Can we implant an artist community? A reflection on government-led cultural districts in Korea

JCIT-01518; No of Pages 8 Cities xxx (2015) xxx–xxx

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Can we implant an artist community? A reflection on government-led cultural districts in Korea Se Hoon Park Korea Research Institute for Human Settlements, Republic of Korea

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history: Received 7 January 2015 Received in revised form 30 August 2015 Accepted 5 September 2015 Available online xxxx Keywords: Cultural district Cultural policy Artist community Urban regeneration South Korea

a b s t r a c t This paper aims to broaden knowledge on policy governance of cultural districts, particularly those utilizing artist communities for urban revitalization. With the rise of the cultural economy in post-industrial cities in South Korea, cultural strategies have become key components in almost every urban regeneration project. The tactic of encouraging groups of community artists to work and live in distressed neighborhoods has been regarded as a low-budget and easy-to-implement tool for urban revitalization. Over the past few years, however, these strategies have failed to meet expectations and have often resulted in conflicts between artists and the government. To understand the factors behind the strategies' positive and negative consequences, this paper examines three projects with different degrees of government intervention: the Totatoga project in Busan City, the Daein Art Market project in Gwangju City, and the Changdong Art Village project in Changwon City. The analysis focuses on the mode of government intervention in the relationships among the government, artists, intermediary agencies, and local citizens. By putting the mode of government intervention in the context of social relations of related players in the cultural districts, this paper tries to understand how similar policy schemes created different consequences. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction As in many other countries across the globe, culture-led urban regeneration has become a buzzword in urban policy circles in South Korea (hereafter referred to as Korea). In Korea, which had gone through an unbridled pace of modernization throughout its developmental era from the 1960s to the 1990s, the term urban redevelopment has often indicated physical developments, forced relocations, and juicy capital gain. Entering into the new millennium, however, a new term, urban regeneration, began to replace urban redevelopment in both the academic literature and in policy documents, signaling a move to embrace the humanized aspects of urban life, such as identity, culture, and participation. Accelerated post-industrialization and sluggish real estate markets have combined to propel this shift further (Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, 2014). Reflecting harsh economic conditions and a renewed sense of culture, strategies to mobilize artists have emerged as alternative development tools for city governments. Artists are increasingly seen as agents who can bring people and capital back to city centers troubled by population loss and physical deterioration (Markusen & Gadwa, 2010; Hall & Robertson, 2001). In a situation where large-scale development projects are not feasible, the establishment of cultural activities by artists has become a popular option for ailing cities. Incheon Metropolitan

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City, for example, renovated abandoned warehouses into fancy art studios to attract artists and cultural activities to its distressed central districts. On the other hand, Busan Metropolitan City introduced an artist residency program using vacant offices in once-bustling commercial areas of the city. These strategies are not just artist-supporting programs, but also urban regeneration projects intended to revitalize the city centers. These types of cultural strategies have become the norm for almost every city government that seriously pursues urban regeneration (Park et al., 2011). Amid high expectations, however, the outcomes of these strategies have not been impressive so far. Although city governments have intended to create revitalized cultural districts, the policies have often ended up as short-term artist residency projects, or at worst, generated conflicts among participants. Given the burgeoning practices of making cultural districts in city governments in Korea, this paper aims to show how different modes of government interventions and how different social relation among actors generate different consequences. To understand the factors behind the strategies' positive and negative consequences, this paper examines three projects with different degrees of government intervention: the Totatoga project in Busan City, the Daein Art Market project in Gwangju City, and the Changdong Art Village project in Changwon City. The analysis focuses on the mode of government intervention in the relationships among the government, artists, intermediary agencies, and local citizens. By putting the mode of government intervention in the context of the social relations of related players in the cultural districts, this paper tries to understand how

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Please cite this article as: Park, S.H., Can we implant an artist community? A reflection on government-led cultural districts in Korea, Cities (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2015.09.001

