Posts with tag Cultural Policy

It’s difficult to confirm an exact figure, some show about seven hundreds different cultural journals are produced in Sweden covering areas like Art, society, philosophy, feminism, environment, design, literature and much more. This wide flora of voices in the societal debate has been seen as an asset, even a vital condition, in Swedish debate and democracy. With the journals interest and knowledge in specific areas, and deep analysis combined with reflection, they are often the first to highlight processes, discussions, injustices, trends, and social issues. And the larger newspapers are soon to follow. Not that everything published is liked by everyone, but it’s an important voice, a vital piece in the democratic puzzle.

The situation for these journals is somewhat peculiar. 134 journals sent an application to The Swedish Arts Council last year, 103 printed cultural journals and 16 Internet based got a small state support for production. It’s a support designed to cover loss. Practically this means that to be obliged for this support you must show a minus on your account, an economic loss, each year. Not difficult at all. In fact, hardly any of these small journals have money enough to pay all the people involved. They are produced in a combination of voluntary and professional work. Nevertheless, this has for years held them in a tight economic grip. If you would make a small profit, you loose the support. So, there is no incentive to try to build a strong economy. Finally the Department of Culture is suggesting that this condition of loss is abolished from the support. It’s been quite contradictory in the dialogue with the journals, a new decision would aslo go more in line with the era where state and regional institutions talk about, and often require, external funding such as sponsorship or other solutions.

The Swedish Arts Council has during the last two years been vague as to how and if the production and development support will be changed due to proposed changes from the Government, especially due to changes proposed in last years Culture Bill. And it’s still a big cloud of uncertainty. We are now into the first quarter of an annual year and many, as for instance the Cultural Journal Workshops, don’t know if they will be able to continue their work or not. Plans made and activities have to wait for the decision that has not yet been taken.

A necessary step is distribution. Another area in limbo, where the Swedish Art Council is signaling this should not be of state responsibility anymore. With the small numbers of subscribers and small portion of sold numbers each month, a reality these journals face, they are not the most attractive pieces for a bookshop to keep on the shelves. You can argue for democracy or the important input these make on the debate climate in Sweden. If they don’t bring in money, they will not be put on the bookstore shelves. This suggests for a specific solution for distribution and marketing of small-scale journals, something that has been done. Nätverkstan has since 1998 held a support from the Swedish Art Council, that from 2005 grew to be quite substantial, to build up and offer distribution network, register solutions and marketing. Now the future is uncertain. For Nätverkstan it’s of course sad. It’s a core activity. Over the years a strong distribution network of 387 bookstores, museums, and other retailers around Sweden has been built. For the cultural journals it’s very serious. It will result in very few or no distribution channels. And what for? It can hardly be the money.

The budget post where cultural journals are found in the state budget is called “Culture, media, faiths and leisure” (my translation, in Swedish: budgetområde 17, Kultur, medier, trossamfund och fritid) and was last budget year 10.3 billion. Cultural journals got around 22 millions in production- and development support in 2009, which is 0,2% of the budget post. Distribution support was last year 1,550 million SEK, a disappearing small part of the same post.

Read about the consequences for the Cultural Journals if the distribution line is cut in the report newly published by Nätverkstan: konsekvenserna.pdf.

Read more posts on cultural journals, such as Cultural Journals in Sweden and “Time for culture” • The Swedish Culture Bill or at the debate at the site of Förening för Sveriges kulturtidskrifter (the Association for Swedish Cultural Journals).

The Culture Bill, Tid för Kultur (my translation: Time for Culture) can be downloaded here: a7e858d41.pdf.

The fact that the Cultural scene is complex and consists of multidimensional relations, networks, and processes is nothing new. Most people, from Artists to politicians, agree that getting an overview of this area is more or less impossible. On a theoretical and general level, that is. When it comes to writing policies, discussing development of the field, and the role of creative industries, all seem forgotten. The awareness of the complexity goes down the drain. When it comes to policy the consensus around the Cultural field is overwhelming.

What are the consequences? Misguided and ill-substantiated proposals are formed; that, if really bad can endanger the Cultural life rather than catalyze it’s potential. This was evident not least in the work done by The Committee of Inquiry of Cultural Policy in Sweden, and the report presented by them last February.

David Karlsson, Chair of Nätverkstan, puts the light on this in his new book A Cultural Policy: money, art and politics to be published on February 12. David Karlsson was part of the Secretariat connected to the Committee for one year, after which he left because of bad management. The book is in many ways his respond to what should have been put forward in the report on Cultural policy presented by the Committee. But it’s not only that. It’s the first attempt in later years in Sweden of taking a grip of the whole area of Art and Culture.

