Standing behind the annual Jeju Haevichi Arts Festival is Kocaca, the new branding for the Korea Culture and Arts Centers Association. The rebrand was introduced in 2020 by Lee Seung-joung, who was voted as the president of the organization in October 2019.

The association was founded in 1996 to promote balanced development and networks among regional culture and arts centers. It became a legal entity related to the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Sports in 2012.

After taking on the position, Lee realized that, despite its potential to nurture cultural and artistic activities for citizens around the country, the association had minimal recognition.

With its rebranding into Kocaca, Lee said in a recent interview that he has been trying to transform the organization, now with 225 culture and arts centers under its umbrella, so that it can work more efficiently and better serve the goal of bridging the regional cultural disparity, creating a stable performing arts ecosystem, and enhancing the sustainability of culture and art centers.

One of the efforts towards achieving these goals is to grow the Jeju Haevichi Arts Festival from a domestic market-experts event to an international one, Lee said.

“Due to the nature of cultural and artistic activities, it is not easy to sell and purchase them on the spot like other commodities. Therefore, the time spent promoting works through face-to-face conversations and direct interactions becomes even more important. These encounters play a significant role in paving the way for future transactions,” Lee noted.

Linking its member centers with production companies is one task and another task is to foster local artists, he pointed out.

“Cultural and artistic content, as well as artistic organizations, are concentrated in the metropolitan area, making it difficult to create regional productions with artists in those places," he noted.

Therefore, since 2021, Kococa has been implementing a program to support the joint production and distribution of performance contents between local culture and arts centers and private artistic organizations.

Also in 2021, Kocaca introduced a program for artists aged 19 to 39 so that young artists can have opportunities to stage their productions at culture and arts centers around the country. This year, 26 programs have been selected to be performed at 50 culture and arts centers.

Lee emphasized that a program specifically for younger artists is necessary to help the performing arts ecosystem in the long run.

"Culture and arts centers cannot survive without artists," Lee said.