|
In recent years, the activities of the redevelopment of space in the Taipei metropolitan area, including the urban development policies of urban planning and urban renewal, have been intensely conducted, and the target of policies has been redirected to the financial-oriented investment market from the already saturated housing market. The rise of large-scale urban planning and urban renewal cases has extremely tremendous impacts on the cultural diversity, environment and the right to housing of the Great Taipei Area. Since 2010, with great capital, the real estate enterprises in the Great Taipei Area have occupied the advantages of land ownership and policies and have further monopolized the cultural resources and cultural production in the urban renewal area. Through the appropriation and occupation of local assets, the structure of business and political relations that takes real estate enterprises as the mainstay has converted the local culture into the consumer culture that meets the expectations of “gentrification” in the process of renewal, and thereby realizing the elimination of the existing local culture.
Artists with a higher arts education background have utilized the cultural resources released from the structure of urban renewal, including the subsidies, studios and exhibition spaces for art creators, to wander around the flowing spaces such as short-term art villages, performances and festivals in the planned sites of development, engaging in the transformation of the city’s cultural atmosphere. Nonetheless, artists and the universities of the arts that cultivate these artists must begin to face up to the emerging issues: the structure of arts funding sources has started to show its destructivity in other social and environmental aspects. At the same time, artists must also begin to reflect on why most artworks become only the makeup of urban renewal. In addition, the issues of whether artworks could demonstrate more positive energy against the inequalities in society or become a key that could reduce the elimination problem in society must be taken into reflection as well.
|