Posts with tag Artist

Jan Inge Reilstad was together with artist Jörgen Svensson curating the art project Neighbourhood secrets during Stavanger European Capital of Culture in 2008. In the project eight artists from different parts of the world were invited to be in dialogue with Stavanger and Sandnes over a period of twenty months. The results were eight very different art projects as intervention in public space and part of city development.

Using art in city development raises questions of the role of the artist. What is your role as an artist? Can the result of a social process be called art? Jeanne Van Heeswijk, one of the artists in the project, was matched to work with Stavanger Hospital. They did a TV-soap, directed and performed by the staff at the hospital. The artist’s role was mainly to role the wheel chairs, taking care of ad hoc practical matters.

Nicholas Bourriaud puts forward in his essay Ustabile Forbindelser (Unstable Relations) in the book describing the Stavanger projects, a change in this relational and social art. A change that was set to the specific date 9/11. After the attack on the twin towers, he reasons that the art went from relational to more radical.

Within the EU, the discussions are going warm on how to make cities and regions more creative. In the Green Paper on the potential of the cultural and creative industries put forward this spring, ideas and incentives are put forward on how to do. One suggestion is: Read this book.

“Nabologashemmeligheter. Kunsten som byprosess ” (forlagetpress.no), edited by Jan Inge Reilstad. Look into Koro, Public Art in Norway. And for more ideas on city development and art look here.

At the Summer Academy “The Art of living on Art” starting on June 14 eleven participants from fields of music, film and visual art gathered to develop their future ideas and what steps to take to find ways to live on their art. The Academy is an initiative started by Academy of Music and Drama in Göteborg together with Nätverkstan, this year involving teachers from the all different artistic faculties.

Workshops are combined with lectures and examples of artists finding their way to live on what they do. One of the latter is the amazing guitar duo Gothenburg Combo. David Hansson and Thomas Hansy met during at the Academy of Music and Drama in Göteborg where they studied classical music, started up a band and is now touring the world playing acoustic guitar – one of the hardest instruments to try to make a career of, we are told.

They started during the education by setting up scheduled jams every Friday. No excuses were allowed to skip these sessions. No matter how you felt, if a nail was broken (they use their nails when playing), family reasons or whatsoever were reasons enough to cancel a session. You showed up and delivered something. The thought was simple: In working life you have to deliver. This was a good schooling into what that means.

They say that there is no miracle formula to reach success. It’s about delivering the best you can at every session. To work hard. Traditional marketing has not worked, they found, it’s difficult to plan and do a market strategy. Instead other things has shown important, such as networking and always work on reaching high artistic quality. A collection of many small steps in a mixture has been a way to work and, it showed a way to success. A mixture of sending material to possible partners and concert arrangers and playing at large and small concerts around the world. One example of how they work is on the tours around the world where their motto is to always come prepared, so they do not, like many other artists, have sit and practice in the hotel room into the last minute before the concert. They use the time to network, meet possible new contacts, jam with other artists for inspiration or just connecting with other musicians.

“It’s all or nothing.”

“We have created an urge for our music.”

The Summer Academy “The Art of living on Art” is a ten week university course for professionals within the artistic professions. Read more here.

The incubator Centre Dansaert Centrum, Creative Business Centre, is placed in the central Flemish part of Brussels that has become very hip and popular. A few years ago the area was run down and a place many avoided. And we know the story.

Artists moved in, gradually the status of the area grew. Today it has been renovated with apartments and shopping area. It has kept the small-scale feeling and in every corner and street you find them; the energetic people designing clothes, selling craft, running second hand stores, hat designers, architects, coffee shops and others.

For Centre Dansaert Centrum it was an attractive place to have an incubator. It’s an attractive spot, but too expensive for newly started initiatives. In the old storage building with origins back to 1870s, offices and space were created to host small and newly started companies. Today they have around fifty entrepreneurs in the building.

To get a place you introduce your project or idea to Fabien Lambert. You apply on an already existing idea or project. You pay one set amount per month and everything is included: Rent, advice and support on business plan and development, electricity and other related costs. There are eight incubators in the region, financed publicly by Ville de Bruxelles and Region Bruxelles-Capitale and of course the competition between the incubators and funding is there.

Two enthusiastic entrepreneurs and one gallerist meet us; one musician running the music company Cypres; one of the owners, Benoît Vancauwenbergh, of a fairly new communication agency 6+1; and the man behind the small gallery specialized on African artists, Nomad Gallery.

