Most of the protest art on Hong Kong’s streets has been erased by authorities, but one young protester is trying to remind the public that the 2019 pro-democracy movement is far from over.

K, as the artist in their early 20s asked to be called, took a sealed bag containing dozens of homemade stickers with protest artwork from a pocket. K has been leaving those stickers across the city since mid-2019, the artist told Apple Daily.

“When everyone has returned to their daily lives, or they are focused on fighting the pandemic, it is easy to forget,” K said. “I want to do something to remind myself that [the movement] is unfinished.”

Since first making protest art in 2019, K’s style has been influenced by Japanese anime. In June that year, K drew a young woman in a yellow raincoat, to show that Hongkongers would carry on the spirit of deceased protester Marco Leung. In November, K drew another character whose helmet was splattered with blood, to symbolize the protesters’ defiance in spite of their injuries.

Hong Kong’s protest artists mostly went underground after the implementation of the national security law last year, but K still carries a stack of stickers.

“Maybe it’s because I’m stubborn. I believe that my beliefs cannot be taken away, so I still haven’t lost,” K said.

K acknowledges that putting stickers on public walls has become more risky. Such an act might not be considered criminal damage, but it could attract a fine under the Public Health and Municipal Services Ordinance, barrister Albert Luk had said in a previous interview.

K would often place stickers next to protest art created by others as a show of solidarity. “If we don’t persist, there will be fewer and fewer of us, and that puts us in greater danger. This is why I want to carry on together with them.”

Leaving a sticker on a wall feels similar to shouting a slogan and waiting for a response, which K said was the source of their motivation. “I want to see whether anyone will reply with the next line, and to join in chanting the ‘slogan’,” K said.

“If you pay attention to your environment, it’s not hard to see that there are still comrades out there.”

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