Suncheon-si Advances Successful Preliminary Project for Designation as a Cultural City

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Lee Hyung-kwon] Suncheon City, designated as a preliminary cultural city by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism last December, is accelerating the promotion of preliminary projects such as the ‘Suncheon Documenta Ecological Archiving’ in preparation for the scheduled ‘2nd Cultural City’ designation at the end of this year.

The ‘Cultural City’ project is designated through a public contest by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, supporting regions to plan and realize their own cultural environment from a long-term perspective according to the Regional Culture Promotion Act.

The preliminary cultural city projects are the preparatory stage for the main projects to be implemented after the cultural city designation. Until now, cultural specialization projects have been promoted mainly around Hyangdong Cultural Street, but the ‘preliminary cultural city projects’ that Suncheon City is preparing for the 2nd cultural city designation will cover the entire area of Suncheon City.

As preliminary projects, Suncheon City is preparing ‘Suncheon Documenta Ecological Archiving,’ the cultural migration support program ‘Suncheon Gal Ddae,’ and the ‘Suncheon Citizen Story Platform Creation’ planned as an urban regeneration-linked project.

‘Suncheon Documenta Ecological Archiving’ is an archive project recording Suncheon. In 2019, it promoted the exhibition ‘10 Years History of Cultural Street,’ and this year, it plans to expand into ecological culture with the ‘Dongcheon Ecological Culture Documenta.’

‘Dongcheon Ecological Culture Documenta’ will operate as a digital archive where artists participate to collect and manage various resources such as Dongcheon’s human geography, sounds, and plants as data and exhibit them online. This program is expected to well capture the ecological and humanistic characteristics of Dongcheon, the source of Suncheon Bay.

The cultural migration support program ‘Suncheon Gal Ddae,’ also planned as a representative preliminary project, provides artists with residency bases in the old downtown, Suncheon Bay, and Jogyesan Mountain, operating cultural and artistic activity support programs to receive diverse cultural ideas and anticipate results. Through this program, the plan is to create opportunities for Suncheon City to establish itself as a cultural city by promoting the influx and exchange of excellent cultural personnel.

As an urban regeneration-linked project, the ‘Suncheon Citizen Story Platform Creation Project’ is also being prepared. The first creative studio opened through urban regeneration will be remodeled into the Suncheon Citizen Story Platform, reinforcing content and operating as a space that contains Suncheon stories.

Suncheon City plans to actively encourage citizen participation to promote the preliminary projects. By operating supporter SNS PD teams and visiting shared tables, citizens’ thoughts will be collected into a ‘Citizen Idea Bank’ to build and share a database. Additionally, opinions will be proposed and the projects organically promoted through various networks such as advisory groups, expert advanced groups, and working groups.

A city official stated, “We plan to successfully promote the preliminary projects aiming for cultural city designation by the end of this year,” and added, “Through the cultural city creation project, we will do our best to grow into a sustainable city where ecology and culture harmonize.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.