The visit was part of a joint meeting between Eurocities and Encatc in Brussels 1-2 of June 2010. Read about other incubators under the category “Incubators” on this site.

Wagner is said to have stated that if everything is destroyed, the nation clinging on to art will survive. A nation ignoring it’s art ends being a nation.

Arvind Lodaya’s thoughts of cultural innovation and democratizing culture seem to begin with the same standing point. Culture, art, innovation is done in everyday life among ordinary people – i e all of us. Without the social capital – all those things that count for most in the daily lives of people (to use one of the definitions put forward) – we will be poorer. And we seemed to have lost track of this.

Civil society is mentioned in every policy document now-a-days, from local, regional, and state level in Sweden to EU. We have to cooperate with civil society, we are told. Definitions vary and no-one seem to fully understand what it means. Another fact is that policy documents rarely reach ordinary people, Arvind Lodaya argues. “Temples of Culture” are built and nurtured; artistic and cultural institutions whose existence only gather a few initiated and seem to exclude others. It’s dilemma not only of policy makers and politicians who put a lot of money into sustaining our cultural institutions. It’s something  also pursued by artists themselves, artistic universities, and cultural and art organizations.

Cultural Innovation is about art and culture found in our ordinary lives, is the message of Arvind Lodaya. This is where the driving force for cultural change takes form. The Indian context where he takes his staning point is also like a melting pot of cultures, languages, and people. Small-scale cultural entrepreneurs are found in every corner in the urban India; tailors, fabric producers, crafts, design, game, IT-experts, writers and so forth. In Europe cultural entrepreneurs are also small-scale, although working in a different fashion and structure. It’s in this small-scale environment innovation and new ideas start growing. How can cultural institutions facilitate everyday cultural innovation and what does the interface between an institution and social capital look like? What could policy makers do to support innovation within culture?

Arvind Lodaya’s answer is clear: Innovation needs to be nurtured rather than strangled. One way is to stop reducing people to only being customers and from policy level regarding them as much more complex than this.

See the slideshow of Arvind Lodaya here. A film of the seminar will be available on Internet soon. The seminar was held in cooperation between School of Design and Crafts, University of Gothenburg, Region Västra Götaland, Encatc and Nätverkstan on May 24 2010. More on Arvind Lodaya can be found here and under cateogory “India” on this site.

It’s always wonderful when those cultural servants, who have been working and struggling in the field for a long time, and with their work has contributed significantly to the artistic scene, are put forward. This happend yesterday when Margareta Orreblad was given the Dynamo Award by the Swedish Arts Grant Committee in the hall of Museum of Fine Arts in Göteborg.

Margareta Orreblad is a real entrepreneur, starting her small gallery Mors Mössa (Mother’s hat) around forty years ago. She is a real champion of visual art, her drive is art that engages, and in the small gallery in central town of Göteborg, any forms can be exhibited. She sets no limits concerning material, technique, angles or expression. The only limit is that an artist can only be shown once. In forty years, it has been a long list of interesting art.

Many artists witness her energy and endurance in visual arts and what role Mors Mössa has played in the artistic career. It’s a small place, just tiny, but yet so influential.

Another buzzword in Europe is “Innovation”. A word making the eyes of policy makers, economists and others shine with expectation. Last year in Europe was dedicated to the year of Creativity and Innovation and the creativity around how to get the attention from the EU Commission was interesting to follow.

As was said on the Forum of Cultural Industries in Barcelona recently, cultural and creative industries are still high on the priority list among cultural ministers in Europe. And with this also the question of how you could foster creativity and innovation within art and culture.  KEA European Affairs was commissioned last year by EU to do a study showing with facts how culture in itself had an impact on creativity.  Interesting, but is culture and art necessary always creative? And for the concept of innovation we are often stuck with the classical understanding of the word; as an invention you get patented, often found within medicine and technique. Structures are built to support and foster creative ideas within these fields, often together with technical Universities.

How does that apply on cultural products and artistic expressions? Very few of these can be patented. What would be innovation in a cultural and artistic context? What is cultural innovation? Where is the driving force for (cultural) change in society? How does cultural innovation happen?

On a meeting last week with one of the finance and support structures for SME’s put up by the Swedish state, two things were evident. They had never given finance support to cultural entrepreneurs as they could remember, and on a discussion on innovative ideas, art and culture was not on the agenda.

