The China Post
Date: August 14, 2017
By: Alan Fong, The China Post

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Anyone who’s been to one of Taiwan’s “cultural parks” won’t be surprised by a new report which has found that very little of these spaces is dedicated to supporting local artists.

Figures from the Ministry of Culture showed that as of April, less than 15 percent of space in cultural parks nationwide were allocated to resident artists. In the most extreme case — Huashan 1914 Creative Park in Taipei — artists took up only 0.64 percent of space.

Instead, most of the resources were dedicated to entertainment, retail and restaurant businesses. Twenty percent of Huashan was occupied by restaurants, while Cultural and Creative Industries Parks in Taichung and Hualien were basically glorified restaurants, with more than half of their space set aside for foodies.

“Wencuang” (文創, culture and innovation) is a buzzword in Taiwan for where the global hipster movement meets the nation’s top-down societal structure and its penchant for hype    [FULL  STORY]