Whose voice? Why is voice important in cluster formation? How is voice lost? How to sustain voices?
The purpose of defining ‘voice’ and tracing the voice within clusters is important when we try to explore the issue of ‘creative engagement’ in clusters.
The first stage of such research involves ‘finding the voice’ through conventional routes: internet, publications, news and other media communication tools.
This rather quantitative data will be compared against the ethnographic data gathered through qualitative interviews and participant observation.
Some preliminary findings based on case studies of M50 and Weihai 696 have pointed to the trend of ‘losing the voice’ on the part of artists entrepreneurs in creative clusters in Shanghai. I found that there are a few ways that their voices have been lost:
1) Voice has been covered up/mis-represented by the management companies. In the case of M50 as well as other art-led creative warehouses, artists’ active engagement in the making of creative spaces is increasingly loosing power to the cluster management companies who are keen to represent the space as tourist hot zone in order to attract public funding (local government is pushing the agenda of creative clusters as part of the image making for the city) and other source of brand related income. This has not served artists who want to keep the warehouse as studios rather than open markets. Such voice for staying organic, artistic and self-sustaining is likely to be ignored or mis-represented (as the usual moaning by the artists) by the management company.
2) Voice has been hided by artists themselves. Such as in the case of Weihai 696 – an organically emerged creative cluster. Artists have become aware of the tendency of them being kicked out for what they’ve done to the space – they are making these rundown warehouses interesting which attracts property developers. In order to avoid that to happen, artists have strategically chosen not to engage with the space and the community in order to avoid attention.