The fifteen chapters cover a whole range of areas and processes such as Culture, Economy, Industry, Figures, Democracy, Production, Quality…All areas with it’s own complexity, and put together, even more diverse. Together with very concrete examples of consequences for Cultural policy, he reaches his own thesis (a conclusion of a reasoning in the first part of the book, my translation): “Firstly, every political action directed towards the Cultural field, to have any prospect of leading to results, have to build on an understanding of the complexity of the field. Cultural policy needs to become more complicated to be able to operate less complicated. The second conclusion is that a free and independent Art is an absolute condition for all activity within the cultural economy”. This is one reason why it’s necessary to separate Art from Culture and discuss different policy within the different areas.

One of the other discussions is that of Cultural Production. All Cultural products that can be digitalized will be digitized. These products will be for free (which follows the thought of Chris Anderson in his book Free). Cultural life is torn apart in two areas; one where digital Cultural products goes towards being for free, the other being that productions such as concerts, theatre and dance performances will become more expensive.

Several posts have been written at this site before on the topic of Cultural policy. Look under Swedish Cultural Policy, “Time for Culture”, Culture should mainstream all policy, Art and creative industries, The Creative Industries: Ten years after, and many more.

A stream of people hurries in from the cold through the revolving door. The big staircase in the centre of the Museum of World Cultures is filled to the rim. Everyone sit squeezed together, some stand up in the end of the stairs, others hang around the reeling at the second floor. We are here to listen to the Göteborg-based choir Amanda singing Haitian songs in support of the catastrophe at Haiti.

Culture has the power of gathering people in joy or grief, in hope or disaster. Last week Swedish dailies showed photos of people in Port-au-Prince at Haiti gathering in the streets to sing in an act to find the strength to endure. The event in Göteborg gathered hundreds of people wanting to show their sympathy, solidarity and grief. I wonder at how many places around the world things like this take place right now? Where culture becomes the bridge and channel to get the strength to go on, feel hope, or just mourn.

Downstairs is the last day of the exhibition “Vodou”, the culture and religion based in Haiti, which was brought by African slaves transported to work for the colonial powers. Haiti was the first of former colonized states gaining independence through slave rebellion in 1804. And then run by former slaves. The exhibition shows Vodou to be one of the strong sub cultural forces from which slaves got their collective power to fight their oppressors. Song and music from drums is a strong element in Vodou. In US, the power African Americans got from gospel and spirituals, music in connection with strong religious ideas, played an important role in the change from slavery to civil rights in the late 1800s. At Haiti the Dictators Papa Doc and Baby Doc to run political terror between 1957 and 1986 used the same Vodou.

Song, dance, music. Cultural expressions and collective power. The people leaving the museum after the concert today felt a sense of hope. It was an act of solidarity. In Europe, our Cultural Departments at all levels are working towards a more quantity-based measurement of the results and effects of culture. Results of people’s cultural experiences are to be shown in economic figures. Effects should be formulated in measurable, long-term incentives; they must be quantified. So, how do you measure the effect of this?

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.

Cultural journals have probably never before gotten such media exposure as they have now, thanks to the Cultural Bill presented by the government last week. The Bill propose changes in funding and a new defenition that will severly curtail the number of cultural journals to only include those that write about the Art forms (in difference of today where they include topics like society, critical analysis, feminism etc). Yesterday several of the large dailies in Sweden published a declaration written by heads of cultural pages in the dailies and editors  of cultural journals stating that the state can never dictate the content in a journal and the importance of having a societybased cultural debate in Europe.

In the daily Göteborgs-Posten, the article looked like this. Read also a comment on Newsmill, written by Olav Fumarola Unsgaard (somtimes a writer on this site). Read the former Cultural Minister’s reply here. More articles in Dagens-Nyheter, Aftonbladet, Svenska Daglbadet, Sydsvenska Dagbladet, Göteborgs-Posten, Expressen and Helsingborgs Dagblad. All these in Swedish.

For an English website on journals in Europe look at Eurozine, one of the representatives signing the call. A former post on this topic, you find here and here. And download the following document for information of the production support for journals in Sweden (in SEK): kulturtidskrifter-beviljade-produktionsstod-2009.

Swedish Government recently presented the new Culture Bill with suggestions of changes in the national cultural policy from 2010. The suggestions follows to some extent the work done by The Committee of Inquiry of Cultural Policy and their report presented earlier this year (read more here and here). Some suggestions were expected as the transition of responsibility from the state to the regions, where regions and local politicians are expected to take a larger responsibility of culture in their areas of responsibility. The suggestion has been criticized, mainly with the question of who does then take responsibility for a cultural policy equal for all citizens? The risk is that every region will act differently, some politicians put a lot of money to culture, while others in other regions will put less to Art and culture.

