Korea and Singapore Deepen Performing Arts Exchange
Arts professionals from Korea and Singapore are building longer-term links through research, residencies and institutional partnerships, while examining how each country supports artists and international collaboration.
South Korea and Singapore are expanding cultural cooperation through a series of institutional agreements and artist-led exchanges focused on performing arts, professional development and sustainable creative careers.
The Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture and Singapore’s Arts House Group signed a three-year memorandum of understanding in May. The agreement is intended to support collaboration between artists and arts professionals, including institutional partnerships, residencies and exchanges on arts venue management. It follows a 2023 agreement between the Korea Arts Management Service and Singapore’s National Arts Council covering art technology and professional exchange.
The relationship gained further momentum through Creative Connection: A Korea-Singapore Exchange Project, launched last year to mark the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations. The program, jointly organized by the Korean Foundation for International Cultural Exchange and the National Arts Council Singapore, brought together four arts professionals from each country for research and field visits between October and February.
Two Singaporean participants used the project to examine barriers facing artists and the systems that help sustain their careers in Korea. Theater actor and creative producer Tan Wan Sze, who has studied and worked in Korea, researched how foreign performers can enter the Korean market and participate in international projects. She found that Korea has numerous cultural support organizations, but overlapping programs can make the system difficult to navigate. Foreign artists may also be ineligible for some programs because they lack Korean citizenship, even when they hold residency visas and pay taxes.
Actor and arts researcher Laura Kee studied the support available to performing artists between productions. She highlighted Korea’s Artist Get Ready Grant, which provides 3 million won to eligible artists after verification of their artistic activity. She also pointed to subsidized venue access and the Artist Pass, which can offer verified artists free or discounted admission to cultural events.
The research also identified areas where each country can learn from the other. Korea’s public support infrastructure and venue assistance offer potential lessons for Singapore, while Singapore’s experience with multicultural work and international collaboration may help Korean institutions and audiences engage more closely with Southeast Asian artists. Participants nevertheless noted that work centered on multicultural identity may need stronger contextualization to connect with Korean audiences.
The continuing exchange suggests the partnership is moving beyond one-off performances toward a longer-term framework. By combining institutional agreements with research by working artists, the two countries are testing practical ways to improve mobility, access to support and the durability of cross-border creative partnerships.