Archive för Art and Business

Heading towards the ”L” building for our meeting with Kristin Skogen Lund, Head of Telenor Nordic Operations, we walk through the colourful pillars by French artist Daniel Buren and looking up on the opposite house facade, we can read the neon-lit statements by the American artist Jenny Holzer.

It gives an interesting framework for our meeting.

Mobile operations company Telenor’s head office in Fornebu outside Oslo was built in 2002 and hosts around 6000 employees. An integral part of the work environment is the presence of art and culture, the website states, and Telenor has a collection of around 700 art pieces from contemporary artists.

Kristin Skogen Lund has been selected Norway’s most powerful woman by Kapital magazine. She has been head of the newspaper Aftenposten and, she is on several boards among them Det Norske Kammarorkester.

We are curious of her leadership experiences and what she would say would be most important content in a leadership development programme for culture. Nätverkstan is developing a leadership programme specifically for culture; well-known artistic director Sune Nordgren is Chair of the interim board for the project. Our ambition is to learn from different leadership areas, also the perspective from the different Nordic countries.

”The one who has the overview rarely has the deep insight. And the one with deep insight has rarely an overview.”

The dilemma is of course crucial if you are the Head of a large company such as Telenor, but is also a question for smaller organizations. How do you balance having an overview of the organization with deep and specific knowledge of the field you are in? At what size of organization do you loose the specific insight as a leader?

”Telenor is a large company that has a strict hierarchic structure, is goal oriented and work with goal hierarchies. This doesn’t work in culture. Instead it’s often vision oriented. The questions need also be asked: Who are we work for? Who is the public to be reached by our vision?”

A competence for a leader of a cultural institution we discuss is the ”translation competence”; the skill of being able to explain and talk of the artistic work with people outside of the institution. Any cultural institution needs to build relationships and cooperation with people from different areas from politics to business to other art fields. The skill of engaging and explaining the work for people with no knowledge, perhaps not even interest, is important.

A leadership programme should encompass the possibility of self-reflection and getting out of your comfort zone. Having courage, being able to analyze complex situations and build concrete actions, engage in your ideas, and knowing your own limits and possibilities are skills Kristin Skogen Lund stresses as important.

Read more on cultural leadership here.

The artist Staffan Hjalmarsson called it ”Five Squares of Sorrow”. He was referring to a report, the index- and indicatorstudy, in a blogpost during the large conference arranged by Region Västra Götaland last year. The study was showing how the Region had fulfilled its indicators within the different focus areas. All focus areas had information and follow-up except one: Culture. This was glowing empty like five squares of emptiness and sorrow. Here there were no ways of measuring, no indicators that could be followed up. No statistics.

The question of how to measure and follow up culture is a difficult one. What is to be measured and how? What should be measured by indicators, what should not? What are the evaluation criteria?

In Sweden two different authorities has been formed for analyzing, evaluating and measure statistical datas of culture: Myndigheten för Kulturanalys (Authority for Cultural Analysis, my translation) and Tillväxtanalys (Growth Analysis). While the former are working for the Ministry of Culture and follow effects and evaluate cultural activities initiated by them, the latter is working for Ministry of Enterprise, Energy and Communication. Tillväxtanalys is the authority following for example business support activities –  cultural entrepreneurs and businesses also fall under its responsibility.

On EU-level ESSnet-Culture was formed in september 2009 with the task to during a two-year period improve methodology and production of data on cultural sectors and also improve comparability within EU-countries. They have now published a final report from its four different task force areas: 1) update the cultural framework, 2) define cultural economic indicators and cultural employment, 3) on cultural finances and 4) cultural practices and the social participation in the culture.

Region Västra Götaland held last week a first small seminar to discuss statistics and evaluation methods of cultural entrepreneurs. The seminar was initiated by the regional think tank Kombinator. A seminar on the work of ESSnet with invited guests is also planned by the regional office later on this spring.

Read ESSnet report here.

American artist P Nosa, he draws art on a sewing machine, is planning a sewing tour in the US with the mission: ”…to navigate the country promoting people’s creativity, providing a tangible patch of their ideas, and to teach how to use alternative energy sources”.

To fulfill his idea, he has created a website where you can donate money. If he gets to the total amount of the cost (7500 USD) he is on his way, otherwise the tour is cancelled.

