Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture, '2021 Seoul Arts Support' 2nd Call for Applications

[Asia Economy Reporter Donghyun Choi] The Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture announced on the 22nd that it will hold the second round of the '2021 Seoul Arts Support' public contest from March 8 to 19 to support artists, whose activities have been restricted during the COVID-19 era, in establishing a continuous creative foundation through support for creative planning, preparation, space, research, and documentation activities.

This support project spans 6 fields with a total budget of 1.96 billion KRW. Its purpose is to establish a sustainable creative environment across all areas of the art ecosystem?including preliminary stages, preparation, space, research and evaluation, and value documentation?so that artists can continue their creative activities steadily despite the prolonged difficulties caused by COVID-19.

The contest covers six areas: ▲‘Re:Search’ (formerly Creative Preparation Support), which supports activities in the preparation and conceptualization stages before establishing a concrete art project plan; ▲‘Creative Art Space Support,’ which provides rental fee support for creative art spaces that serve as the foundation for artistic activities; ▲‘Art Professional Book Publication Support,’ which supports the publication of professional art books applicable and usable in domestic art fields; ▲‘Artist Research Group Support,’ which supports group activities researching current issues faced directly by art field participants; ▲‘Visual Art Work Collection Publication Support,’ which supports the publication of collections compiling works by outstanding visual artists actively working in the field; and ▲‘Outstanding Art Work Documentation Support,’ which supports the documentation and publication of repertoires by outstanding artists or groups actively working in the field. The support method was designed simply from the artist’s perspective, with an expanded pool of genre-specific judges to enhance expertise and strengthened verification of disqualification criteria to increase procedural transparency.

This year, the program features a shift to fixed-amount support to provide more intuitive foundational support from the artist’s perspective. ▲‘Re:Search,’ which assists creative planning and preparation, will award 3 million KRW to 300 artists; ▲space support, previously divided into studios, rehearsal rooms, and complex cultural spaces, has been integrated into ‘Creative Art Space Support,’ providing an average of 4 million KRW (up to 10 million KRW) for rental fees; ▲‘Outstanding Art Work Documentation,’ ‘Art Professional Book Publication Support,’ and ‘Artist Research Group Support,’ which support documentation, research, mediation, performance, and criticism, will each provide 10 million KRW.

Meanwhile, the Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture has built the ‘Seoul Culture and Arts Support System (SCAS),’ a genre- and region-specialized arts support platform, to efficiently operate its annual arts support projects worth about 13 billion KRW and to enhance convenience for administrators and users. This platform is being applied for the first time in this contest. Until now, field artists have used the Ministry of Economy and Finance’s ‘e-Nara Doum’ and the Korea Arts & Culture Education Service’s ‘National Culture and Arts Support System (NCAS),’ but these had limitations in reflecting the unique characteristics of ‘culture and arts’ and ‘Seoul.’ SCAS was developed as an optimized platform exclusively for the Seoul Foundation’s support projects, featuring a user interface (UI) reorganized around frequently used menus.

Key advantages of SCAS include ▲automatic subsidy settlement linked with banks and automatic withholding tax calculation ▲online issuance of support application selection confirmation certificates ▲a popular and intuitive screen design reflecting user requirements ▲menu reorganization highlighting frequently used functions ▲management of selected parts of the entire support process ▲online evaluation and individual review record keeping tailored for the non-face-to-face era. Since development began last May, the system has undergone over ten rounds of surveys, advisory meetings, and tests with numerous field artists to ensure practical assistance for both artists and administrators.

SCAS will open at 10 a.m. on the 22nd. To prepare for this, all processes including four stages of testing and feedback collection with actual field artists over the past two months have been completed. The introduction of SCAS is expected to make the Seoul Foundation’s annual arts support projects operate more efficiently and enhance convenience for both administrators and users.

Kim Jong-hwi, CEO of the Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture, stated, “As a new art ecosystem different from before has emerged due to COVID-19, we have prepared the support project by establishing new directions and goals. We will strengthen the support foundation for continuous creative activities by supplementing the system through ongoing communication with the art field to ensure that artists’ creative activities are not interrupted during these difficult times.”

Meanwhile, applications for the second round of the ‘2021 Seoul Arts Support’ can be submitted via SCAS from March 8 to 6 p.m. on March 19. More detailed information about the contest can be found in the announcements section of the Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture website.

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