If that investment doesn't come "people will be consuming what comes from overseas, rather than what comes genuinely from inside the country," he warned.
However, one of Taiwan's best-known artists disagrees with Cunningham. Choreographer Lin Huai-min (
"Taking the performing arts group as an example, financing is a common problem faced by most of the performing arts groups in Taiwan," Lin said.
The Cloud Gate, which is going to celebrate its 30th anniversary this year, has struggled very hard to elevate itself to become one of the most renowned dance groups in the world, Lin said.
He noted that the Hong Kong government has much better subsidies for its various performing arts groups.
For example the Cloud Gate receives only 30 percent of its funding from the government. while similar dance groups such as Hong Kong Ballet, and HK Dance Company received, respectively, 46 percent and 96 percent of their funding from the public purse.
"If the government treats CI as its policy, it should invest more in cultural sectors. It is a very weird thing that among all the 68 publicly funded performing arts groups in Taiwan, the government budgets only NT$100 million for all of them -- much less than the amount of funds received by other overseas counterparts," Lin said.
Calling for the government to step-up investment in cultural sectors, Lin said it is because cultural industry are content-oriented that artists needs more back up from the government to encourage better creativity output.
"Without good content, branding and marketing for the products will be very difficult," he said.
"We need a strong base for the essence of arts and culture before we can jump onto the stage of industry, and it needs help from the government to nurture our cultural environment through education programs, tax exemptions or other economic incentives to encourage the public to join arts activities.
"After all, artists need to generate performances good enough to be able to talk about cooperation with enterprises," Lin said.
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