The funding idea of the project goes in line with the idea of crowdfunding, where people pitch in a sum of money, big or small, to an idea they like. If fully funded, the projects runs. It’s the thought of ”the crowd decides”. These types of alternative funding ideas are growing and in Sweden you find for example the site Funded By Me.

Support the sewing tour here. Read another post of P Nosa here.

Sarah Thelwall, a British researcher and consultant in creative and cultural industries, has written an interesting paper (July 2011) based on research on the value of small visual arts organizations in the arts ecology as well as society. Some of the outcomes include:

• The role and value of small visual arts organizations in society and within the arts ecology is often under-estimated by public authorities.

• The evaluation and measurement methods, ”the metrics”, of government and funders do not correspond to the value produced by these small organizations who build their operation on collaboration and flexibility.

• By investing in risk-taking and development of work, small arts organizations contribute to the development of larger art organizations.

• Small art organizations have very few tangible assets to capitalize income on compared to larger organizations, un often unacknowledged incomestream to be found in these small organizations is the intangible assets such as organizational expertise and experience, intellectual property, research skills, risk-taking etc.

• The report suggest a new investment model in order to measure the value of small visual arts organizations.

Download the report here: Common-Practice-London-Size-Matters.pdf. Sarah Thelwall also initiated the service MyCake as an easy way to manage your finances.

Nätverkstan is running workshops around the Region of Västra Götaland (West Sweden) on The Art of living on Art, a project funded by European Social Fund.

So far the first course, with workshops taking place at four different places in the region with around 8-10 participating artists in each, has ended and a new round of courses started. Last Saturday we had the full-day conference with David Karlsson talking about Cultural Industries, Gothenburg Combo on how they live on their art, and Ulla-Lisa Thordén on selling and pricing with all participants gathering in Vänersborg.

This is the road-trip around the Region of Västra Götaland this fall meeting artists in Skövde, Borås, Ulricehamn, Uddebo, Tranemo, Lidköping, Gerlesborg, Vänersborg. More to come!

Read more here.

The Yugoslav Museum of History in Belgrade, also known as Museum 25th of May, is now hosting the 52nd October Salon It’s Time We Get To Know Each Other.

The curators, Israeli artist Galit Eilat and Slovenian curator Alenka Gregoric, use as a starting point Milgram’s simulation experiment on obedience towards authorities and want to catalyse a discussion on obedience, social responsibility, conformism and dis-obedience. The artists chosen all refer to the topic of what we, human beings, are willing to do when we think we are not responsible.

25th of May is former Yugoslav dictator Tito’s birthday and the Museum was planned to be his Memorial Centre where he would collect all the things he collected in his life; records, paper, art work. He is buried just behind the Museum. One art piece by Nemanja Cvijanovic’s Paying my Electricity Bill is a heated replica of the grave of Tito and refers to parts of history that cannot be erased.

The independent cultural scene that I meet is spurring and generous. Interesting organizations like the cultural house and European Center for Culture and Debate Grad down by the river Sava, and Rex placed in an old synagogue, both aim to debate contemporary topics relevant in Serbian and European society. While Rex is a laboratory for research of new fields of culture, Grad provides design and art space, run projects, and have a small stage for debates and performances.

Rex also runs the Free Zone Film Festival, an international filmfestival running this week. In his film A letter to dad, Serbian film-maker Srdan Keca searches for answers of why his father choose to die. He writes a letter to his dead father as he looks back to try understand what happened. In his interviews with his uncle, the father’s old friend, his mother; going through photos and films from the past; a story of a life interrupted by war unfolds. It relates back to the exhibition. How could it happen?

Other initiatives is the Monday Club, arranged by the Swedish Embassy and Museum of Science and Technology within the project Creative Society. Each Monday during the fall a Swedish and Serbian manager, professor, leader meet to share experience and knowledge from running an organization, setting up an initiative, or research on stage at six o’clock. This form of seminar has become quite popular among artists, cultural entrepreneurs and managers, as well as among university professors.

Wherever you turn on this independent cultural scene in Belgrade, in these few snapshots, you meet people educated at the MA Cultural Policy and Management at University of Arts in Belgrade. Many witness how important the training programme has been to build a strong independent scene in Serbia. During the conference on Management of culture and media in the knowledge society challenges in cultural management and the role of internationalization are addressed. It would also be interesting to discuss the role of these educations in strengthening an independent cultural scene in society.

