Fifteen years after its establishment, the Incheon Art Platform, which plays an important role in the development of contemporary art in Korea, will be operated independently from the city of Incheon. This follows the city's decision to entrust the platform to the Incheon Foundation For Arts & Culture on a semi-permanent basis.

The city of Incheon and the Incheon Foundation For Arts & Culture announced that from next year, the operating expenses of the Incheon Art Platform will be switched from the existing form of consignment fees to contributions from the cultural foundation.

Until now, the commissioned project fee was a method of supporting only the necessary budget within the contract period, which had limitations in ensuring the continuity and independence of the platform's operation. In particular, both labor and business expenses were set in the form of subsidies, making it difficult to operate stably.

With this change, the operating costs will be converted to donations, which will allow for more stable and autonomous operations. The city of Incheon has allocated KRW 7.9 billion in contributions to the Culture Foundation and KRW 2.3 billion to the Incheon Art Platform for next year. As a result, the biennial process of selecting a contractor will no longer be necessary. This is a significant change in the operating structure of the art platform, which has been maintained since its opening in 2009.

Employment Transition Issues, Complex Challenges

However, the employment of the platform's employees still needs to be discussed. As the salaries of the employees hired as contractors have been paid from the foundation's main budget rather than from grants, the question of whether or not to convert them to full-time employees of the foundation has emerged as an issue.

Incheon's policy is to hire full-time employees when vacancies occur, but equity issues with existing employees must be considered. If former employees were to be converted to full-time positions, they would have to go through a rehiring process after leaving the organization, which could be controversial as to whether or not their previous experience would be recognized. For this reason, some employees have voiced opposition to the idea.

“The ownership of the assets of the Incheon Art Platform still belongs to the city of Incheon, but considering that the Cultural Foundation has been operating the platform stably for the past 15 years, we have laid the foundation for its continued operation by skipping the process of recruiting a contractor,” said an official from the city.

“This change will further establish the Incheon Art Platform as a representative cultural and artistic facility in Incheon,” said an official from the Incheon Arts Foundation, adding, ”It is not an easy situation as there are many issues to be resolved, such as changing the status of employees and adjusting the Incheon Foundation For Arts & Culture's capacity.”