One worrying point in the new Culture Bill is the suggested changes of the support to cultural journals and literature. One of the basis of Swedish democracy is the many voices expressed in the myriad of cultural journals. They concern society, Art, literature, environment, human rights, feminism and all sorts of topics. Some of these get support from the state to secure their publishing, with the argument that many voices are important in society. The changes suggested by the government threaten these journals existence. Not only by cutting funding, but also by the suggestion to change the definition of what can be seen as a “cultural journal” from a more general definition including societal journals to one more specified focusing on the Art forms. Will be interesting to follow.

Many newspapers and journalists have of course reacted of this. Read some of these (in Swedish) in Göteborgs-Posten, Expressen, and for a long list of points made look at Föreningen för Sveriges Kulturtidskrifter (FSK).

In 1871 a big fire destroyed most of Chicago City. Three hundred people died, 100.000 became homeless (total inhabitants at the time was 300.000) and the material damage was devastating. Queen Victoria, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland at the time, felt, say the story, such compassion with the inhabitants of Chicago that she quickly decided to send a large box of books with the thought that all their literature must have gotten burnt up. What she didn’t know was that Chicago didn’t have a public library and hadn’t had one. With all these books arriving from across the ocean, something had to be done and the city quickly decided to build the first one.

The Swedish right-wing politician Valfrid Palmgren was a lady in forefront. She had a remarkable career and was, one of many things she achieved, 1905 the first female Amanuensis at the Royal Library in Stockholm. In 1907 she went on a long trip to USA to investigate the idea of public libraries for all. In USA libraries was seen as a civic right, placed in the center of cultural and educational politics. She was quite cultural conservative, it’s said, at the same time as she fought philanthropic values and saw it as her task to bring the idea of public libraries to Sweden. Literature should be accessible to everyone, and is a right beyond questions of class, was her idea and she hoped libraries could act to mitigate class differences. Libraries should not be led by politics, market or religious ideas. The librarians should therefore be people with education and expertise. Back in Sweden after her trip over the Atlantic, she within four years founded the first children and youth library in Sweden in 1911.

In Chicago, the city in 1991 built a ten floor high new public library on South State Street, this is, I am told, the world’s largest. True or not (there are many things we are told during the visit in Chicago are the biggest, widest, largest). Nevertheless, it’s an incredible building; the architecture is post-modern with reminders of old pompous eras, the collection of literature impressive with books, journals, magazines, audio for every taste.

Read the article written by Swedish cultural journalist Ingrid Elam in Dagens Nyheter of Valfrid Palmgren (in Swedish), published in June 2007 as a reflection concerning the then newly formed the Committee of Inquiry of Cultural Policy, with the task of revising Swedish cultural policy. You can also download it here: allmanna-bibliotek-en-borgerlig-ide-dn. Read posts on the Swedish Cultural Policy here, here and here. And libraries and entrepreneurship here.

Little Black Pearl, situated in Bronzeville south of Chicago, is a nonprofit organisation with ambition to create opportunities for young adults through Artistic and cultural work. In the Centre they can work in one of the many studios with wood, glass, painting, ceramics, run workshops or put up shows. Gwendolyn Pruitt, Director of Product Design, shows us around and tells us the story of this community based organisation with enthusiasm and passion. It’s both about what they achieve with the students, she shows an example of tables they did with beautiful mosiac cover on top, which they sell to customers. It can be anything. Their mission is to deepen the creative involvement through Arts, and learn how to run things. It’s also about the struggle of getting the budget to sum up in the end and the constant search for funding bodies, she tells us with a sigh. “I found that I don’t have the time to teach them that personal component”, she tells us with referral to the young students. She finds it’s a great need to also teach teachers “It’s a gap between the structure and the student”.

In 1974 a group of classmates at high school got together to set up a theatre play by Paul Zindel. Since they only had one semester left, it was not until they came to Illionis State University that the idea formed and they looked for a place to set it up. Their first production was played in a Church in Chicago, and since they at the time was reading the book “Steppenwolf” by Herman Hesse, they named the theatre the Steppenwolf Theatre Company. Today the theatre is a prestigous one on Halsted Street, with the ambition of advancing the vitality and diversity of American Theatre .