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similar policy schemes with different governance structures create different consequences. 2. Planning cultural districts for urban regeneration A cultural district is generally defined as “the geographical area which contains the highest concentration of cultural and entertainment facilities in a city or town,” (Wynne, 1992) or “demarcated, named mixed-use precincts anchored by cultural facilities” (Brooks & Kushner, 2001).1 The classic examples of a cultural district are Montmartre in Paris and SoHo in New York, where independent artists seeking low-cost working spaces agglomerated and led a process of neighborhood transformation into high-end art galleries surrounded by luxury residential lofts (Vivant, 2010; Zukin, 1982). The types of cultural districts vary depending on their major activities, such as the consumption or production functions of culture and the degree of government intervention, whether formal or informal (Hitters & Richards, 2002; Chapple, Jackson, & Martin, 2011). Among the various types of cultural districts, the study will deal with artists' agglomeration and the art production function rather than commercialized entertainment zones or cultural industry districts. The previous literature has demonstrated that cultural districts can bring economic and social benefits, such as boosting retail businesses, job creation, social cohesion, re-imaging of the city, and cultural promotion (Bailey, Miles, & Stark, 2004; Kunzmann, 2004; Miles & Paddison, 2005; Department for Culture, Media, and Sport, 2004; Evans, 2005). For instance, Hall and Robertson, after reviewing previous practices of “public art in urban regeneration,” identified several positive impacts on neighborhoods, such as developing a sense of community, addressing community needs, and tackling social exclusion (Hall & Robertson, 2001). In a similar way, Stern and Seifert demonstrated that there is correlation between cultural districts and social inclusion (poverty alleviation) by analyzing cultural clusters in Minnesota and Philadelphia in the United States (Stern & Seifert, 2007). Cultural districts as artists' agglomerations are increasingly common in European and American cities, as culture has gained currency as a means for urban regeneration in distressed cities. In East Asia as well, cultural districts, whether they are natural or planned, have become important policy objects in major cities (Kong, 2013; Kim, 2011; Sasajima, 2013; Wang, 2009; Zhong, 2011). Despite the myriad experiences of cultural district planning across the world, the conditions under which cultural districts can grow successfully and sustainably remain uncertain. As cultural clusters, like other creative activities in the city, are place sensitive and non-transferable from one place to another (Lazzeretti, 2008; Montgomery, 2003), many attempts at fostering cultural districts have often failed to generate tangible benefits or have been supplanted by market-led, tourist-oriented property redevelopment. A number of studies have paid attention to the role of government in planning cultural districts. One prominent argument in the previous research is that natural and organic cultural districts are more sustainable and beneficial to local communities than formal, government-initiated cultural districts (Moss, 2002; Porter & Barber, 2007; Stern & Seifert, 2005). Because cultural actors, such as artists, activists, and cultural planners, play a pivotal role in cultural districts and because they are mostly very sensitive to bureaucratic control, the role of government seems ambiguous. In this light, the contrasting cases of Manchester's Northern Quarter and Sheffield's Creative Industries Quarter (CIQ) are illustrative. Manchester's Northern Quarter emerged organically based on factors such as cheap rent and a history of active music development in the city, rather than policy measures of the city government. The area is widely seen as a success and continues to enhance Manchester's image as a music city. In contrast, Sheffield's CIQ was the result of 1 Researchers in previous studies have used different terms for cultural district, such as cultural cluster/quarter and art district/cluster. In this paper, I use cultural district, but the terms can be used interchangeably.

deliberate efforts from the Sheffield City Council to boost the urban economy. The council provided key infrastructure and facilities and marketed the CIQ to creative companies that wanted to set up businesses. Twenty years after its launching, however, the CIQ has failed to produce a significant music or film niche in Sheffield. Key projects funded by the public have faltered, and many companies are still relying on government subsidies (Brown, O'Connor, & Cohen, 2000; Moss, 2002). Although natural cultural districts generally produce more positive outcomes than government-planned ones, several studies have also stressed the role of government for nurturing or protecting cultural activities in districts. One prominent justification of government intervention is that cultural actors and activities are vulnerable to rent hikes and property development (Newman & Smith, 2000; Zukin & Braslow, 2011). It is widely accepted approach for city governments to intervene in the market and protect cultural actors, including artists, through zoning regulations, subsidy programs, and facility provision. It would also be difficult to imagine natural cultural districts totally free of government intervention under the current economic and social environment. In a situation where artists and art-related activities typically rely heavily on government financial and administrative support in direct and indirect ways, the concept of purely natural cultural districts is hardly feasible. In fact, many cultural districts known for their spontaneous features, such as Temple Bar in Dublin, are often the product of long-term, indirect intervention from various public authorities (McCarthy, 1998). In reality, Noonan (2013) demonstrated that cities with cultural districts, regardless of whether they were natural or not, grew faster than cities without cultural districts in the United States. Based on the previous research, this study tries to further develop a discourse on effective governance in planning cultural districts, and cultural strategies in general, in the context of policy delivery practices in Korea. Research focuses are placed on the following three points: (1) social–political relations among actors, (2) the meaning of culture represented by the projects, and (3) changes in the mode of government interventions toward local issues, particularly under the “developmentalist” tradition in Korea and broadly in East Asia. First, this study tries to locate the discourse on planning cultural districts in the frame of social–political relations among players in cultural districts, such as the national government, local urban bureaucrats, artists, merchants, and citizens. The political aspects of culture-led urban regenerations have become a frequent focus of academic discussions in recent years (Grodach & Silver, 2012; Lin & Hsing, 2009; Shin & Stevens, 2013). However, not enough attention has been paid to how different actors with different interests actually collaborate and/or come into conflict with each other in the development of cultural districts, and how these relations produce different results. Here, I focus on the contesting agendas, interests, and intentions of each player involved in making cultural districts. Second, I will focus on how culture was interpreted and represented by each project, often as a compromise involving the different strategies of actors in developing cultural districts. Culture-led urban regeneration inherently raises the issue of “whose culture?” (Miles, 2005; Shin & Stevens, 2013). Urban bureaucrats, artists, and local merchants usually have different understandings of culture, which make it hard for them to come together for common goals. Thus, it is critical to understand how different concepts are contested and compromised and whose culture, or what culture, is represented in making cultural districts. Third, this study tries to widen our knowledge on the changing modes of government intervention—and its limitations—in terms of local issues in South Korea, where the developmental state tradition still looms large in the policy delivery system at the central and local government levels. So far, while a number of studies have been based on the experiences in Western cities, only a handful of researchers have touched upon cultural district planning in East Asian cities (for example, see Lin & Hsing, 2009; Ren & Sun, 2011; Wang, 2009; Zhong, 2011). With a strong state and a weak civil society throughout the