In May and June, Region Västra Götaland will host Arvind Lodaya, Senior Faculty and Dean, Research at Sristhi School of Art, Design and Tecnology, and an artist from Bangalore (India) as a visiting Professor. His working place will be Nätverkstan and his main focus is cultural innovation. Two seminars will be held in Göteborg to explore the topic together with participants.

Download the invitation here: Cultural_Innovation.pdf . You can also download a discussion paper by Mr Arvind Lodaya here: arvindlodaya_discussionnote.pdf. More can be read of Arvind Lodaya and Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology here. and here The residence is part of the programme Linking Initiatives, a cooperation between the state of Karnataka and Region Västra Götaland.

Did you know that in India hand movements are an important part of traditional and contemporary dance, expressing abstractions giving another dimension or parallel understanding to a story or performance? In European dance-tradition feet and foot movement have a central part, we are told. In a dance studio on Oskarsgatan in Göteborg today, dancers and choreographers from Bangalore (India) met professionals from Göteborg (Sweden) in a three-hour workshop. After warming up; experimenting with movements, traditions, experiences took place and ended in a twenty-minute lunch performance for invited guests.

The Bangalore-based Centre for Movement Arts, Attakkalari, is in West Sweden for a tour visit, and started with a full-length performance of Chronotopia at Vara Concert Hall. This was followed by a seminar on their research project and short performances of the choreographers and dancers at Museum of World Cultures in Göteborg. Then workshops with young dancers in Vara, with theatre students at the School of Music and Drama. And now they met with professional dancers and choreographers from Dansbyrån, a production platform for dance based in Göteborg run by the three choreographers Moa Matilda Sahlin, Marika Hedemyr, and Paula de Hollanda.

The idea of a Young Choreographers Platform where choreographers and dancers meet to work and build something together is an integral part of the work at Attakkalari in an ambition to continuously explore and experiment with movements and expression. A sort of lab of movements easily set up with dancers and choreographers from any part of the world if you just have a studio to work in. As Jay Palazhy, Artistic Director at Attakkalari once put it: “The beauty of collaboration is that it’s not about rationalizing. You don’t have to speak so much, just do it”.

The visit of Attakkalari is part of the agreement “Linking Initiatives” between the region of Karnataka and Region Västra Götaland. Read former posts of the exchange project under India on this site.

Surrounded by many of the larger banks in the financial district in London, you find the new non-profit contemporary Art exhibition centre Raven Row. It’s quite anonymous; you easily walk by the low building with the white front, but finding it is rewarding. While the banks and financiers are busy dealing with the recession and building trust, the current exhibition at Raven Row is dealing with other processes in society; the disobedience, subversive cultural ideas, the Art that is often on the edge of what is accepted by society.

“A history of irritated material” is curated by Danish curator Lars Bang Larsen, who explains the title as referring to the relation between Art, and social and psychological reality. Video clips of protest marches, freedom fighters, witness stories, and trials are shown in a set of TVs, works of the New York based Group Material is exhibited together with Artists like Swedish Sture Johannesson. His famous poster from 1968 of the naked woman with a hash-pipe in her hand (Hash Girl) is significant for the exhibition. The poster was done for Lund Art Exhibition Hall (Southern Sweden), but the exhibition was never shown. It was accused of being drug romantic and Sture Johannesson himself stole his controversial posters that made politicians see red from the exhibition hall. The Director at the time, Folke Edwards, was accused of being sex and drug romantic just by showing this work of the well-known Artist. It all ended with the Director leaving his job just after a short time on the post.

Perhaps less subversive, but definitely not mainstream were two concerts at Union Chapel the previous night. Two Swedish bands played in the church, built in 1876 to 1877, from 1991 used as a venue for cultural events (combined with worship, baptism, weddings). The two-people-band The Tiny, and then First Aid Kit, two young women of 17 and 19 years old, inspired by the hippie and country movement of the 70s combined with new sound. Both wonderful bands that manage to form Artistic talent into their own music, their own thing. Funny we have to go to London to see them.

