Greer Muldowney is a fine art photographer and adjunct professor based in Boston, Massachusetts. She works in several formats, exploring ideas based upon – or working around -anything American, whether it looks that way or not. Her work has been exhibited in several galleries in the United States, Hong Kong and France.

She writes: ‘At 6,426 people per km2, Hong Kong boasts the most densely populated urban center in the world. The reality of sustainable practices, depletion of resources and a shifting global power paradigm pervade media involving China, and its Western syndicate territory, Hong Kong. By making imagery here, I ask viewers to contemplate these issues, but to also see these places as homes; not statistics.

‘As the living cities and infrastructure that address cultural standards and progressive technologies. These photographs do not propose a reality so different from the spin of contemporary media, but asks an audience on the other side of the world, the Western world, to reflect on whether these images provide a surrogate for wonderment or trepidation for a changing global climate and future’.

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Confetti System artists, Nicholas Andersen and Julie Ho, create installations and sets using materials such as tissue paper, cardboard and silk and have collaborated with some of the hippest brands and bands around, including Opening Ceremony and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I spied their decorations decking out the halls of Lane Crawford department store in Hong Kong this holiday season. A stylish and lighthearted change from tinsel.

I really like the illustrator Tania Willis’ work and now she’s teamed up with Mio Debnam to produce these kid’s guide books. Avoiding the trap of thinking parents know best, they’ve asked kids in the various locations what their favourite days out, experiences, food, and so on are. So far they’ve covered Bali, Sydney, Hong Kong, Phuket, London and New York. My lad gives it 5 stars after a recent trip to Bali.

For the last month or so I’ve had a solo show of my paintings up in Hong Kong. Titled Laughing with a Mouth Full of Blood, it was held at the beautifully restored Hong Kong Museum of Medical Sciences, in the bustling district of Sheung Wan, in the centre of the city. Hidden amongst the modern skyscrapers, this 100 year old red brick building is quite at odds with urban landscape.

My management organization Future Industries converted the historical museum into a contemporary art space, constructing a temporary ‘white cube’ gallery inside this unique building (once used as a bacteriological institute and a pathology lab).

After my recent multimedia installation projects, the exhibition was a return to oils and canvas and a continuation of my exploration of the human body in figurative paintings. Tilting into abstraction, mapping the complex intertwining of pain and pleasure aversion and desire, decay and growth. I’ve always been interested in a central investigation of duality, as hinted in the exhibition title, how everything beautiful is tragic as time drags us all in one direction.

This realisation liberates us as we are more conscious of the finite nature of existence, how little time we have to make the most of it. The work, obsessively and intimately exploring flesh and form, partners perfectly with this former scientific institution where flesh would have been explored in a very different way historically.

Maybe I’m particularly partial to this Accidental Chinese Hipster blog because I grew up in Hong Kong and it makes me nostalgic. But mostly I just think there is nothing in this world cooler than an unsuspecting trendsetter.

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Cyprien Chabert is a French artist who recently exhibited his latest show, Dogs Meow, in Hong Kong. In it, he invited viewers to a remote island that he has discovered. No mankind exists; it’s a paradise of animals. But there is a continuously baking dog on this island. So if you see the dog, please make it stop or meow! In this exhibition, Chabert questions the notion of landscape and wildlife.

X Factor, X-Box, the X Games … what’s next? How about some ‘X-treme’ Chinese cuisine. Intrigued? Then check out Bo Innovation, the Michelin-starred Hong Kong eatery that was founded by bad boy Alvin Leung (aka ‘the demon chef’).

Leung — a cigar-smoking, self-taught daredevil of a cook — fuses ‘centuries-old recipes with modern ingredients and cooking techniques’ to create his decadent morsels. Those modern techniques include the ultimate in foodie nerdiness — molecular gastronomy — and the results are deliciously bold and inventive. Try the rice-less cauliflower ‘risotto’ dressed up with black truffles, chives and duck jus, or the suckling pig with Sichuan apple and vanilla. Leung says he wants to be the ‘bad guy that everybody loves’. With Bo Innovation, he’s well on his way.