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developmental era, Korea's policy implementation has been carried out in a typically top-down manner. As urban regeneration and community development initiatives have come to the forefront of urban policies, however, the traditional mode of government intervention has been challenged and transformed, with more active participation from local civil actors. In this regard, this paper tries to discern the diverse experiments in the modes of government intervention in engaging local matters, particularly in cultural district planning in Korea. 3. Methodology This study examines three cases of cultural districts: the Changdong Art Village project in Changwon City, the Daein Art Market project in Gwangju City, and the Totatoga project in Busan City. These three projects were initiated by city governments, and all were implemented with an aim of promoting urban regeneration in the given districts in recent years (2009–2012). They are selected for the study because they provide good comparative examples; they have similar schemes of utilizing artists but distinctively different modes of government intervention. The data utilized in this study were obtained from both first-hand and second-hand resources. The first-hand resources were mainly derived from in-depth interviews and surveys, conducted several times from 2011 to 2014. Interviews were conducted with 5–10 people, including government officials, artists, activists, and merchants, in each district. In addition, I carried out questionnaire surveys targeting artists in the Daein Art Market project and the Totatoga project. However, those survey results are used only indirectly in this study. Policy documents and leaflets published by city governments and artist associations also provided essential information for the study. For secondary resources, I referred to newspaper articles, policy reports, and previous research. Because these cases are relatively new, there were not many publications on the projects themselves. Instead, research and reports on national and city level policies provide situational information for understanding the external factors that influence cultural district planning in the three cases. This study explored the following questions during the field observations and face-to-face interviews: (1) Who are the main actors in initiating, implementing, and developing the projects and how the relations among actors are structured? (2) To what extent and how is each city government involved in planning and operating the projects, and how do the different government interventions create different consequences? (3) What was the meaning of culture represented by the projects as a result of compromise and conflict among the participating actors? (4) What are the internal and external forces, even though these are not directly linked to players, generating differences in the modes of government intervention?

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One of the issues that new planning strategies need to address is that of distressed central districts in major cities. Metropolitan cities in Korea have played a critical role in shoring up the nation's dramatic economic expansion, accommodating a growing labor force for the nation's industrialization during the high-growth period. However, the central areas of these cities are now troubled by population loss and industrial hollowing out (Park et al., 2012). These cities have experienced massive suburban expansion beyond their administrative boundaries via largescale residential development in suburban areas and an ensuing relocation of populations and businesses. As a result, city centers have been left with obsolete infrastructure and marginalized businesses, which in turn have eroded the identities of the areas with dense historical assets and memories. Excluding Seoul and surrounding areas powered by its increasing importance as the global gateway of the country, most large cities in Korea, such as Busan, Daegu, Gwangju, and Changwon, are facing similar difficulties (see Fig. 1). Since the early 2000s, the national and local governments have attempted to take on the wave of dynamism known as the cultural economy. Cultural strategies, including planning cultural districts, were added to the list of pet projects in major cities that had once been preoccupied with attracting manufacturing industries and infrastructure developments. Busan and Gwangju, the centers of the southeast and southwest regions of the peninsula, respectively, are now experiencing this policy shift. Armed with the inspiring success of the Busan International Film Festival (BIFF), which was launched in 1996, Busan has adopted the film and related industries as key future development engines (Park, 2015). Similarly, based on the success of Gwangju Biennale, an art festival that began in 1995, Gwangju city now aims at becoming a “Hub City of Asian Culture,” with the financial and institutional support of the national government (Shin & Stevens, 2013). Together with these mega-scale cultural strategies, small-scale cultural district planning became increasingly popular as national and local governments policy options. As conventional planning practices pertinent to real property development are not economically feasible due to the sluggish real estate market since 2007, city governments in Korea are increasingly turning to community revitalization approaches by locating artists and cultural activities. Under this new approach, artists are mobilized in various ways: they are funded to work and live in specific troubled districts or invited to cultural festivals aimed at urban revitalization. Some city governments appoint artists as community builders who engage in community activities by using their talents to educate people and improve the street environment. Others provide artists with historic building spaces or vacant offices as their work studios, with the aim of attracting visitors to the city centers. City governments tend to think of these cultural strategies as low-budget and easy-to-control tools for urban regeneration and thus see them as nothing-to-lose policy options (Park et al., 2011). Surely, these new policies reflect the rise of the cultural economy in Korean cities. Since the 1990s, spurred by growth in the cultural and tourism industries, citizens have paid increasing attention to an area's attractiveness as a key value of consumption. With the “commercialization of culture,” the cultural districts in Seoul have flourished as major