A walk by Tate Modern also leaves traces. The Polish contemporary Artist Miroslaw Balka and his piece “How it is” is both overwhelming and scary. The work is a gigantic container placed in the big open hall at Tate. Walking around the container you feel small, yes, tiny, and in one short-end you enter at a large ramp and walk towards the darkness inside. A chill along the spine as scary film-clips of Holocaust where people in masses walked in to uncertainty come to mind, yet when we are walking we are safe. We know that, but still…What will we meet inside? The exhibition keeps itching and irritating the mind the rest of the day.

And among these visits, we do study visits to discuss social entrepreneurship with Ian Baker at School for Social Entrepreneurs, cultural leadership with Venu Dhupa and Nicola Turner, and the development of the workshop “The Art of living of Art” together with Sian Prime.

Read this text by Lars Bang Larsen on social liability. Some links in relation to School for Social Entrepreneurs are found here, here and for reports and evaluations here. Most photos are taken by Helena Persson, a few with Iphone.

News channel Ekot, Swedish Radio, presented new facts of sexual harassment in the theatre-world last week. The radio sent 1600 questions to people within performing Arts in Sweden about their working situation. Among actresses, 45,5% – half of all women asked – answered that they had been exposed to sexual harassment; of the male actors 10,8%. Horrifying figures (look at the statistics here). The debate is running warm. But it’s not that it is a new issue.

Already in 2006, a State Committee was looking into the gender and equality situation within performing Arts in Sweden. They presented a report, Plats på Scen (SOU 2006:42), showing serious deficiencies in equality at the performing Arts institutions, urging for more intensified equality regulations at all decision making levels, from state authorities to every institution.You wonder what happened? Did the institutions follow the regulations? Or is it the connection with reality that is missing, regulations always risking to only become a paper product if not taken seriously?

The two New York-based Artists Sharon Hayes and Andrea Geyer question gender and equality in an exhibition now showing at Konsthallen in Göteborg. Like when Andrea Geyer is doing her one-person demonstrations, in one of them carrying a sign with “I am a man” written. The meanings in the signs are referring to situations in the past, where this quote was picked from an afro-American demonstration in the 60s, where “man” referred only to “human”. In it’s simplicity, an effective way to question who has power in society. There is a lot still to be done when it comes to the complex equality question.

Download Plats på Scen here: 4e61f43d.pdf .

Archana Prasad, an Artist in Bangalore, has been extremely active the last year. It started about a year ago when she was having her first single exhibition in Bangalore and confronted the lack of Art spaces. There was no good Art space around at a decent price. She had her exhibition, but out of the experience grew a drive to find solutions.

So she started, together with colleague-Artists, a series of initiatives. Jagaa, described in the former post, was one of them. What if you could build a movable Art space and use empty spaces in town to temporarily put it up? The solution was one architect with a piece of land and a construction-site solution of an open gallery. The construction fits into one container when taken down into pieces and takes about a day to put up.

Together with a collective of Artists, she started another gallery, Samuha, where they shared a space to put up exhibitions. Just recently the Artist Raghavendra Rao had an exhibition called “Between Yes and No”, where poetry met performance and movement. Archana is also releasing a web-based journal starting next week, Art and the City, where the Art scene in different Indian cities will be analyzed.

Another interesting space is 1 Shanti Road, an Artist led initiative that is a venue for exhibitions, seminars, debate, space and incubator of experimentation of contemporary Art.

At 18.30 Bangalore time, people from three different places in the world; Göteborg, New Dehli and Bangalore, opened a communication with each other. Through shouting into a well.

Mandana Mogghadam, based in Sweden is the Artist behind the project. If you shout down to a well it echoes and sounds like you get a respond. What if someone was on the other side hearing your shouting and responded? What if we could communicate through the soil to the other side? The idea is fantastic and also reminds me of the tail as a child in Sweden that was said when digging in the ground. If you dig long enough you come to China.

In Bangalore the well was built by local expertize at the Jaaga. The gallery is in itself an interesting story. It’s built as a construction-site, open-air, with recycled billboards as walls. The grounds are lent to the Artists running it by the Archtitect V Naresh Narasimham who runs an architect firm near by and owns the land.

At the end of the evening a group of people from the native tribe Adivasis, situated in the central parts of India. They live in poverty and face two different threats, one being they are constantly abused by other groups and don’t get the justice they have a right to, secondly by governement who is trying to solve a growing middle class in India by taken on traditionally farming and forrest land. The performance was part of a round-trip to engage people from all over India in their fight. An interesting mix of Art, global communication, social practice and activism at an open gallery for anyone to drop in to.

