The habitation and cultural, creative activities of artists became the basis from which a flourishing San Francisco cityscape war born. Even more interestingly, the innovative climate of a city that has amassed the essence of counterculture movements and artistic energy has become an inspiration for Silicon Valley's abundant supply of outstanding technical talent.
Culture is not only good business. Aside from being the developmental drive for a new urban economy, it is also an expression of the national spirit and a force that defines its residents' identity. Singapore's globalized strategy has successfully allowed the politics of cultural identity to advance from being an expression of opposition to becoming an industry, whereas San Francisco's creative environment has forged a superb educational and cultural environment which people are more than willing to inhabit.
Groups such as the Cloud Gate Dance Theatre or the Tsai Jui-yueh Dance Research Institute (蔡瑞月舞蹈研究社), which are capable of artistically rendering the history of the human rights movement, as well as the ethnic and national identity of an immigrant society, should be considered national treasures that deserve to be preserved and encouraged. They should be appropriately installed in the urban network as a fount of creativity.
Producers of arts and culture are the genies of the nation's future development. It is through their magic that ugly industrial towns are made beautiful and transformed into a sustainable homeland. Only by thoroughly revising cultural policies can we make sense of the Promethean fire of Cloud Gate in the hope that it will help create Taiwan's next cultural hope.
Sabina Sun is a special lecturer at the National Taiwan University of Arts.
Translated by Angela Hong
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