4. Cultural economy and urban regeneration policies in Korea With a strong developmental state legacy, urban planning in Korea has played a crucial role in supporting the nation's economic development. The tactics and regulations of urban and regional planning have largely been arranged to provide a better infrastructure for economic development, such as roads, railways, seaports, and airports. However, with post-industrialization and the rise of the cultural economy in Korea in the 1990s, the role of urban planning has started to change. The conventional role of planning has gradually waned, and new planning strategies have emerged to meet diversified urban economic and social environments (Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, 2014; Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2012).

Fig. 1. Population losses in the central areas of the five large cities in Korea (1980–2010) Source: Statistics Korea (www.kostat.go.kr).

Please cite this article as: Park, S.H., Can we implant an artist community? A reflection on government-led cultural districts in Korea, Cities (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2015.09.001

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tourist destinations. For instance, Insadong, the antique shop district developed during the colonial period, has turned into a souvenir shop district for mostly foreign visitors. The Hongdae area, once a place for avant-garde artists, has been transformed into an iconic commercial zone filled with clubs, restaurants, and fashion shops. Daehakro was once renowned for art galleries and small-scale theaters, but the number of these businesses has recently decreased due to the rising cost of rent (Cho, 2012; Kang, 1998; Kim, 2011). Because of this situation—in which there were not many vibrant cultural districts in provincial cities, with relatively weak market demand for art and artrelated activities—city governments soon established policy targets to build bustling cultural districts such as the ones in Seoul. 5. Implanting artist communities in ailing neighborhoods: three cases of government-led cultural districts 5.1. The Changdong Art Village project in Changwon The Changdong Art Village is one of the urban regeneration projects in Changdong, Changwon City, in South Kyeongsang Province. The Changdong area was a bustling commercial hub of Masan City (the city's name before it was annexed into the city of Changwon in 2010) until the 1980s, as the city flourished with expanding manufacturing industries. However, since the 1990s, the area has failed to attract customers and visitors due to the suburban relocations of administrative functions and businesses and manufacturing industries in the city. The declining Changdong area was considered a symbol of urban decline in the nation and soon emerged as a concern of both the national and the city government. To understand the Changdong Art Village project, it should be noted that it was launched in tandem with the national government's urban regeneration policy toward the area. Since 2006, the Ministry of Land, Transport, and Maritime Affairs (MLTM) has conducted a large-scale research project on developing alternative regeneration tools in a bid to replace conventional redevelopment practices focused on physical developments. As part of this effort, the ministry selected the Changdong area as a “test bed” for the application of alternative regeneration schemes in 2011 and decided to inject public funds into the project (Korea Urban Renaissance Center, 2014). Amid high public attention nationwide, the Changwon City launched the Changdong Art Village project in 2011. The project aimed at bringing commercial vitality back to the area by using artists and their cultural activities as catalysts. Instead of clearing the rundown buildings in the area, the city government preserved and partially renovated the existing urban structures for the benefit of cultural actors. In early 2011, the city government appointed a cultural agency as the operating agency for the project and began to provide public funds of around 3 million USD for three years. The area was divided into three conceptualized zones: a street containing historical remnants of Masan, a street of artists' studios where art classes were offered to citizens, and a street containing the art of the late Munsin (a renowned sculptor from the city). The management body selected galleries, used bookshops, and artists from diverse backgrounds for the project, providing each with one of 50 spaces scattered around the area and a two-year lease agreement (The Changdong Art Village homepage, www.changdongart.com. Accessed on 10 Jun. 2015) (Fig. 2). Even though the city government had introduced the concept of the “art village” for urban regeneration, its implementation process adhered to the previous top-down practices. In the original plan, the project was supposed to be administered by a commissioned management body and an organization of project artists, and the city government was set to play only a supporting role, especially in areas related to infrastructure improvement, such as street pavement, facade renovation, and signboard design. However, the partnership between the two players was soon shattered, and the city government started to exercise more control over artists. In both the relationship between the government

Fig. 2. A scene from The Changdong Art Village Source: The Changdong Art Village homepage (www.changdongart.com).