The visit is part of the exchange between Karnataka, India, and Region Västra Götaland, Sweden that started in 2007.

“There is something furiously wrong with the University!”

On the seminar “Education in Cinema: a framework for studies and skills training” in Bangalore on the fourth of December, cinema and film education was debated. There is a need for film education with a holistic and artistic point of view, not only the handicraft on how to handle technical equipment, one statement was. On the other: Why make a dichotomy between commercial films and non-commercial? Is one more valuable than the other? And finally:

The Film Academy had invited in association with Centre for Film and Drama, and the showcase was the Film School of Directing at the Göteborg University. A unique example of film directing education also in Sweden, and it has been very successful. The audience, with representatives from film society in Bangalore, University,  animation, film associations and filmmakers, agreed  that there is a need for an education similar to the one in Göteborg. The debate was rather on who should take this initiative and why on earth has the University not taken it already? It’s their job to provide good education with different content, but they haven’t done anything so far? Prakash Belawadi, well-known filmmaker and theatre person in Bangalore, is straight forward in his opinion and with persistent states the above quote.

There is a balance between creativity and academy, is the experience from the Artistic faculty in Göteborg. A balance that is difficult sometimes and the only way to deal with it are to guarantee Artistic quality and always keep close contact to the Artistic practice. Not so easy, when you simply get caught up in the structures of the academy as a headmaster or lecturer. As the old saying that you suddenly defend the structure you were opposing once you work within it. It’s difficult to stay oppositional or even critical within the system.

The visit is part of the exchange between Karnataka, India, and Region Västra Götaland, Sweden that started in 2007.

Vienna-based Artist Oliver Ressler just released a video-installation exploring the question: “What is Democracy?”. Well, it’s actually not the (one) question, but two, he states on his website. One is focussed on how the parliamentary respresentative democracy and the conditions around, the other is encircling other options. What would a more democratic system look like? Artists and activists representing eighteen cities around the world have been interviewed since 2007, everything recorded on video.

The installation consists of eight videos: 1) “Rethinking representation” (16 min.), 2) “Politics of exclusions” (23 min.), 3) “Secrecy instead of democratic transparency” (13 min.),  4) “New democracies?” (23 min.), 5) “Is representative democracy a democracy?” (22 min.), 6) “Direct democracy” (22 min.), 7) “Reclaiming Indigenous politics” (18 min.) and 8) “Should we consign the Western democracy model to the ash heap of history?” (13 min.). The installation has been launched, and started of in Berlin. At the moment it can be seen at the Biennalie de Lyon.

Four conference days filled with seminars, working group meetings, worksops, study visits and meetings in Barcelona just took place at the Encatc Annual Conference.

During the talk between Isabelle Schwartz from European Cultural Foundation, Angels Margarit from Angels Margarit Dance Company, and Angel Meastres from Transit the role of cultural managers were tossed and turned. What is the role of cultural managers? Is it only a role mainly having Artistic production on one side and management on the other? On other point put forward was that of representation within the EU-institutions and funding. The Artistic point of view is not put forward in an organized form, since the organization among Artists is quite week. The publishing house, recording companies, film industry are represented and have organisations that lobby for their interest, but not the Artists. That is more on individual level. There is an interesting balance between framework and independence, something Angel Meastres put forward, and where is the cultural manager? They are mainly emphasizing ideas and how to find money, not society and building infrastructre. Something to consider in educational programmes around Europe.

A visit at Can Xalant showed an Artistic collective, Transit, running residency-programmes, workshops and exhibitions. An old farming house, owned by the municipality, now embedded and surrounded by larger companies and industries. Their deal was quite unusual. The municipality set up a competetion to find who would get the possibility to run the building. Artistic groups sent in their proposals of activities and ideas. Transit won and had now built an infrastructure, programmes, activities and resiencies. Now it’s time to apply again, with a new application. Their time run out in December, and they will get the decision…in December. January 1 they are supposed to continue with programming if they get money, if not, they are supposed to leave the house with everything in it. Either step on the gas pedal or brake.

So, how do you plan a serious and sustainable organization under those conditions?

For the conference programme, look here. Nätverkstan took part in two presentations: 1) the working group meeting “Creative Entrepreneurship and Education in Cultural Life”, download the pdf here: encatcwg_barcelona-oct09. , and 2) the dialogue on “How to detect creativity potentials in the digital environment” together with Jordi Sellas i Ferrés at, among other things, RBA Audovisual. Download the presentation here: encatc09-presentation-oct-09_2.

