On October 18, 2020—the final day before closure—journalists from Hong Kong Free Press systematically photographed the Hong Kong History Museum's permanent "Hong Kong Story" exhibition, creating a 220-image archive of the displays before a two-year renovation that many feared would sanitize the city's contested past.
The archival project, now publicly accessible under Creative Commons license, documented the exhibits in the order visitors would encounter them, preserving institutional memory at a moment when Hong Kong's political landscape was rapidly shifting under the National Security Law.
A race to preserve memory
Hundreds of Hong Kong residents rushed to visit the museum before closure, concerned that the renovated displays might "censor or exclude politically sensitive events such as the city's colonial history and its relationship with China," according to HKFP's reporting.
The timing was deliberate. The National Security Law had taken effect just months earlier in June 2020, fundamentally altering the framework within which Hong Kong's institutions operate. Public museums, as government-controlled entities, became potential sites of narrative revision.
HKFP journalists walked through the exhibition methodically, capturing not just the main displays but the detailed plaques, timelines, and contextual materials that explained how the museum framed the city's history—from British colonization through the handover to China and beyond.
What was archived
The 220 photographs cover the full span of the permanent exhibition: prehistoric Hong Kong, the Opium Wars, colonial administration, Japanese occupation during World War II, post-war development, and the 1997 handover. Each section carried interpretive materials that reflected the museum's pre-NSL approach to these contested historical periods.
The archive includes displays on the 1967 riots, democratic development, and Hong Kong's relationship with mainland China—subjects that have become increasingly sensitive. By releasing the images under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license, HKFP ensured researchers and the public could access this baseline record.
The erasure question
The museum reopened in 2022 after renovation, but comparisons between the archived materials and the new displays have revealed what changed—and what disappeared. Historical memory is not abstract in Hong Kong; it shapes how residents understand their city's distinct identity and its trajectory under "one country, two systems."
This is not the only example. Hong Kong's public institutions have undergone similar revisions: textbooks rewritten, library collections purged, university courses restructured. The History Museum archive serves as a reference point, a "before" photograph in the city's institutional transformation.
Documentation as resistance
The archival project represents a particular form of journalism under political pressure: preservation as an act of documentation. HKFP did not editorialize about what the museum should display. They simply recorded what was there, recognizing that in Hong Kong's changing environment, even that basic act of documentation carries significance.
The archive now exists independently of the physical museum, accessible to anyone examining how public memory is curated and revised in real time.
Watch what they do, not what they say. In East Asian diplomacy, the subtext is the text.