and artists and the relationship between the government and merchants in the areas, the government had the definitive upper hand. It provided the funds, designed the roads and building facades, and regulated artists' activities. For the city government, the project was very important because it was introduced as a part of a “test bed” of national urban regeneration strategies with high attention and with a huge city government fund. It is significant for both the national government and the city government to secure tangible evidence to prove that the governmentinitiated project was successful. In particular, the Urban Regeneration Division of the city government, the department that had long dealt with physical redevelopment projects, had no experience in cooperating with artists.2 Preoccupied with securing instant and tangible results, the division tried to intervene in artists' daily lives and behaviors in ways that the government officials thought were beneficial to the achievement of the project goal of urban regeneration. For instance, the government tried to control artists' “office hours” to enhance the image of an art district where people can look at the artists in their shops. The government also wanted to control the art studios' signboard designs, disregarding artists' individual tastes, to give the district a fancy and standardized aesthetic. Most artists were attracted to the district on an individual basis. Many of them had emotional attachments toward the district, but what they wanted most were affordable work spaces and a stable work environment rather than revitalization of the district. For local merchants, the prominent interest was placed on their own businesses rather than on promoting culture and reimaging the area. As visitor numbers increased in the district with the government injection of revenues, merchants were divided into those who earned profits from the project and those who did not. In this light, the project was interpreted differently by the actors: as a tool for pursuing the public goal of urban regeneration for urban bureaucrats, as an opportunity to secure affordable working spaces for artists, and as an instrument to spur other business opportunities for local merchants. With no clear leadership to coordinate the different interests and bring cooperation, the project soon faltered. Shortly after the launching of the project, conflicts between the government and artists began to emerge. With its lack of trust on the artists, the city government tried to set up another steering committee

2 In national-local government relations in Korea, individual divisions in local governments are designed to respond to policies of particular ministries in the national government. As the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport initiated the test bed project, the Urban Regeneration Division of the city, not the Cultural Division, is responsible for the Changdong Art Village project. With a lack of sufficient horizontal cooperation within the city government, officials in the Urban Regeneration Division tend to understand the project as one of physical renovation strategies.

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to replace the commissioned management body and to gain full control of the project. Faced with resistance from a group of artists, the government discontinued the contract with the commissioned agency just one year after the beginning of the project. The project is currently faltering without leadership, and the government is looking for a new agency to operate the project (Hwang, 2013).3 At the end of 2012, the project won a prize from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport as a model of culture-led urban regeneration in Korea (Park, 2012). As the city government has face-lifted the physical appearance of the area and as artists have opened shops, the numbers of visitors and tourists have increased. However, behind the scenes, the government and artists have not been able to work together, and the local society, including merchants, has remained largely sidelined. In the Changdong project, the city government has dominated other actors in designing, implementing, and operating the project. Artists, cultural planners, and other key players in the project were mostly fragmented and not embedded in the local society. The concept of culture was largely instrumental here. In the planning document, at least, culture meant the way of life and spirit long embedded in the area and the city, as the project promoted the unique character of the area and celebrated Munsin, a local artist as a symbol of the local culture. However, culture was—in the implementing stage and as represented by urban bureaucrats—nothing more than a tool for urban regeneration. On the other hand, the artists had valued the local way of life as a source for artistic inspiration, but they are largely individualized, with no significant impact on the bureaucratic representation of culture in the project. 5.2. Daein Art Market in Gwangju The Daein Market is a traditional marketplace that developed as people gathered around vacant spaces near the Kwangju Railway Station shortly after the Korean War broke out in 1950. With an increasing population flowing in from the railway station and the bus terminal, the market flourished until the 1980s. However, triggered by urban development in suburban areas and the relocation of the station and the terminal in the early 1990s, the area started to lose its population and customers. This decline was further propelled by the structural transformation of retail markets, with large-scale outlets stepping into the city (Daein Art Market Project Nuetinamusup, 2011). A group of artists began occupying some of the vacant shops in the market when the artists funded by the Gwangju city government launched the market revitalization project as a side event of the Gwangju Biennale in 2008. After financial aid for the project was discontinued, several artists remained in the market. And as more artists looking for cheap work studios gravitated to the area, an artist network flourished. Currently, the market contains more than 50 art studios, along with merchant shops that sell daily necessities and food. Gwangju City has a particular presence in urban cultural policies in Korea because the national government has been driving the cultural policy in the city with a special law and a large amount of national government funds since the city was designated a “Hub City of Asian Culture” in 2004. The project was given approximately 5 billion USD with the aim of balanced national development4 through enhancing the cultural capacities of Gwangju under the theme of “Asian culture.” (Shin and Stevens, 2013). The Daein Art Market project was introduced jointly by the Gwangju city 3 The city government has had trouble in finding an appropriate management agency of the project for more than eight months, after it discontinued the contract with the previous management agency. Eventually, the city government decided to run the project by itself as of late 2014 and started to inject public funds again into the district (Lee, 2014). In the current situation, there are no initiations from artists and civil society; however, it is not likely that the city government alone can develop a sustainable cultural district. 4 This refers to a set of central government policies launched under the Roh administration in 2003 to boost the local economy in the non-capital regions. To achieve the goal, the government introduced ambitious measures, such as the construction of the new administrative city and the relocation of ministries and government agencies (Park, 2008).

