Cultural Entrepreneurship: Doing a Good Business

With the sun shining down on Taiwan for the duration of the 2014 Chinese New Year holiday, the public leapt at the opportunity to get out and about in the fine weather. For many in Tainan, that meant trekking out to the Togo Rural Village Art Museum in the city’s ­Houbi District.

The museum’s founders, Tai­nan National University of the Arts (TNNUA) graduates Chen Yu­liang and ­Huang Ding­yao, have organized it around the premise that “the fields are galleries.” Putting the principle into practice, they have enhanced the area’s rural vibe by peppering the village and its fields with environmentally integrated installations. Visitors planning to check out the museum should be aware that it operates on a rural schedule, closing its indoor exhibitions at four every afternoon so that local farmers can get home before sundown to prepare their evening meals and rest.

Visitors can take a paid tour that describes the exhibits in detail, and can also stock up on Graceful Farmer brand cultural products.

Chen and ­Huang’s long-term goal is to extend their community development ideas to other rural villages, creating self-sustaining cultural enterprises throughout southern Taiwan. Over the next decade, they also hope to grow their Graceful Farmer brand into a larger arts collective consisting of numerous allied microenterprises.

In the wake of the Lunar New Year’s holiday, Tai­pei showcased a different sort of cultural enterprise. A department store in the city’s ­Xinyi District wanted to put on a Lantern Festival event, and hired the Association of the Visual Arts in Taiwan (AVAT) to organize it. AVAT invited 23 contemporary Taiwanese artists to exhibit Year of the Horse themed lanterns running the gamut from paintings and mixed-media pieces to sculptures and spatial installations.

By diving into the bustling mass of shoppers crowding the streets, these artists embodied the notion of “art entering into commerce.” AVAT itself treated this year’s Lantern Festival as a means to publicize its Art Bank by AVAT program. By drawing on the social enterprise model currently popular with Taiwanese charitable organizations, the group hopes to create a stable source of income and raise the profile of its artists.

The Chio Tian Folk Drum and Arts Troupe organizes amateur ­performers into troupes, providing school dropouts with jobs and ­creating opportunities for sustainable development.

Two factors have been driving the recent emergence of cultural entrepreneurs in Taiwan.

One has been the international spread of the idea of cultural entrepreneurship.

Writing in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, American scholars Courtney E. Martin and Lisa Witter argue that “cultural entrepreneurship” differs somewhat from “social entre­preneur­ship.” They state that “social entre­preneurship” seeks to address the shortcomings of capitalism through the utilization of ventures or products as diverse as micro­finance and solar-powered lighting. “Cultural entrepreneurs,” on the other hand, seek to resolve thorny cultural issues by disrupting values systems. As a practical matter, such entrepreneurs are finding that when they present themselves to the public as “cultural enterprises,” people become more willing to support and finance their ventures.

“International scholarly research has provided Taiwan’s cultural entrepreneurs with a fantastic opportunity!” ­Sappho Loh, an assistant professor in the Department of Public Relations and Advertising at Shih Hsin University, argues that Taiwan’s creative and cultural parks tend to be too commercially oriented, that the government’s creative and cultural subsidies are overly focused on the television and film industries, and that too many community redevelopment schemes create infrastructure without the institutions necessary to support them. She says that this has led a growing aversion to the term “creative and cultural industries” in the world of arts and culture.

On the other hand, Loh says that the concept of “cultural entrepreneurship” is helping community builders, cultural preservationists, and artists overcome their aversion to profit and making them more aware that no industry is immune to Darwinian selection. As a result, these individuals are now learning how to adopt the techniques of business—seeking profit, protecting their intellectual property, and building brands—while also maintaining their principles.

AVAT possesses Taiwan’s largest database of artworks available for lease to corporations and individuals seeking pieces to display in public spaces. The photo shows artist Hsu Yung-hsu’s 2010–39.

In addition to the change in perspective, there have been changes in the environment. In 2014, the GreTai Securities Market inaugurated the Go Incubation Board for Startup and Acceleration Firms (GISA) to provide microenterprises with better access to funding. The GISA offers small companies a mechanism through which to raise needed funds, while the government provides them with legal, accounting, and management advice. The system provides entrepreneurs with an opportunity to learn how to run their companies, while also raising the companies’ profile.

The National Culture and Arts Foundation (NCAF), set up by the Ministry of Culture, has also worked at getting creative and cultural business rolling. In 2013, it introduced a program aimed at incubating arts-and-culture-oriented social enterprises in three areas: performance and visual arts, cultural travel, and other cultural microenterprises. The program currently provides subsidies to 11 groups and businesses that are focused on culture and the arts, and possess innovative business models.

Meanwhile, Taiwan’s arts education system has been very successful in cultivating artistic talent.

Wu ­Chieh-­hsiang, AVAT’s chair and an assistant professor in the Department of Art at National Chang­hua University of Education, says that arts universities and the arts departments of comprehensive universities not only educate large numbers of students, but also operate business incubators. In addition, their faculties provide students with career guidance and send them out to cultivate the arts in the communities surrounding their campuses. “For students, it’s a bit like interning and a bit like exploring a market for opportunities. The process also provides cultural entrepreneurs with new workers and capabilities.”

The upshot is that Taiwanese cultural entrepreneurship has become a remarkably multifaceted field with tremendous potential for growth. New enterprises are taking on a variety of tasks, from community redevelopment and cultural travel to the sale and distribution of artworks and the opening of new galleries. Some have become curation specialists, while others are performance troupes, and still others are documentary filmmakers. Right now, the community redevelopers and art distributors are garnering the most attention.

