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"Do arts need administration too?"
Original text: Delta Zhi July 2014
Text by: Tiny Snow
Translated by: Cindy Wong
“Why we always see similar faces in the exhibition halls? Do small art groups rely solely on their friends to stimulate the attendance of audiences? Do arts only take place in theatres or art galleries? In fact, why do people need arts? How to promote arts? Who needs arts? Art collectors? Financial elites? Doctors, lawyers or accountants? Labours, ordinary people? Or tourists?” Arts administrators always think about these questions for the sake of a better development of the arts organizations. While pursuing the answers, it is realized that there should be a well-developed arts scene before discussion.
Hong Kong Arts Administrators Association held an annual Cultural Leadership Summit themed as “Branding Hong Kong through the Arts?” on 4 and 5 June. There were over 40 local and overseas arts executives were invited to share and discuss different aspects of arts administration. One of the speakers, Prof. Daniel Chua, declared the definition of culture with a quote by T.S. Eliot, “Culture may be described simply as that which makes life worth living.”
Arts of Hong Kong?
With experience in organizing exhibitions for years, Grace Cheng observed a few years ago that it was always the same group of people who visit the visual arts exhibitions. If the public does not visit art galleries, the art pieces have to go into the public. With this idea, she then founded Community Artist Network (CAN), which collaborates with various artists and showcases their art works in public area. Certainly, she does not deny the value of art galleries, but public arts are essential as well. Chan Chu Hei, founder of HK People’s Fringe Festival shared his view that was inspired by Edinburgh Festival Fringe: Why there is no such festival in Hong Kong? And it led him to found HK People’s Fringe Festival which is stepping into its 3rd year. Growing out of nothing, many arts practitioners are attempting to let more people to know more about arts through different ways, such as new concepts or acquisition of overseas’ ideas.
When we talk about “Hong Kong arts”, doubtlessly it relates how people see Hong Kong. In tourists’ eyes, they may think of Cha Siu Bao (Chinese BBQ pork bun) or handbags of luxury brands. But for “Hong Kong arts”, what do they think about? In the Summit, there was a discussion about if a story is needed to present Hong Kong. On the cultural aspect of Hong Kong, an international city, Le French May, Taiwan Culture Festival etc were imported and has been growing vigorously in Hong Kong. Fredric Mao Chun-fai was being motivated by the imported arts and therefore has exported Hong Kong’s arts to Taiwan two years ago by holding Hong Kong Week. Furthermore, several years ago, the nine government-subvented arts organizations perform overseas every year to exchange. Tang Shu-wing hopes that Hong Kong will have a cultural atmosphere that makes local Taxi drivers know how to guide tourists to visit the cultural and artistic spots.
Learn from City of Culture 2013 and The Culture Yard
Shona McCarthy is the Chief Executive of the Culture Company, which was set up to lead Derry~Londonderry’s UK City of Culture 2013. Shona emphasized repetitively that cultural policy should be from the bottom up and should not focus on constructions. From her point of view, people as a story-teller and the story are most important. She thinks it is necessary for the public to build up a sense of belonging to the art festival because arts let people who they are. Everyone plays a role and involves in it, like Ichihara Art x Mix in Japan, which is very infectious.
Mikael Fock, the CEO and Creative Director of The Culture Yard (Denmark) shared his language system of arts. He asks all people who work with him to learn this system in order to make communication easier. He used The Culture Yard as an example to further explain the system. As an artistic garden, it can be viewed from three aspects, includes its sociability (recreational), educational feature (heritage, museum, architecture) and artistic characteristic (artwork). When it comes to the organization of an artistic project or performance, positioning can be done through four directions: traditional, trendy, elitist or experimental, it obviously can consist of one or more characteristics. For the division of audience, it can be regional, local, international and by country. For the rewards, apart from focusing on the number of the box office (explicit success), the spiritual influence to the audience’s should also be counted (implicit success). These divisions enable the producer and the production crew to have a clear vision about the direction and goal of their project. The promotion team can also understand thoroughly and cooperate with the production team.
Lucy Lu of Kwang Hwa Information and Culture Centre mentioned that three parties, regardless of the size, should be contributed in arts development. They are the government, the public and the charitable organizations. If the role of each party is understood by others, to devote in participation, to keep up creativity and positive thinking, it is still possible to accomplish an enormous plan like changing the arts environment in Hong Kong. When there are determined people to contribute for the next generation to grow in an artistic environment, it is optimistic that a flourished arts scene will be developed and sustained.
- Ms Shona McCarthy is Director of Shona McCarthy Consulting. She is the former CEO of Culture Company 2013, former Director of the British Council in Northern Ireland, former Chief Executive of Imagine Belfast 2008, former Chief Executive of Cinemagic, an International Film Festival, former Director of the Foyle Film Festival and former Head of Exhibition at the Northern Ireland Film Council.
UK City of Culture 2013: http://www.cityofculture2013.com/
- Mr Mikael Fock is a member of Royal Danish Arts Council, Denmark. He directed or produced videos, TV shows and exhibitions. He is the founder of the arts and technology group, Vision 4 and a board member of WOCO, Wonderful Copenhagen.
Summit Resources - The Academy
Video archives of The Academy is now available for public online viewing, please visit our website [link_to| http://www.hkaaa.org.hk/?a=doc&id=7039&tab=2|Summit Resources] for the details.