This study deals with support policies for spaces for artwork creation in the field of visual arts. These supporting policies are now actively ongoing as part of a project to enhance conditions for artistic creation. Recently in Korea, efforts to prom...
This study deals with support policies for spaces for artwork creation in the field of visual arts. These supporting policies are now actively ongoing as part of a project to enhance conditions for artistic creation. Recently in Korea, efforts to promote arts at a national level are being made, focusing onawareness and expectation of its social roles and added value. In this respect, we holdin-depth discussions on the establishment of artist-in-residence studios to intensively nurture artists who are the subjects of cultural and artistic capital, providing studios as a creative environment.
As the condition of artistic creation and the basis of their survival, any artistic spaces for creation are of great significance. The physical elements of such spaces such as scale, ventilation, drainage, and lighting, as well associo-economical conditions like accessibility and rental fee have a decisive impact on the continuity of the artists' lives and activities, directly influencing their creation and health. Various approaches considering their lives and welfare based on their studio spaces are required to draw out support policies for and relevant business practices. Today's studios are diversified and the current conventional concept of 'studio' is expanded as contemporary art undergoes rapid changes. Each artist's individual studio becomes more organized and eventually develops into a collective artist village or an artist community. In this process a wide variety of encounters are made and artists contribute to cultural development, assuming the role of a linking bridge between regions, nations, and the world, beyond just their private meetings.
Korea's projects for supporting creative spaces began in the late 1990s, along with a project for exploiting idle facilities like closed school buildings, caused by a decrease in population and exodus from rural areas. As Korea's local governments were actively engaged in setting up artist-in-residence studios to make use of such abandoned school buildings, more professional management and establishment of such studios were demanded. At last, two national art studios were newly established in 2002 and 2004 respectively. Since then, each local autonomous entity actively pursued the establishment of more professional artist-in-residence studios. As a result, about 100 public and private creative spaces are now available in Korea.
Despite this expansion in quantity, Korea's management system and program for these creative spaces still remain less than professional, and the studios operate as mere physical spaces for artistic creation. The studios are also limited in meeting artists' actual demands. These problems arise mainly due to the following three causes: First, when a plan for establishment is incomplete, a problem arises. An insufficient plan for establishment becomes the immediate cause of difficulties in program management, facility use, harmony with the region, and space maintenance. Second, the running of short-term programs may cause a problem. Most of Korea's creative studios run shot-term artist-in-residence programs from three months to one year. Due to this short period, it is hard for artists to maintain the continuity of their creative activities. Third, there is a systematic problem. As no clauses on the spaces for creation are stipulated in the Culture and Arts Promotion Act, some relevant clauses are broadly interpreted and applied to each case. But it is surely necessary to legislate a law to activate and systematically back up spaces for creation. In Korea no consultative body to comprehensively manage such creative spaces have been organized. Due to this problem, Korea's creative spaces - scattered throughout the nation - cannot be efficiently managed.
It is necessary to determine the cause of such problems at the artists' level in order to overcome them, contribute realistically enhancing conditions for artistic creations, and dedicate effort to the long-term promotion of culture and arts. It is also indispensible to obtain actual evidence and fundamental materials to make up for shortcomings in management through the processes of thorough research and investigation.
For this purpose, this study conducted a survey of the present situation of the studios now in use, the conditions of a studio the artists would want to use, and appraisal of support policies for creative spaces. This poll, titled A Survey of Demands for Creative Spaces, was conducted for the former and current resident artists of a few national and public artist-in-resident studios, such as National Art Studio in Changdong and Goyang, Nanji Art Studio, Cheongju Art Studio, and Gwangju Art Studio. The survey indicates that those artists have very high demands for spacious, agreeable working conditions and spaces like workshops, facilitated with professional equipment to facilitate their creative activities. Research also concludes that decisive factors for their choice of spaces are the size and rent charged for the studios they will use.
These artists as a whole responded positively to support policies for creative spaces. Considering that any support for creative spaces at home and abroad are always insufficient, those studios' support programs help artists maintain their creative activities by offering spaces at free of charge and providing opportunities to form a network among artists and present their works to art shows. The problems pointed out, however, are their short-term programs and lack of professional facilities.
In addition, the study presents other types of studios such as rental studios, commonly shared studios, and artwork depositories that can be introduced on a policy basis, exploring the various models of creative spaces. This survey also shows that most of artists have high demands for such facilities.
Based on the synthesis of the theoretical studies on creative spaces, support policies for creative spaces, analyses of their present situations, and the results of A Survey of Demands for Creative Spaces, this study draws out a solution for exploring more enhanced support policies for creative spaces. This solution can be largely divided into the following three categories.
First, this study explores a wide variety of creative spaces such as rental studios, commonly shared studios, art work depositories, and supporting center for studios. Second, this study examines how to improve the management systems of creative studios now in operation. For this, the development of management programs, long-term resident periods, and facility improvement have to be ensured. Third, this study makes several proposals including the enactment of new relevant laws, the formation of a fund for supporting creative spaces, and offering tax benefits.
This study presents the directions Korea's support policies for creative spaces have to go, based on a study on the fundamental concept of creative spaces, a diagnosis of the present situations of creative spaces, and the practical materials obtained through a survey. This study is intended to contribute to the development of Korean culture and arts through the improvement of creative conditions and the conception and achievement of support policies for creative spaces.