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government and the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism as a sideline program of the national project. Unlike the Changdong Art Village project, which focused on providing workspaces to artists, the Daein Art Market project tries to assist artists and merchants only in an indirect way, with a view toward transforming the declining market into a cultural space for citizens—a so-called “art market” where artists and merchants can coexist in harmony. The project team rents several shops in the market and operates them for the benefit of both artists and merchants. Among other services, the team provides galleries for artists and citizens, arranges education programs for merchants and citizens, and organizes annual festivals and a night art market for citizens (Fig. 3) (Daein Art Market Project Nuetinamusup, 2011). In the Daein Art Market project, the role of the government is limited and marginal. Even though the project was introduced through national government policies, it was just a small subsidy program, appended to the mega-scale “Hub City of Asian Culture project,” which has more significance for both the national and city government. The project is mostly run by the commissioned operating body (the project team), which is composed of local cultural planners and activists. Since the artists are already self-supporting in the market, the project does not need to provide direct financial aid toward artists; instead, they seem to take advantage of artists in pursuing its own public goal, the creation of an “art market.” Artists in the Daein Art Market are very motivated and well networked. Most of them came into the market because of relationships with their friends who had already settled there, and they shouldered rent cost by themselves. As already independent artists, many do not want to be mobilized by the government-led project, and they want to have more freedom. While some artists are supportive of the project team's activities, others express hesitation to cooperate with the project because it would be an added burden for them. The artists even organized an association to protect themselves from excessive mobilization by the project (Park, et al., 2011). In the meantime, most of the merchants remain largely uninterested in the project. Some businesses, such as restaurants, have received benefits from the project as visitor and tourist numbers have increased, but for most of the merchants who sell everyday necessities, the project has not had a direct impact on their businesses. To merchants in the market, the project team looks like another group of artists who work with a slightly different goal. The meaning of culture in this project has remained ambiguous. The city bureaucrats have understood culture in the frame of their own goal for the project, “the cultural revitalization of the market place.” Here, culture was interpreted as a tool for bringing people into the market as well as a way to improve merchants' lives with cultural promotions and education. The eclectic nature of culture reflects the ambiguous position of the project in terms of the interests of artists and merchants in the market.

Fig. 3. Artists' studios in the Daein Art Market Source: Author.

Please cite this article as: Park, S.H., Can we implant an artist community? A reflection on government-led cultural districts in Korea, Cities (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2015.09.001

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In the Daein Art Market, the project team tries to function as a partner to both artists and merchants. After an influx of volunteer artists, the number of visitors and tourists increased a little, and at the same time, rent for vacant shops started to rise, signaling this area had become popular for local artists. However, without a shared vision of the actors involved in the project, the nature of this partnership has remained ambiguous. Also, the project team is not likely to significantly alter the character of the market in the short run. 5.3. Totatoga art cluster in Busan Totatoga is the name of the project implemented in the old downtown area of Busan, the second largest city in Korea. Up until the late 1980s, the area in which the project was implemented was the busiest business district in the city. Throughout the nation's modernization period, the district harbored the city hall, financial institutions, and major marketplaces. In the early 1990s, however, the area started to lose businesses and population after the city expanded into surrounding areas with new land developments. As a result, the area is now left with only marginal commercial enterprises, such as small restaurants and printing shops. The Totatoga project is an artist residency program that provides selected artists with workspaces to enliven cultural activities and participation in the neighborhood. The idea for the Totatoga project started in 2009, when the Busan City accepted a cultural activist's suggestion.5 Under the project, the city government provides a group of selected artists with workspaces by making use of vacant offices through an operating agency in the district for a three-year period. In return, artists are required to engage in local activities, such as running education programs and holding cultural festivals geared toward local citizens. Visual artists are required to hold exhibitions twice a year, writers are directed to publish “storytelling books,” and all the supported artists are encouraged to participate in annual art festivals and education programs for local citizens. The artists receive three years of government support and then are encouraged to be self-supporting in their spaces. The plan then calls for the government to recruit new artists for the next term. If the project is successful, more and more artists will be attracted to central Busan. The uniqueness of the project lies not only in the idea of how to incorporate artists into urban revitalization, but also in the way in which the project is implemented and operated. In operating the project, the city government was sidelined, and the cultural planners and artists played key roles. The commissioned management body had a strong network with local artists in Busan and liaised expertly with city officials, artists, and local citizens. They persuaded building owners in the old downtown to rent their vacant spaces at 15% below market price and worked closely with the committed and motivated artists. They were not just mediating agents allocating funds to artists, but also facilitators and moderators ensuring that everything worked harmoniously. Additionally, the Totatoga artists have benefited from the influential leadership of a few committed artists who had already settled in the district. This leadership has stimulated other artists' volunteer spirit and has spurred their engagement in local communities (Fig. 4). Even though there have not been large changes in physical appearance in the neighborhood, the project has had an impressive social and cultural impact on the district. First of all, local artists, regardless of whether they were supported by the government or not, started to open their studios and collaborate more with their colleagues. After two years of operation, the changes in the area have been felt 5 At that time, the cultural policy department of the Busan Metropolitan Government was looking for an appropriate cultural project that would use up the remainder of the annual budget (approximately 300,000 USD) earmarked for cultural purposes. Cha Jae Keun, a veteran cultural planner and senior staff member of the Busan Cultural Foundation, suggested a new type of artist residency program in the historic center of Busan, and the city government accepted the proposal (Cha, 2014). In this regard, it is fair to say that this project was initiated by a local artist, not by the city government.