Download the intervention from Nätverkstan here:belgrade_conference2011.pdf.

We have gathered, around ten students, teacher and artists from the Cultural Management Program, Art University and the field , to work on the art of living on art and, for some, the burning question of what will happen after studies are finished.

The invitation is from the MA Cultural Management in Tallinn at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre in the center of the city. In the small room great plans and ideas are drawn up, reflections and dreams are high as well as down to the practice of everyday work. So, what needs to be done? What active steps can I take? What is the surrounding discussion and context in society at the moment?

Tallinn is this year Cultural Capital and in Estonia the cultural industries gained momentum in 2003-2004. Figures say that creative industries are around three percent of Estonia GDP and that the added value from this field was larger than any other branch or industry (see Tallinn City Enterprise Board). Recently a large conference was held in Tallinn on Creative Entrepreneurship for a Competitive Economy with some major speakers in the field invited. Talking to people in the cultural field there seem to be a gap between the large plans of creative industries and the artists. Someone should perhaps take an interest in mitigating this gap.

”When you write creativity, what do you mean? Break it down. Unpack it.”

Adrian de la Court and Sian Prime, MA Cultural and Creative Entrepreneurship at Goldsmiths University of London, hovers around the class, enthusiastically supporting the discussions and work that is being developed in the groups. And then the difficult questions to challenge the students to go deeper in their understanding, reveal a bit more, go to the bottom of all those words so easily used.

We, eight people from the GoDown Arts Center in Nairobi together with myself, have joined one of the classes in Cultural and Creative Entrepreneurship at Goldsmiths. The task is to map each individual’s strengths and assets, and come to a conclusion of the group assets. Find the deficit. Map the geographical area you are in. What assets are there around you? What possibilities does it reveal?

The work is done with paper, colored pens, lego-pieces, straws, rubberbands – anything that can help you illustrate your ideas. Envision them. The energy in the room is on top.

Later the same day we meet John Newbigin, Chair of Creative England, and of many things from his background the Political Advisor designing the work on creative industries in UK.

A few lessons from his experience was the following:

1) It’s all about sharing, and it’s amazing what you can achieve if you are not interested in taking credit for it.

2) There are moments in leadership where new ideas are put forward that no-one knows what they will lead to. To get people on board you might have to ”bullshit” a little. Do it with brilliance. Everyone knows how it works. If you are wrong, you can work that out later.

3) Don’t underestimate the formal meetings even in an informal setting. We sometimes assume people we work with know more than they actually do. Be careful. It’s better to say things twice than not say it at all. It shows openness.

4) Chairing meetings is an important task. Create an opportunity for people to speak their mind. Listen even if you are loosing the argument. Shared knowledge gives better results.

The meeting was held at the Hub Westminister, in itself an interesting place for developing ideas around social entrepreneurship.

The Encatc 19th Annual Conference in Helsinki was focusing on the future this year.

”A wind of change is blowing over our societies and reshaping our political, social and cultural paradigms. Increased urbanization, uneven social redistribution, a digital shift and an array of new audiences accessible mainly with the use of new technological tools – these are motors of change which provide as many challenges as they do opportunities.”

In a mix of key note speakers such as Saara L. Tallas, IKEA Professor in Business Studies in School of Business and Design, Linnaeus University (Sweden); Katri Halonen, acting head of degree program in Cultural management at Metropolia University of Applied Sciences; and Lidia Varbanonva, consultant, researcher and lecturer was mixed with intense group discussions on different topics. Encatc thematic areas had workshops within their specific themes as well as room for young researchers and research presentations.

Although the financial crisis hovered above like an evil cloud, optimistic thoughts were exchanged on the future of culture and its possibilities.

Read more of the conference here.

Steve Jobs giving a speech at Stanford University on June 12, 2005, on his life lessons. Three stories from his life; the story of connecting the dots, love and loss, and about death.

On the second conference on the course Cultural Entrepreneurship Workshop (Knep) three guest lecturers with very different approach held seminars in the old barn, now a conference venue, restaurant and brewery of local beer.

Placed in the fields about two hours drive from Göteborg around twentyfive artists gathered this beautiful autumn day to listen to the perfect combo.