And we thought you had to be ingenius living in New York! Hong Kong architect Gary Chang has transformed his 344 square foot apartment into a fluid, shapeshifting environment through efficient use of sliding panels, walls, and mirrors.

One of my favourite artists of the moment is Tanya Bennett, an English woman with a background in fashion, who wants to be Scottish, lives in Hong Kong, and loves drawing naked women. It doesn’t get more eclectic! Her Doris collection, in particular, is superb.

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Providing high concept lifestyle products across the mediums of art, music, film, design, urban culture and high fashion, Cipher is drawing focus to Hong Kong’s culture through their project Big City, Bright Lights. The project involves a mix-tape featuring ten Hong Kong artists, producing ten tracks, lasting ten minutes. The intention is to exhibit ‘the contrast, the inspiration and the diversity that exists in this dynamic city’.

Hong Kong-based home appliance company Homeloo has some pretty sweet (and cheap) wooden digital LED clocks if you’re sick of buying stuff from Ikea.

Hong Kong-based designer Mike Mak (no relation) has a whimsically simple style, using visual puns (a moon ladder shaped like the Chinese character for ‘moon’) and sight gags (an Eyelock with googly eyes instead of hands). His recent Dear Van Gogh design is a mug with a silicon ear instead of a handle, meant to be an homage to the late painter and, according to Mak, the people in your life who listen to you.

Like chocolate, coffee, and wine, mozzarella now boasts bars where it’s creamy, delectable, slightly tangy, essence can be thoroughly indulged. And in Hong Kong, Classified Mozzarella Bar is the new “it” place to experiment with this soft, milky delight. The mozzarella served here is made fresh in Italy and then flown daily to Hong Kong, where Classified serves it up in such mouth-watering ways as wrapped in bacon and deep fried. If you’re looking for something simpler, try the plates of Buffalo mozzarella mixed with plump tomatoes and peppery arugula. However you have it, the mozzarella here promises to be soft, tender, and fresh — not to mention, decidedly expensive.

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Hong Kong-based illustrator Man-Tsun draws dark and beautiful painterly images that look like they are straight off a high-end Japanese animated film.

Mickey Jackson Mouse, an artwork by atelier Alessio Blanco for Walt Disney Company, was created a few weeks before Michael Jackson died and is based around the idea that ‘Mickey Mouse is an anthropomorphic mouse trying so hard to look like a man but can now resort to plastic surgery to achieve his main goal’. The artwork is currently on display in Hong Kong’s Times Square.

The fact that most people are only familiar with Screamin Jay Hawkins through his song I Put a Spell on You is really quite a shame. His entire catalog is worth listening to, not merely because they’re hilarious, at times unhinged, and a whole lot of fun. Check out his song Hong Kong to see what I mean. I played it for my parents, who are actually from Hong Kong, and they couldn’t stop laughing.

Emily Eldridge is originally from the United States, where she studied illustration at the Savannah College of Art and Design. Based in Hong Kong for the past three years, she takes inspiration from the oddities and unique aspects of Asian culture and history around her. She incorporates her personal experiences and world travels into her lighthearted, colourful and feminine pieces.  Her work has since been featured in Canada’s Applied Arts magazine, the book Girlology: A Girl’s Guide to Stuff that Matters and can be found on walls in both Hong Kong and Rome. She uses Hong Kong and her travels around the world as a major source of inspiration for her work, injecting elements of urban life into her paintings, sculptures, installations, murals, and graphic designs. With a highly anticipated new gallery show it’s worth regularly checking her blog for artist updates.

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I spent last weekend at the New York Film Festival watching director Wong Ka-Wai’s inspiring lecture and premier of Ashes Of Time Redux, the remastered, re-edited, re-scored 1994 Hong Kong classic. It was just drop-dead gorgeous and painfully beautiful. Words fail me. Wong Ka-Wai is just pure genius. It opens Friday in New York City. Don’t miss it.

WeMe Creative has an awesome new female tee available called All About Me, featuring ‘pattern wrap over’ printing.

As a special offer to our readers, the very cool Illiterate tee — designed by WeMe Creative, a group based in Hong Kong and Sydney — is now available just $30 through the Lost At E Minor online store.