Fig. 4. A street performance in the Totatoga area Source: The Totatoga homepage (ww.tttg.kr).

incrementally. According to my survey of the artists, they were the first to perceive a major change (90% response rate) (Park, et al., 2011). With festivals and cultural programs provided by the Totatoga artists, the streets are regaining vitality and recognition. In addition, thanks to increased awareness of the local culture and history of central Busan, residents have begun reevaluating the historical and cultural value of the district. The image of the district in people's minds has gradually shifted from a shabby downtown to a historic/cultural zone (Cha, 2014; Oh, 2012). Furthermore, the Totatoga project has had a large impact on cultural policies in Busan. Officials and cultural planners started to understand that small-budget, community-oriented strategies can produce impressive results, not only in promoting citizens' cultural participation but also in revitalizing troubled communities. The city government began to appreciate the value of community-oriented culture, which had been marginalized in the city's cultural policies, and introduced this value into mainstream policies. Busan's new cultural plan was released in March 2013 and entitled Happy and Shared Cultural City through Enhancing Soft Power. The title reflects Totatoga's approach and principles. In addition, many other ward offices in Busan tried to copy the Totatoga project to produce a similar impact (Busan Metropolitan City, 2013; Park, 2015). From its inception stage, the project has not been a major concern of the city government. Busan's city government has maintained a noninterventionist stance toward the project since its launching. On the cultural front, at least, Busan has been far more concerned with providing facilities and infrastructure for its film industry and film festival. Compared to large-scale development projects and Busan's cherished film festival promotion strategies, the Totatoga project looked trivial and marginal at first. It was hard for city officials to understand the execution of the artist project and to estimate its tangible benefits. In an interview, a city official expressed the government's position as follows: To be honest, we are a little embarrassed about the success of the project. One year after the launch of the project, so many local governments in Korea and even abroad have come to the district to learn about the project. However, we don't have much to say about the project because we did nothing but provide a small amount of funding. … For us, it is exciting to see that a project with such a small budget turned out to be a huge success. Now, our position has changed. The mayor has become interested and plans to support the project. (from an interview conducted on Dec. 6, 2013). In the project, the meaning of culture has been interpreted as a focus on the local way of life, particularly representing the value of the district as a cultural heart of the city. Thanks to the local artists who have tried

Please cite this article as: Park, S.H., Can we implant an artist community? A reflection on government-led cultural districts in Korea, Cities (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2015.09.001

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to boost local culture, the ways of life of merchants, businessmen, and local citizens have been actively represented in varying forms of artistic activities. The city government understood culture largely as a new opportunity for urban development, fueled by the unexpected success of the Busan International Film Festival. However, since Totatoga was not a part of the city projects in the first developmental stage, the government's interpretation of culture did not dominate the implementation of the project. Ironically, the rather apathetic attitude of the city government contributed significantly to the natural blossoming of the cultural cluster in the district. Due to the leeway created by this noninterventionist mode of operation, the artists were more motivated to plan their actions and engage in communities in the district. The leadership of cultural planners and local artists played a pivotal role in creating a difference in the district. Following its successful operation in the first term (2010–2012), the project has now started the second term (2013–2015) with a greater number of invited artists and activities (Oh, 2012; The Totatoga homepage, www.tttg. kr). With the Totatoga project drawing increased attention from the media and academic circles, the attitude of the city government has now changed from uninterested to attentive and supportive. The artists in the district now hope that this government attention will lead to more support rather than excessive control. 6. Comparison and lessons The three culture-led urban regeneration strategies examined above have much in common in terms of policy content and objectives, yet they are distinctively illustrative of the different modes of government intervention (see Table 1). In the case of Changdong, the city government aggressively pushed the project and tried to control the whole implementation process. Under the government's tight control, the cultural planners and the selected artists had no room to release their creative talents for the community. Thus, we can refer to this mode of intervention as that of a “director.” On the other hand, in the case of the Daein Art Market, the city government tried to be a “partner” rather than a director. The government intended to achieve its policy goal (the creation of cultural market) by taking advantage of a number of artists already settled in the market. In the Totatoga project, because of the strong initiative of local cultural activists and committed artists, the role of the government was limited to providing funds behind the scenes in the manner of a “patron.” In the government-led cultural district projects, culture was often translated by urban bureaucrats to be a new source of economic development. The instrumentalization of culture was distinctive in the Changdong, where the city government sought quick and tangible evidences of success before building partnerships with artists and local merchants. Artists and cultural agencies tried to counteract the government's move, but they were fragmented and marginalized. On the other hand, the Totatoga case provides an example in which artists and local activists took the lead in conceptualizing culture and