David Hansson and Thomas Hansy who form Gothenburg Combo and make a living on their acoustic guitars told their story from Music Academy to international touring.

Ulla-Lisa Thordén wrote the book Luspank och Idérik (Broke but full of ideas, my translation) and gave a talk on how to sell and communicate your art to others.

Claes Bohman, who, among many other things, have been part of the team starting Transit, the incubator that was connected to University College of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm, was giving a speach on the process from idea to the audience or customer.

During this combination of lecturers and storytellers two thing were significant: The importance of quality, artistic quality, in the work; and working on different levels of understanding. David Hansson and Thomas Hansy want to reach both the ”amateur” audience as well as other professionals. To do that they need to work on different levels in their music.

Read more here.

Each year in the beginning of September everyone working at Nätverkstan gather to have a two-days meeting, drawing up the lines for the coming year. It can be to discuss future issues or particular questions we need more time to dig into. We have a look at the present situation, projects going on, and who is doing what, as well as just having time to talk and getting to know each other.

This year we went to Flatön, an island along the coast, to Handelsman Flink, a cute guest house just by the sea. We started of with a rattling exciting walking quiz competition and activities such as tandem-biking, crab-fishing, and knitting an art piece. Then into issues like Nätverkstan Gender Policy, present situation, and future projects 2012. Great fun with a fantastic group of people!

Tonights highlight. A warm summer-evening working with artists on the Art of living on Art in the small town of Uddebo.

Nätverkstan is running a European Social Fund project on art and entrepreneurship, Knep. The courses are run at four different places around the region of Västra Götaland, from large cities to small. Read also here.

On Saturday the 20:th of august Carl Forsberg and Olav Fumarola Unsgaard had a public talk at the city festival of Malmö. The topic was about digital publishing. Our analysis is that we are entering a more complex ecosystem of texts. The traditional printed media is going to be complemented by at least four different types of digital texts:

• The digital book (today usually an E-pug file read in an E-reader)

• The text as an pdf-file

• Texts on the internet (homepages and blogs at the www)

• Applications (small programs read on a smartphone or a tablet computer)

Nätverkstans aim is to help, guide and provide the Swedish journals with guidance and solutions for this complex ecosystem of texts. Our latest project is to develop an iPhone application for the journal Ord&Bild. It is now available for downloading at Apples iTune store: http://itunes.apple.com/se/app/tidskriften-ord-bild/id447773438?mt=8.

The aim of creating this application is that the journals need an application based on their needs and economical conditions. Programming an application is still quite costly and no single Swedish cultural journal has the budget doing it themselves. Our idea is that Nätverkstan can lower the cost for the journals by doing a great part of the development work (if you are interested, please contact: support@samladeskrifter.se). The event was visited by 40 persons with quite different knowledge of digital publishing. Some where publishers and some saw an iPad for the first time.

Nätverkstans other work at the festival was mainly concerned about promotion of the different journals. We where present at the café Cacaofoni and at St Petri.

Text: Olav Fumarola Unsgaard

Photo: Helena Persson

On Monday the project, Knep, a cultural entrepreneurship workshop for artists, started around the region of Västra Götaland.

The workshop is a series of six evening-meetings, of these two full-day conferences, the content covers everything from how to live on your art, visions, where you are now, to marketing, budget and other useful things. We will go from practical work to an overview of the discussion on cultural entrepreneurship in Europe. The aim is for each participant to develop their entrepreneurial thinking.

We are holding workshops at four places in the region of Västra Götaland at the same time. It’s important, we find, to go to where people live and work, not only, to stay in the large cities (which in this region is Göteborg). All participants from the four different corners of the region will meet at the conferences, a way to enlarge your network and meet others.

Even in a small region of 1,5 million people networking is difficult and often an obstacle. Yet so important in an artistic work which often means lonely work in your studio.

The project is run by Nätverkstan and funded by The European Social Fund.

Photos: Sara Vogel–Rödin.

Ever since the present Swedish Minister of Culture got her position, the discussion has gone warm on corporate sponsorship as an important source of income in cultural life. The newly formed grant organization Kulturbryggan has to find half of its budget in sponsorship and new tickboxes has been put into application forms where the applicant for state money need to state if they have sponsor-money.

