For nine consecutive weekends, the people of Hong Kong have taken to the streets in anti-government protests that have rocked the international financial center once considered one of Asia’s safest cities. What began as peaceful opposition to a proposed law that would enable criminal suspects to be extradited from Hong Kong to mainland China has evolved into a sometimes violent campaign for democracy. Protesters have built barricades and armed themselves with umbrellas and lengths of bamboo, while police have charged at them with batons and pepper spray.

But away from the front lines, a quieter but equally important revolution is unfolding on the city’s walls, and on the internet. In this campaign, art and imagery are the weapons. You can see it on the “Lennon Walls” that have sprouted up across the city—where thousands of post-its and artworks let protesters express their vision of Hong Kong. 

Two drawings of human Lennon Walls, where protesters use post-its and artworks to express their vision of Hong Kong. Illustrations by Badiucao.

The battle for Hong Kong has been taking place not only in the city’s streets. The online world of information has been an equally active arena of conflict — so much so that Hong Kong’s digital activists refer to themselves as the “Keyboard Front Line.”