Korea's Asia Culture Center is ready for a leap to the global stage

GWANGJU, South Korea, Dec. 8, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Asia Culture Center (ACC), an organization under the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Korea, celebrated its fifth anniversary this year. It opened on November 25 in 2015 to artistically sublimate the meaning of human rights and peace of the May 18 Democratization Movement in Gwangju while serving as a hub for exchanging and creating Asian culture and as an open space for cultural communication in the region. As of the end of November 2020, the number of visitors to the ACC reached 10.7 million.

The ACC's unique nature lies in space and contents. To commemorate the movement's spirit to future generations, it has unique architectural structures - the buildings related to the movement are on the ground while all new buildings are going underground. It boasts the country's biggest cultural complex. Through a program of visiting creators and researchers, the center continues to make new attempts without putting boundaries and barriers to the genre.

Growing into an experimental cultural power plant

Over the past five years, the ACC has run 894 programs, including 247 performances, 139 exhibitions, 177 educations, 41 festivals, and 290 various events. Among them, 80 percent were self-planned, created, and produced. It has established itself as a cradle of experimental cultural creation by accumulating the ability to develop various contents, including Asian cultural resources. Its residency program "ACC_R" works as a driving force for the content creation and production process and has been attended by 667 domestic and foreign experts.

Leaping as a hub for Asian cultural exchange

The ACC is actively engaged in cooperation with foreign government agencies and artists. Even amid COVID-19, it completed the 2020 Asia Culture Week in which embassies from Asian countries participated. Last year's successful hosting of the 2019 Special AMCA* Plus ROK Meeting and the Asia Culture Week was a good steppingstone. The Asia Culture Week is a program in which representative Asian literary figures participate and is growing as a symbolic program of the center.

* AMCA: ASEAN-REPUBLIC OF KOREA MINISTERS RESPONSIBLE FOR CULTURE AND ARTS

It is strengthening cooperation projects to create and distribute Asian culture and arts through the Asia Culture Network and ACC Creative Space Network, and three communities composed of Asian governments and music, dance, and story experts. So far, there have been 221 cases of content produced through exchange and cooperation. In line with the government's New Southern Policy and New Northern Policy, it plans to expand the target countries and areas for exchange.

The center focuses its efforts on systematic research and investigation, storage of Asian cultural resources, and strengthening computerization functions. Out of the 170,000 data collected over the past five years, 110,000 are provided for anyone to use. Cultural resources are created and used as contents. So far, 115 research findings have been produced in content. This year, the center introduced a realistic archive platform called Asia Culture Map, which combines fourth industrial technology and research data.

For the fifth anniversary of its opening, a new leap forward

Through cooperation with institutions at home and abroad, the ACC has been growing to realize its vision of "A Window of Asian Culture Facing the World." Park Tae-young, ACC's Acting President, said, "We will do our best to make the ACC become a global comprehensive cultural and art institution that creates new Asian culture and art values and makes Gwangju a cultural hub of Asia based on cooperation with the local community."

More information about The Asia Culture Center can be found at https://www.acc.go.kr/en_info/contents.do?PID=0101.  

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