But feelings are not mutual. The interest from the corporate world in sponsoring culture is limited.

The daily Svenska Dagbladet was curious of this un-willing attitude from business life, represented by the organization Svenskt Näringsliv (Confederation of Swedish Enterprise), and asked well-known financer Anders Wall of why (15 February 2011). Himself, he has a great interest in art and culture, but his colleagues in the Confederation seem not to share this faiblesse.

He answered that we need to do two things: Raise the interest of art and culture within the business field, and, make evident for people who sponsor what they get in return. A wide spread conclusion has been that people within culture need to better communicate their message and outcomes, something that has lead to innumerable amount of courses in how to market one-self as an artist and become a better salesperson.

Capacity-building courses is something good and should be provided for, but is it the single answer to lack of sponsorship?

The other week we got the answer from Svenskt Näringsliv it-self. A new report was published on Konsten att strula till ett liv. Om ungdomars irrvägar mellan skola och arbete (July 2011) (The art of messing up a life. On youth’s wandering between school and employment, my translation).

The report is a study of the costs for society when students finish higher education late in life and chooses to study educations not guaranteeing employment after examination. Studying art and humanities is in this arguing a complete waste of time (and cost for society are high), while studying law and technique is the future.

This leads the authors to the conclusion that educations with a low economic return such as humanities and art should get reduced study-loan possibilities by lowering the grant-part of the loan (and the other way around; raising the grant-part of the loan for educations with high economic return such as law and technique).

“Hobby-courses” like “Harry Potter and his world” not leading to employment should get reduced support.

It seems to have escaped the authors that for example Harry Potter often is used as an example of the positive effects that J K Rowling’s books have had on economy and employment. As Journalist Per Svensson notes in his comment on the same report in Svenska Dagbladet (June 30 2011), the Economist had a long article already in 2009 on the importance of Harry Potter and that few could measure with author J K Rowling when it came to creating jobs and well-being in society.

There is something to be learnt from the Harry Potter example and others of the same completely ignored in the report. Also the question: How will new jobs be created? When the first Iphone was launched on January 9, 2007, an instant new job was created: the design and production of applications. Now, fours years later, people live on making apps.

Another fact is that within art and culture there has never been many full-time jobs around. Instead many start their own enterprise working as entrepreneurs. Measuring art and culture in employment and well-defined career-paths after education is misleading.

With this report, Svenskt Näringsliv gave the answer to why the interest of sponsoring culture is so mild. There is a complete lack of knowledge and interest in humanities, art and culture represented by the organization.

This call for a very evident need: Bring in humanities, art and culture as compulsory subjects in all University educations in Sweden.

Read the report here (Swedish): konsten_att_strula_t_27628a.

With a first-quarter GDP in US showing an increase of only 1.8 percent (less than expected 3 percent), declining housing prices, less consumption, an unemployment rate on 9.1 percent (in May only 54.000 new jobs were created), Rana Foroohar argues in Time (June 20 2011) it is time to kill the five most destructive myths of the US Economy:

1) This is a temporary blip, and then it’s full steam ahead

2) We can buy our way out of all this

3) The private sector will make it all better

4) We’ll pack up and move for new jobs

5) Entrepreneurs are the foundation of the economy

Both Republicans and Democrats are pursuing these myths of how the economy will recover, she writes. Instead a different path of growth has to be established rather than continue to believe in these five points.

Under the last myth the point is made that a good system of technical colleges are needed which will require a ”frank conversation” about the four-year liberal arts degree that may well leave the graduates overleveraged and underemployed.

A few thoughts come to mind.

The cultural field is highly entrepreneurial, cultural practitioners are entrepreneurs. In Europe many believe that it is in the creative industries where new jobs will be created. Maybe it is a bit hopeful; the sector is still a comparably small field. But it is growing.

If you read formal reports on unemployment rate within the art field, it does look depressing. But these figures need always to be read and analyzed together with other formal reports from other areas. Many studies show figures pointing at the cultural field as a growing field. Not in comparison with the large car industries as we use to know them, or perhaps the telecom industry. Yet important. The easy conclusion is that artists are over-represented in society. But reports and statistics are pointing in opposing directions (read more here).