Graceful Farmer’s cultural tours, which introduce visitors to an agricultural community, have been well received by schools and the public at large.

Located in the Houbi District of Tainan City, the Graceful Farmer group has established three companies over the last few years. The first deals with spatial art installations, the second with cultural travel, and the third with music composition. Together, they generate revenues of more than NT$16 million for the group every year. More importantly, all three began turning a profit soon after their establishment, a fact which has made them models for Taiwan’s other cultural entre­preneurs.

In 2002, Chen Yu­liang and ­Huang Ding­yao, then graduate students in architecture at TNNUA, traveled to Tu­gou Village to work as community-building interns. There they forged what would become unbreakable ties to the community. The two went on to found Graceful Farmer in 2009, after completing their military service. Their subsequent leadership of Tu­gou’s village branding project has resulted in the village becoming known for its mix of agriculture and art.

The arts permeate every corner of the community, from private san­he­yuan to warehouses, fields, and recreational spaces, not only helping reestablish the community’s pride in itself but also spurring local tourism. Even local seniors have become active in the community activities that Chen organizes, painting their memories of village history.

Graceful Farmer’s revitalization model is spreading, and has begun to take root in communities such as Yun­­lin County’s Shui­lin and ­Kouhu Townships. The endeavor’s success is also presenting TNNUA students with new career opportunities, with some graduates choosing to join the Graceful Farmer team. Chen and ­Huang have responded by using their company’s earnings to help younger TNNUA alumni start affiliates. Over the course of just five years, it has added ten people to its team.

Chen says that their vision is simple: they hope to use cultural entrepreneurship to revitalize farming and fishing villages in central and southern Taiwan. By getting at least one cultural enterprise into every village, they hope to create job opportunities and draw younger workers back to their communities. They don’t envision these businesses being in competition with one another, but instead forming an arts alliance and sharing information amongst themselves. “We see every entrepreneur having a piece of land in his or her community—a plot to cultivate, to live on, to grow flowers on. And we see their efforts making every corner of Taiwan livable.”

Tainan National University of the Arts graduates Chen Yuliang (left) and Huang Dingyao established their Graceful Farmer brand in Houbi, Tainan as a means to bring arts into the community.

While Graceful Farmer has been striving to bring art into everyday life, AVAT’s Art Bank has been working to incorporate everyday life into art.

AVAT is Taiwan’s largest visual arts group. With 800 members running the gamut from artists and curators to critics and scholars, it is a veritable clearinghouse for arts professionals. Its Art Bank is a relatively recent venture with a twofold purpose: bringing art into people’s workaday lives while simultaneously generating enough income to make AVAT’s ­operations self-sustaining.

Wu ­Chieh-­hsiang says that AVAT’s operating expenses amount to more than NT$10 million per year, and that the group urgently needs revenues to supplement its income from membership dues and government subsidies. The group has spent much of the last two years focusing on the Art Bank project precisely because it has the potential to generate much-needed earnings. In addition to selling artworks, the Art Bank has been cultivating the relatively new art-rental market by providing corporate clients with “matchmaking” and brokering services. AVAT hopes the venture will generate NT$2.5 million in earnings in 2014.

Corporate offices, residential high-rises, high-end restaurants, banks, and retailers have all become much more interested in displaying art in recent years, but business owners often struggle to choose pieces that match their companies’ image. AVAT uses its large database to help companies with their selections, then leases works to them. The model allows companies to “test drive” various pieces and cultivate their artistic sensibility before going on to build their own collections.

“The old stereotype was that companies didn’t like sculptures of human figures or cutting-edge installations because they worried that such art would shock or disturb people,” says Wu. “But when we got the Art Bank going, we discovered that many companies wanted unique pieces to highlight their own creativity.”

Some companies are looking for more than help picking out art, and request services tailored to their particular needs. Tai­pei’s circus-themed Lantern Festival event is a case in point. The Shin­kong Mi­tsu­ko­shi department store placed an order with AVAT, which then curated the event, inviting 23 contemporary Taiwanese artists to create works inspired by the Year of the Horse for it. The artists retain ownership of their work, but the department store has the option to buy some or all of the pieces after the exhibition. The store is also authorized to photograph the pieces during the event for the purpose of creating product extensions that it may either give away or sell.

“The fact that Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman’s rubber duck was so enormously popular in Taiwan shows that the Taiwanese public is very accepting of art.” Wu says that she is confident that AVAT’s Art Bank will succeed, and that she believes culture, profit, and business can exist in harmony with one another.

Shih Hsin University’s Sappho Loh makes an interesting point. She notes that while the term “creative and cultural industry” refers to an economic sector, “cultural entrepreneurship” refers to an activity. The latter, she believes, suggests building things from scratch and evokes a “can do” spirit.

Loh argues that organizations involved with culture and the arts cannot depend upon government subsidies being renewed and must ultimately become self-supporting. Groups cultivating an entrepreneurial spirit will soon find that the cultural sphere abounds in business opportunities.

The rise of cultural entrepreneurism is encouraging startups and social welfare groups to sift Taiwan’s cultural portfolio for business opportunities that can support the creation of sustainable companies. The photo shows a Year of the Horse lantern festival event that Art Bank by AVAT curated on behalf of a Taipei department store.

Artist Li Minzhong’s lantern entitled Love and Peace.

AVAT’s chairwoman Wu Chieh-hsiang (third from right) led the team that created the group’s self-sustaining art-bank model.