The Art of Creating Cultural Spaces

The Art of Creating Cultural Spaces

By Benny Chia, Founder of City Festival, Hong Kong

This year, the City Festival Symposium discussed The Art of Creating Cultural Spaces. Held on 29 Jan at the Hong Kong Fringe Club, it was part of City Festival – an annual, urban cultural festival covering a wide array of interests and activities.

Besides being a platform for the performing and visual arts, City Festival organizes cultural exchange projects, heritage and living history programmes, workshops and symposia on city themes.

When the organizers first decided to tackle this topic, the West Kowloon Cultural District (WKCD) was looming large on their radar. WKCD is the biggest and most ambitious cultural infrastructure project Hong Kong has ever undertaken.

Speaking at the symposium are cultural planner and chairman of major Melbourne-based arts organizations, Carrillo Gantner; arts manager, professor and author, Tseng Sun; German-Canadian business leader and WKCD Authority board member, Allan Zeman; and CEO of Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay and National Arts Council, Singapore, Benson Puah. Founder of City Festival and Hong Kong Fringe Club, Benny Chia, was the moderator.

Guest speakers at the City Festival Symposium 2010 (from left):Professor Tseng Sun, Allan Zeman, Carrillo Gantner and Benson Puah.

Speaking to the 100-strong audience, comprising mostly local arts practitioners, architects, lawyers and government officials, Gantner gave a thumbnail account on the culturalGuest speakers at the City Festival Symposium 2010 (from left):Professor Tseng Sun, Allan Zeman, Carrillo Gantner and Benson Puah.development in Melbourne over the past decades; and how the cultural investment of AUD 1.3 billion has changed the urban landscape of Melbourne city.

He went on to share his experience as former Melbourne City Councillor and President of Victoria Arts Centre Trust on how to negotiate the steep curves and sidestep the pitfalls in steering cultural facilities. In relation to the project at hand, Gantner believes it would transform not only WKCD but “the whole of Hong Kong‟s cultural life, its tourism, its wider economy and, most importantly, its sense of self.”

Following after Gantner was Professor Tseng, who used to head several major arts bodies in Hong Kong before going to China to teach arts management. In his presentation at the symposium, Professor Tseng pointed out that “the positioning and development strategies of WKCD must take note of its external environment.”

The sharing of his China/Hong Kong experiences, which compared the inherent strengths and weaknesses between different cultural infrastructures, came through with clarity and substantive observations.

He advised Hong Kong to “leverage on its most significant sustainable competitive advantage – freedom of expression and non-interference from officials” when competing with its arch rival – Shanghai.

Benny Chia as moderator of the Symposium.

Meanwhile, Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay exemplified how a cultural complex of national scale and dimension could be launched and put into orbit. CEO Benson Puah who led it to unprecedented success from the day it opened in 2002 drew parallels between Esplanade and WKCD.

He pointed out that WKCD “being an extremely large project, there is the danger of it being treated like a „mega-mall‟”. Cultural institutions, however, are different and distinct from commercial enterprises. Puah believes it would be better to view WKCD as a collection of distinct artistic „villages‟, for this is the case “where the sum of parts should be greater than the whole”.

Zeman followed on as the final speaker in the symposium. Among his many achievements, he is best known for transforming the street, Lan Kwai Fong, into a big tourist attraction as well as saving Hong Kong‟s Ocean Park from the brink of failure.

Zeman shared his experiences from the latter‟s development and demonstrated the way to propel a local theme park to international recognition.

The symposium garnered enthusiastic responses from both the speakers and the audience.

“I enjoyed hearing all the speakers and learning from their experiences in operating and planning cultural centres in different parts of the world. This certainly helped to formulate our vision for WKCD,” Zeman said.Benny Chia as moderator of the Symposium.

Agreeing with Zeman is Cathy Chu, secretary of WKCD Authority, who commented, "It's a very fruitful and useful session. Just too good to miss so I sent copies of the presentations to all my colleagues to read."