Hong Kong may finally have a HK$19 billion cultural district looming large on the horizon in West Kowloon. But planning and preparing for the mammoth project is, for those at the helm, a step into unfamiliar waters.
'Governing such a thing is highly complex and we definitely need to learn from others,' says Oscar Ho Hing-kay, director of the cultural management programme at Chinese University of Hong Kong.
That's why, together with the Asian Cultural Council, he has invited Martin Vinik, a veteran US arts management consultant, to give a week-long workshop on cultural districts and urban planning to a group of young local arts administrators.
His visit, which ends on Thursday with a public lecture on cultural district planning at the Hong Kong Arts Centre, is part of a long-term exercise initiated by Ho to cultivate and nurture administrative talent for both West Kowloon and the mainland.
Subtitled 'Building Sustainable Structures for the Arts in Developing Cities', the ongoing programme exposes arts administrators accustomed to working in a government-run industry to a more independent, economically viable business model.
Most of the city's performance venues and museums are managed by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department. This arrangement, which has been in place for decades, is expected to change when the first of the district's 15 planned performance venues opens in 2015.