On a typically rainy winter afternoon in Taipei, the granite pavement of Yungho's Bo-ai Street (博愛街) glistens as a couple of high school students walk quickly toward their school in the chilly wind. The silence on the street stands in sharp contrast to the buzz of commerce on the thoroughfares on nearby roads.
Renamed Bo-ai Art Street (博愛藝術街) from Bo-ai Street in 1999, the 500m avenue next to Zhungzheng Bridge once was home to booming art businesses and regular community events. At its peak in 2001, the street had up to 20 artist studios, galleries, workshops and handicraft outlets. Biweekly community events -- flea markets, concerts, seminars and portrait-sketching -- brought in visitors. For a while, it seemed that Bo-ai's art street would become the next big arts-and-crafts trade hub in the greater Taipei area.
Today, with only a handful of such shops left, it's hard to imagine the former excitement on the street. Only the expensive granite pavement and the two pigeon statues, installed around the inauguration of the art street, remained unchanged.
Residents here have different explanations for the street's decline. "There used to be government-organized events. They helped business a lot. With each weekend event, visitors to the performances or flea markets went to the artist studios along the street," said a volunteer worker in Yungho Art Education Foundation (
Yungho City government spent over NT$50 million on the granite pavement, community events and subsidies for artists to set up workshops here. But since 2002, the new administration stopped funding. The foundation has since organized events on a limited case-by-case basis. The number of events has decreased from more than 20, to four or five a year.
Last August and December, the foundation pooled volunteers to organize five concerts, mostly performances by local residents, which attracted up to 400 people, according to the foundation. At the same time, a dozen residents set up the Experimental Space Work Group ((ESWG)
"Without the government's funding and organizing, residents and artists lack the resources to stage events to bring in visitors," said a member of ESWG, who declined to reveal her name.
Wei Yan-hui (韋燕煥), owner of Wei Yan Ceramic Art Center, a private workshop, moved to the street full of expectations when it started. Although her intention was just to have a nice environment in which to create her works and teach ceramics, she cannot help thinking of moving out since the city government stopped giving subsidies.
"The reason I moved here was to create ceramics with my students, not to make a fortune selling my works. However, I can hardly make ends meet now that there's no regular community events, and therefore few customers." Wei estimates that she loses roughly NT$10,000 each month.
Tzao Mai (草莓), a teacher at Soho Spectre Art, a children's art institute on the street, said that there are many reasons for the decline of the art street. "The space on the street is too small to accommodate large-scale events to attract enough visitors. We have the Yang San-lang Art Museum (楊三郎美術館), but it seldom opens."
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