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A transdisciplinary dialogue between art and economics 

30 Apr 2025

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An exhibition on campus, “Out of the Curve”, explored the connection between art and economics.

 

What would happen if art and economics collide? In an innovative learning initiative across disciplines, over 250 HKBU visual arts and business students found inspiration in artistic approaches to create artworks that commented on economic subjects.

An exhibition on campus, “Out of the Curve”, explored the connection between art and economics, showcasing the creative works of students from the School of Business as well as the Academy of Visual Arts (AVA) under the School of Creative Arts. Running from 10 to 15 April at the Jockey Club Campus of Creativity, the exhibition was co-presented by the two schools and the Cultural Literacy (LIVE) programme of the Office of Student Affairs. Nine students from AVA also co-curated the exhibition.

Visitors could experience the seven interactive installations created by students studying the course Experience Design, which communicated complex economic concepts and addressed social issues. The exhibition also showcased selected works by students from the Macroeconomics course, who used different mediums to create artworks that reflected on topics including happiness, community well-being, social connection, prosperity and environmental sustainability.

Before the exhibition, the business students took part in workshops to learn how to make use of artistic medium such as videography, song-writing, photography and drawing to introduce economic context into their work. The students also built connections with the community by interviewing with people from different walks of life who are impacted by the evolving economy.

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(From left) Visual arts students Yip Chak-ho, Hui Lok-hei and Tang Wai-shan explored the relationship between flowers and florists through the mixed media installation Perpetual. Seeing that bloomed flowers often have their prices reduced, the students created pocket potpourri to give the discounted flowers a second life and invited visitors to reflect upon the value of life.

 

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In the interactive installation One Story, One Longing, visual arts students Cheung Sum-in (left), Wong Cheuk-yan (centre) and Liu Cheuk-kei (right) associated red beans with a sense of longing. Visitors could write down their own stories on wooden plaques about a person they missed, which were then attached to the red beans by strings. “Longingness is something valuable and yet it cannot be measured in monetary terms. We hope that people can explore their emotion of longingness through experiencing our work,” the students said.

 

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The song You written by Gigi Wong, a business student, is about the low points in life, a metaphor for recessions of the business cycle. She said, “The business cycle has its ups and downs, just as we experience ups and downs in our daily lives. I think expressing our negative emotions will help us overcome adversity.” While she admitted that it was not easy for her to compose music for the first time as a business student, she found it novel and interesting to express economic concepts in an artistic way.