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implementing it in a local context. As mentioned above, strong solidarity among artists and the city government's rather non-interventionist attitude were conducive to generating more positive results. Merchants were commonly sidelined in all three projects, but unlike the other two cases, the Totatoga case demonstrated that merchants were taken into account from the inception, and they actually became cooperative as the project moved on. The different external conditions should be noted as a factor in creating different government attitudes toward each project. In Changdong, since the area was selected as a test bed for the national regeneration project amid much media attention, the project became the city's flagship policy. The city government injected a large amount of money into the project and thus wanted to secure quick and tangible results. In contrast, the Daein and Totatoga projects were not as significant to their respective governments. For Gwangju and Busan, two major metropolitan cities in Korea, these types of community engagement programs were too small to draw much attention, especially since they were preoccupied with politically motivated mega-projects. The Daein project was only a small part of the large-scale national project, and the Totatoga project was, in a sense, an accidental creation of the coordinated efforts of local cultural activists and artists. What we can learn from these three cases is that cultural districts can be sustainable and vitalized only with the active participation of private actors, such as artists, art associations, and cultural agencies. As illustrated in the Totatoga case, strong activism and the commitment of local artists were decisive factors in differentiating the consequences. In a fundamental sense, creativity comes from social interaction among civil actors who are free from government and commercial control (Stern and Seifert, 2007). Social bond, identity, and shared value play an important role in creative place making. Thus, cultivating and nurturing civil actors should be considered as precondition for successful cultural district planning. This does not mean that the role of government is not important. Rather than, in East Asia including Korea where government at national and local level has long exercised dominant power over civil society, government still remains as an initial mover and a pattern setter. In this regard, city governments should reposition themselves as indirect support for civil actors, the role of a patron described in this study. City governments should learn how to communicate with different local actors, such as artists and activists, and how to build horizontal and flexible governance with these actors. On the other hand, we need to accept the fact that there is a big gap between the promotion of culture as a tool for economic development and the emerging of cultural place as creative milieu through diverse social processes. While civil organizations and cultural activists understand culture as shared values embedded in local community, entrepreneurial city governments tend to focus on the instrumental aspect of culture for urban regeneration. This is an enduring source of conflict in culture-led urban regeneration strategies. Under the Korean circumstance, one way to respond to the issue is to create intermediary organizations—often civil agencies—as conduits to

Table 1 Comparison of the three culture-led urban regeneration strategies. Categories

Changdong Art Village

Daein Art Market

Totatoga Art Cluster

Nature of public–private partnership

Government as director: direct control over the artists and the project Conflictual

Meaning of culture represented

Instrument for urban regeneration

Position of the project in the city's development strategies Government budget allocated per year (USD) Degree of revitalization effect

Pivotal, as it is a test bed for the national project

Government as partner: indirect intervention via local cultural planners Juxtaposed Ambiguous between different interests and understanding by actors Sidelined as part of the large-scale national project

Government as a patron: artist-initiated and artist-oriented Cooperative A local way of life that was remembered and celebrated Marginal, with the city preoccupied with other pet projects

1,000,000

320,000

300,000

Moderate

Moderate

Large

Mode of government intervention

Please cite this article as: Park, S.H., Can we implant an artist community? A reflection on government-led cultural districts in Korea, Cities (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2015.09.001

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6 In recent policy scene in Korea, intermediary organizations are increasingly visible. For example, the Mistry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport encourages local governments to establish intermediary organizations in order to facilitate citizen participation and empowerment in urban regeneration policy (Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, 2014). Yet, their roles are under question as they are facing a lot of difficulties in mediating different interests of government and civil society (Park and Yim, 2014).

Please cite this article as: Park, S.H., Can we implant an artist community? A reflection on government-led cultural districts in Korea, Cities (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2015.09.001