At the exhibition hall Tensta Konsthall outside of Stockholm, the Australian Artist Tracey Moffatt is showing her series “First Jobs” (2008).

It’s about those first jobs you have as a youngster, on your way out in life. As peeling pineapples, scrubbing floors, washing dishes, car parking…Now she is working as an Artist, which she describes as being “jittery holiday”. You can get up when you want in the morning. But it’s also lonely. As she says: “You have to come up with ideas and make them happen. No-one else is going to do it for you”. On the Tensta Konsthall website you can read how she describes “First Jobs”, but perhaps more it gives a perspective on working life of an Artist.

Here she talks about another exhibition she was part of:  “Burning down the House: Building Feminist Art Collection” showed at Brooklyn Museum in New Your this spring.

We get to see a beautiful piece by choreographer Matthew Ondiege and his four dancers, a dance shifting in pace from fast to slow, from harmony to stress and internal conflicts. He is also working with the group Uwezo Mix Dance Theatre that bring together disabled dancers with other dancers to form contemporary dance pieces.

Visual Artist Mary Ogembo tells us an amazing story of how Art can be sold. A chinese person came across her paintings over Internet, I think it was, and contacted Mary to see if she could buy some. But since Mary is in Kenya, and the buyer was across oceans and countries, this was a bit difficult. And how should Mary verify that she was Mary? So she contacted different trustworthy people running organizations, Art exhibition halls and so forth so that the buyer could get references. An embassy official came to visit her in her studio to see if she existed. And after this process the buyer bought eight paintings, Mary got the money and rolled the eight paintings in packages and sent them across the sea.

Visual Artist Salah Ammar was one of the Artists part of the newly opened exhibition at the Ramoma, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Nairobi. Salah Ammar shows his work, pieces showing that his Artistic career has gone through many different styles. He shows his work with soft and careful hands, and with lots of respect for his viewer. When speaking of his Art his eyes get a spark, you can see that he loves it. He has so much inside, so many colors and ideas that still wants come out, he tells me.

Visual Artist Caro Mbirua shares studio with Salah Ammar and shows a different style of work. She carefully brings out painting after painting with motives hidden in mist, a sort of secrecy surrounding the women in her work. When she describes them, she says “I do beautiful Art”, and we say “you need to be more specific”. But it is really a good word for her work. Beautiful.

And on my bedside table, I have writer Doreen Baingana’s book “Tropical Fish”. An Ugandan writer, twice nominated for the Caine Prize in African Writing now living in Kenya. She wants to start a literary group with writers that can meet on regular basis, discuss literature and support each other in finding new possibilities to live on their writing.

These are just a few of the very talented Kenyan Artists taking part in the workshop “The Art of living on Art” in Nairobi on Sept 7-8, 2009.

I was stunned with what the government official was saying. I had to hear it referred by another person before I believed it.

The workshop days on the topic “The Economy of Creativity” started with a TV-show with well-known actor and journalist John Sibi-Okumu as the presenter. Invited to the panel were celebrities from Kenyan business and creative life. Hip-hop artist Nameless shared panel with business man Manu Chandaria,TV-personality Dan Ndambuki known for his very popular show “Churchill Live”, a representative from the Rugby team, Anders Öhrn from Swedish Institute and the governmental official. It was a talk of the economy of creativity, obstacles and possibilities for creative industries in Kenya, the relation between culture and business life. The governmental official said that a cultural policy is coming and a national endowment for the Arts will be in place, something very welcomed by the Artists in the audience although many afterwards told me that they heard this so many times. And as she talked she was addressing problems in the field, and she explained the problems with something like: “People have an attitude problem” and “this needs to be changed”. People have an attitude problem? A clip will be on youtube soon, so let’s check if she really said this.

After the show, mainly cultural entrepreneurs and some representatives from business life gathered on a one and a half day workshop to discuss how cultural entrepreneurs and investors could empower each other. The thought was that business life needs the creative industries, as well as the other way around. After long and intense discussions and the full commitment of participants acting as investors investing money in cultural projects, it was quite obvious that venture capital and cultural projects and businesses have difficulties finding each other. Investors will not find the opportunities they are looking for in these projects and Artists’ might not be interested in this sort of capital. They just don’t make enough profit to be interesting for the investor and the major drive for the Artists is not profit, but meaning. For a few it might be a way, and for them it would perhaps be interesting to build bridges, but for the majority this is not a solution. It is important, all-the-same, to learn from each other and there are benefits for both business and cultural field to interact more, was a thought from the conference.

