The concept of OER is referred to extensively in this phase of the course. In an ideal world, all education should be open education. Open education extends the breadth of knowledge dissemination and enables more people (more age groups, language speakers, ethnicities) to be introduced to knowledge concepts with relatively equal access. This also applies to the arts, which remain socially relegated to the margins of society and are less likely to receive a more complete and structured education once they leave school.

In China, the situation of art education being ‘not open source’ is very serious in comparison to the West. Historically, the Eastern context has lacked the notion of a salon culture such as the exhibition, and a platform for sharing knowledge with the public (outside of a fixed circle). In my previous experience of education, I can divide this part of education into several parts: schools, semi-public training organisations, paid training institutions (early childhood, school age, high school students), self-publishing “for love”, theoretical university MOOCs, and paid online classes. If we look at the quality of education, the university experience must be the best in the first place, the others are only superficially inspiring for people with no background in arts education. Particularly in the case of semi-public training organisations which are essentially entirely for the enlightenment of school-age/non-school-age students, while the main body of paid training institutions are for students taking university art admissions exams, so I think there is a lot of room for art education aimed at the adult market. In terms of cities, urban youth are increasingly pursuing the arts, and communities are gradually gathering, so there are many related economies that have emerged.

If we were to attempt an OER project in China, we would be looking at high school students who have a utilitarian approach to art education, and adults who have entered the workforce, both of whom are extremely time-poor, but there are many people who are genuinely interested in art, which I think is the most important part of the population and who have a passion for it. Aside from the issue of targeting people, funding is also the most important issue. In neil’s class earlier, we were taken on a tour of the Milk at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop in Edinburgh and were shocked at how quickly the organisers could establish an arts residency in this part of Newhaven in five years with just government support, support from surrounding residents, and support from charitable charities. It is astonishing that the organisers were able to establish an art residency in this part of Newhaven in five years with only government support, support from the surrounding residents and support from charitable organisations, and run it properly (and maintain its popularity) until now. As I understand it, the residency is mainly for the surrounding residents to experience the arts and rent out space to artists, as well as providing a café service, and based on fieldwork, I think the ratio of revenue to expenses is very barely sustainable (but it is something that an arts charity is doing and seems to be able to continue to support).

Here I would like to mention an art residency that is being set up in the area where I live, “Tianmuli”. It started out as a factory site for the clothing company “Jiangnan Cloth” and through the transformation of the factory site, the company is attempting to turn it into a new space that combines office space, art space, experimental theatre, a department store in Meili, a design hotel, a unique commercial collection, etc. It is a new concept complex that brings together practitioners and companies in the fields of art, architecture, design, creativity, nature and culture, and is now a city landmark, attracting many urbanites who aspire to or are already immersed in these fields, and providing a platform for many artists and art students to showcase their work, whether or not they hold art fairs.

So the biggest problem in forming a safe and secure public interest art residency and sharing knowledge remains funding, people who are interested and have the time for it are not an absolute big problem in themselves.

I have tried to analyse the organisations that might give funding, at the moment China is going from positive growth to a hard economic landing, government support for arts organisations is very limited (especially for groups that create freely and don’t make significant income, it seems to be uninvestable and it’s), and commercially oriented companies seem to be more oriented towards financial gain and less strict control of content, which is for many participants in the arts sector not friendly. Therefore, the formation of a more desirable ecology for practitioners also requires thinking in terms of the aspirations of those in the field concerned themselves.

The internet, on the other hand, is the most commonly used vehicle for knowledge sharing. China’s internet has not yet been perfected in terms of laws, the existence of a large number of pirated resources popular on the internet, and vague copyright, which allowed the spirit of the internet to survive in a “magical” form for many years (until recent years, when the penetration of domestic internet giants made knowledge payment a compulsory thing to follow, but in recent years, due to the over-commercialisation of the internet, it has become a more than appropriate thing to do. (the over-commercialisation in recent years has made it counter-productive). In recent years, the increasingly strict regulation of online security in China has forced many interest communities that were originally based on platforms to disband or be banned, making the dissemination and sharing of knowledge by these groups more problematic. With the growing call for decentralisation and the development of Web3 technology, I believe that the formulation of knowledge sharing organisations as DAOs is a very good form on which to build, including crowdfunding and construction.

China is a vast country with a large population and large differences in cultural and economic levels between regions. Compared to within the UK, Europe and English speaking regions, the cost and time involved in building a realistic platform is enormous in terms of organisation, whereas the web can easily overcome this. What is being discussed here, after all, is the basis of an environment suitable for the development of OER.

So the big challenge that replaces the previous question is the proper management and maintenance of the community and the way in which funds are raised and announced to the members of the community in a more open and transparent way.

* Decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs) are an emerging form of legal structure with no central governing body and whose members have a common goal of acting in the best interests of the entity. Popularised through cryptocurrency enthusiasts and blockchain technology, DAOs are used to make decisions in a bottom-up management approach.

Sprint2 some ideas / Lisirui Wang / Contemporary Art & Open Learning (2022-2023)[SEM1] by blogadmin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 3.0