In the movie Cape No. 7 (海角七號), a township mayor laments: “Wherever there is a mountain or an ocean, there is a build-operate-transfer [BOT] project. Anything can be turned into a BOT project, but the ocean is so beautiful. Why must they surround it with hotels?”
Some have said that no other governments love BOT projects more than Taiwanese government officials, for whom, it seems, the only thing that cannot be turned into BOT projects are their own jobs.
The BOT phenomenon could perhaps explain the government-designated Songshan Cultural and Creative Park: A few years ago the area suddenly became dominated by a series of brand new buildings with businesses completely unrelated to art and culture, some of which are to be allowed to remain in business for as long as 50 years.
The nation’s art and culture parks often end up looking like large supermarkets, with goods from almost every industry. Oftentimes people wonder in what way those products are creative or artistic — are the contractors free to interpret what “cultural industries” really means?
As the late architect and academic Han Pao-teh (漢寶德) once suggested, the definition of “cultural industries” should be more narrowly defined so that people know what they are talking about. A look at the nation’s art and culture parks shows that they are often full of hotels, restaurants and stores selling electronic goods. How are they related to the cultural industries?
Songshan Cultural and Creative Park was the nation’s first large-scale BOT project. Former Taipei Department of Culture commissioner Ni Chung-hwa (倪重華) has criticized contractor Fubon Group for running the place like a real-estate agency, rather than promoting art and culture.
Former Taipei City councilor Yang Shih-chiu (楊實秋) has also panned Fubon for trying to increase profits by renting spaces to businesses that are not cultural industries, saying that the Taipei City Government was also guilty of using cultural industries as an excuse for developing land and helping corporations make money.
Although businesses unrelated to art and culture are not allowed in the area, Songshan Cultural and Creative Park has been significantly expanded, with some structures turned into apartment buildings with luxury suites available to rent daily for NT$9,000 to NT$138,000. That is not only completely unhelpful to promoting art and culture, but also unethical.
In contrast, the Custard Factory in the art district of Birmingham, England, offers artists a weekly rental fee of ￡18 (US$23.85) per room, which is cheaper than the average rent in the city. One of the Custard Factory project’s key achievements was helping 1,000 artists find a studio where they can focus on their work. The Birmingham city council has also organized exhibitions, concerts and theater products to help promote artists, and all of the works featured are locally produced.
Meanwhile, many rooms in the buildings at Songshan Cultural and Creative Park that are being renovated into presidential suites could have been turned into affordable studios for local artists. No wonder former minister of culture Lung Ying-tai (龍應台) lamented that efforts to boost the cultural industries have truly failed.
While Songshan Cultural and Creative Park has presidential suites, there are no studios for artists. People have overlooked the fact that artists’ studios are the soul of an art community. Even Beijing’s 798 Art Zone has studios where local artworks are actually being sold, because sculptor and former China Central Academy of Fine Arts Sculpture Department dean Sui Jianguo (隋建國) decided to set up a studio in the area, influencing other artists to follow suit.
In Taiwan, things are the exact opposite. The things that count are left undone, while a lot of things that really should be left undone are being done.
Not only does Songshan Cultural and Creative Park not have studios, but artists and writers who were already there have been forced to leave. Playwright Neil Peng (馮光遠) and his comedy troupe were forced to leave their studio near the park, which they had rented for years, after the large number of people attracted to the park resulted in rent hikes in the area.
It was not until late last year, many years after its inauguration, that the park finally set up the Songyan Creative Hub, which includes studio spaces for artists, but most of them have been rented to companies.
The Ministry of Culture seems to have realized the problems with cultural and creative parks, as Minister of Culture Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君) is considering building a non-consumerist cultural park at Taipei’s Taiwan Air Force Innovation Base.
Anyone who has visited Beijing’s 798 Art Zone would know that the place is not about consumerism at all. It has no new buildings, only old warehouses and factories that house countless art studios, galleries and outdoor sculptures. The entire district, with its artistic atmosphere, is reminiscent of an art expo, and that is the core value of the area: to make people forget about their daily consumerist activities. That is why the 798 Art Zone has become one of the top three must-see places in Beijing, alongside the Forbidden City and the Great Wall.
The most important takeaway is that the government must stop giving resources designated for art and culture to other industries and focus on promoting real cultural industries.
Lu Ching-fu is a professor at Fu Jen Catholic University’s Department of Applied Arts.
Translated by Tu Yu-an
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