On the evaluation after the workshop, a few conclusions were drawn to strengthen the creative industries and the awareness of the same. Maybe not so new, but even more strongly:

1. Strengthen cultural entrepreneurs and professional Artists with management tools and other similar skills. Education, workshops and training is needed.

2. Strengthen the creative field as a sector through better organization and structure.

3. Promote the creative industries and show the potential for other fields. Raise awareness with businesses and investors.

The workshop was funded by Swedish Institute and Strömme Foundation, support from the Swedish Embassy in Nairobi,  in the project “Empowering Creators and Investors” run by Pratik Vithlani in cooperation with GoDown Arts Centre and Nätverkstan. Read more under category “Kenya” on the side on this site.

Expectations were high when we started the workshop on “The Art of living on Art” with visual artists, theatre people, a writer and dancers and choreographers in Nairobi, Kenya. How do I do to be able to do what I like most? How do you as an Artist to balance the business and the artistic side? How do you find ways to sustain your artistic work? How can you find the missing link between production and the market? Open a window to see new things?

We start quite frankly. We don’t have any answers. There are not any quick fixes you can follow that will solve all the obstacles or solve how to live on Art. You have the answers yourself. What we do is putting up the room for reflection and a structured way to reflect and think of where you are, your obstacles, how to get past these, your future ideas, how to deal with changes.

Eleven professionals within the Artistic field gathered to go through this process for two intense days. It’s interesting to see that Artist from different contexts as Sweden, Turkey, Georgia, India and Kenya have so much in common. The obstacles, difficulties and challenges put forward are very much the same, although the contexts are so different.

The workshop in Nairobi was organized by GoDown Art Center in cooperation with Nätverkstan. Read more about “The Art of living on Art” under the catogeory with the same name.

How can Artists and politicians have a better dialogue? How could they better understand each others working conditions? If you put Artists and politicians together in a process – what would come out of it? The region Västra Götaland started the project Art & Politics in 2003. It is run by Jörgen Svensson, a Swedish well-known Artist, the delegates are both politicians and Artists.

The group meets around 2-3 times a year to discuss issues like: How can it become better for Artists to work in Västra Götaland? How can the conditions for Artists improve in this region? How can Artistic quality be measured in a structure that only measures quantity? How can the process become more accepted, and not only the Artistic product? Politicians are in lack of arguments for culture – how do you find qualified arguments for culture in a political structure where econimc arguments are in focus? How can it become possible for Artists to work as Artists?

Yesterday the results from the work of the group was presented for the Cultural Committee in Region Västra Götaland and hopefully some of the suggestions, like the one of starting a studio consultancy in West Sweden together with municipalities, property owners and Artists to resolve one big dilemma for Artists; axess to cheap studios for their Artistic work.

Download the presentation here (in Swedish):konstpolitik_090827. Read more here.

In 1999 Kulturverkstan, the two year Project Management Training Programme within culture started. The idea was to combine theoretical analysis with practical action plans, academic level with practice in the “real world”, studies at Lagerhuset together with internships on organizations in cultural – or other – fields in Sweden or elsewhere. Lecturers from academia combined with festival managers, writers, philosophers, project managers, theatre directors, actors, film makers. And to work with students with all artistic expressions, to be cross-cultural. Thirty-five students each year have been accepted to Kulturverkstan after an extensive application process. Around three hundred students have examined and 85% have gotten jobs or started their own business after education. A number we are proud of.

On Saturday we celebrated Kulturverkstan 10 years with a big party and event at Röda Sten, a cultural house and exhibition hall by the channel in Göteborg. The Artist Lisa Nordström started the evening with her piece 7 States of Passion followed by Islandic writer and poet Andri Snær Magnason who talked about is award winning book “Dreamland – a Self-Help Manual for a Frightened Nation” (2006) and the situation in Island after the financial crisis. Old students showed what they are working with, speeches, food and lots of dancing to the DJ:s captivating music the whole night long. The new cultural price in Göteborg, in memory of our late colleague Lars Lövheim was inaugurated.

A book on Kulturverkstan 10 years will be available soon (in Swedish)!