Reading another report by the well-known Italian economist Pier Luigi Sacco, another interesting association is put forward to bear in mind. He puts two ranking tables next to each other: One ranking innovation in EU15 countries (2008) and one ranking Active Artistic Participation (EU15 2007).

And he notes:

”It is interesting to notice that the association is established between innovative capacity at the country level and active cultural participation at the same level. This is of course a preliminary piece of evidence, but it seems to suggests that the mechanisms discussed above seem to mirror into data more clearly than one could expect.”

It looks as if active participation in art has a correlation with the innovative capacity of a country. If this is right, we need a large flow of well-educated and professional artists from liberal arts Universities as well as easy access to practice art from a young age. Specifically, that is, if a country wants to ensure high innovation capacity.

Download Pier Luigi Sacco’s report here: pl-sacco-culture-3-0-ccis-local-and-regional-development-2.pdf.

According to data creative industries in Kenya hold five percent of GDP, Joy Mboya at GoDown Arts Centre tells us. Which is more than fishing, for example, which traditionally has been one of the important income streams in Kenya.

The GoDown Arts Centre took an initiative in 2009 to start a discussion on creative economy and creative industries in East Africa and has arranged conferences on the theme and initiated workshops for artists on cultural entrepreneurship in cooperation with Sian Prime at Goldsmiths University in UK and Nätverkstan.

To build a strong and sustainable cultural scene in Kenya and East Africa, there is a need to expand the amount of well-educated and in the cultural field established people that can run organizations, take initiatives, catalyze new ideas and develop opportunities.

Two needs have been identified by the GoDown: 1) Short-term capacity-building programmes for cultural entrepreneurs should be available on a consistent basis and 2) A one- or two-year capacity-building program for East Africa for upcoming and younger people getting into the field but with the need of getting more knowledge on project management, entrepreneurial skills and so forth.

This called for an invitation to gather educators and teachers from University and Polytechnics as well as artists and cultural practitioners to gather and together look at how this could be drawn up.

The two and half days workshop ended with a well thought through outline of content, time, assessment, pedagogical approaches, who the students will be and competencies for teachers and facilitators. But it also raised interesting (and challenging) questions.

How do you build relevant assessment in an education like this?

The program should be both addressing cultural practitioners and entrepreneurs within all art forms as well as young people with ambitions to work in the field – what challenges will that mean for the education?

What are the specific competencies needed of teachers and facilitators for a program like this?

It should be possible for multi-entry and multi-exit in the programme – how do you create a programme with high flexibility and openness and yet with accredited courses and of high quality and content recognized by the educational system?

The workshop was funded by the Swedish Institute. Read more about Kenya here.

The GoDown Arts Centre is an interesting place with an interesting story behind it. Everytime I come to Nairobi, I realize how true this is.

The art centre is placed in the Industrial Area in Nairobi, an area as the name tells mainly used for industry and car workshop complexes. The initiators found this U-shaped area around a warehouse in the middle, a godown, with a total area of around 6000 square metres. Today you find this space being turned into studios for visual artists, home for music companies, dance companies, meeting place for artists, Nairobits, all in a combination of art, culture and social activities. Many of the artists pursue both their own career, and build training and development for non-privileged children.

The GoDown Arts Centre wanted to become a presenting house, but realized soon that the artists themselves did this. They ran their own organization and presented their work, it was not necessary for the GoDown as a centre to do this. So they became more and more producers, providing training and possibilities. In 2009 they started the work on creative economy and what this could mean for cultural entrepreneurs.

When they first started around 2003 they visited other cultural houses to get ideas. They got advice along the way such as:

”Don’t over-renovate. Keep the space simple and flexible”

”Do not fall into the trap of running a building”

A main question they are working with is how do you give capacity to the art field?  They also found a lack of data and research in this field, there were no reliable data of the cultural field. They have come to work with a wide variety of projects and workshops and have also shaped capacity-building for entrepreneurs.

This led to another question: How could they have a one- or two-year program, an accredited program for cultural entrepreneurs, producers and others in the field? How do you begin to build such a program.

A starting work has been done together with Nätverkstan and Sian Prime from ICCE at the Goldsmiths University. During two days we are now working with a group of trainers, educators, practitioners in Nairobi to come closer to a Capacity-Building Programme for East Africa.

See more posts on The GoDown Arts Centre and Nätverkstan’s work in Kenya here.