexus for researching and presenting contemporary visual culture, inspiring thought and curiosity.