We see the play “Up” by Bridget Carpenter of the man who once reached the sky, the clouds, in a chair with balloons, and could not let go of the idea of doing it again. In another machine he would build. His vision held him alive, this was his passion, while everyday life and the reality of having to pay bills at the end of the month was taken care of by his wife. Until the situation changed and the pressure of supporting the family came closer.  After the play there was an interesting discussion with the audience, reflections  showing how differently we interpreted the play. The discussions at the conference of Artists and entrepreneurship become very real in this beautiful and sad play of having dreams and struggling with reality.

The Art Institute in Chicago is impressive in many ways, but mainly and mostly of two things. The collection of Art they have is impressive, to say the least. In this institute you can see everything from American contemporary Art to the Impressionists, African to Asian Art, photography and industrial design. You can stay days in there. Secondly it’s free for the public after five pm Thursdays and Fridays. The Institute and its collections are open and accessible for the public, something that seems in line with the attitude of giving Art and culture a central role in Chicago.

The study to  Chicago is part of the conference “Creative Entrepreneurship and Education in Cultural Life”, held in Chicago on July 16–18 2009, organized by Columbia College Chicago and Encatc.

After the opening speeches of the conference “Creative Entrepreneurship and Education in Cultural Life”, the poet Marc Kelly Smith took the floor. He is best known for founding Poetry Slam in 1987, a new presentation and reading style of poetry now spread around the world. Is he an entrepreneur, he asks himself and the audience, before he changes into one of the characters in “Wilderness”,  a poem written by American (and on-and-off Chicago-based) writer and poet Carl Sandburg. He performed “Chicago”, another poem by Sandburg, and also a piece by the English poet D.H Lawrence.

Three intense conference-days going from theoretical discussions and reflections to practical examples from USA and Europe in workshops and seminar sessions, as well as study visits were included in the conference, arranged by Columbia College Chicago and Encatc in Chicago on July 16–18. The main topic – if and how artistic education should include entrepreneurial skills – were tossed and turned over the days. The participants, professional educators and artists from many different countries, shared their experiences and expertise. Many examples were put forward, where management skills, career planning, project planning was part of the curricula, a trend that goes well into today’s discussion of entrepreneurship. The question of cultural economy was pursued; both the perspective of the impact of culture and art to the economy in society as a whole, something put forward by many studies; and the economy for Artists and how these professionals could build a sustainable economy on their profession.

Conference programme can be downloaded here: program_pdf.

The debate on how the south bank of the city of Göteborg should transform, has at times been loud. Göteborg, an old industrial city, has had to deal with major changes the last decades. The city is devided by a canal, and as the shipping industry on the north bank had to close down, telecom and media companies grew up. In the beginning of 2000, changes started on the south bank and a tunnel was built to lead traffic under the city, creating new space on ground. After six years, a new tunnel and the heavy traffic going under the city center, the question was raised: How should the new spaces be used? Ambitious plans were made and a large democracy project to involve inhabitants together with experts as architects, cultural and Art practitioners, sociologists, the South Bank Process (Södra Älvstrandsprocessen) took form. Nätverkstan was involved in the process, in the planning and formation. The results presented by the five different groups showed a variety of creative solutions of how to use the space; housing on different economic levels, public spaces, activity areas and lots of green parts. But then it stopped. The results were never taken seriously, the process stopped and was never put into the formal process of city planning in the municipality. Since then articles, among them a series of articles by the journalist Mark Isitt on how bad city planning in Göteborg works and how the suburbs has been exploited has been published.

Situated in the center of the south bank, in the middle of the city close to the river, is the old warehouse (Lagerhuset) where cultural practitioners have been working since 1999. Small-scale cultural journals, publishing houses, photographers, education, medialabs have been housing  in the building, producing culture spread in the whole region. The house is placed in an area, Järntorget, known for it’s entrepreneurial initiatives, specifically cultural entrepreneurs within music, fashion, bookshops, design, film, theatre, dance, coffee shops. It has been possible to find cheap localities and the clusters formed are important networks supporting creativity and drive. But among politicians, it has not always been politically correct. The urge to clean-up the streets (Långgatorna) from unappropriate businesses and renovate buildings, to gentrificate the area, has been strong. It hasn’t happened yet, but is on and off discussed and debated.

The decision made by the Cultural Committee of the municipality of Göteborg yesterday is therefore a break through. The bottom floor of the old warehouse will be transformed to a center for culture, with a coffee shop, restaurant and several stages for different cultural activities and performances. It will, hopefully, become an important center that together with the activities already in the house and around the area of Järntorget will be one key factor to enable the growth of cultural and artistic intiatives.

The transformation has already started and opening is set to January 1, 2010. Read the article of Göteborg in New York Times, published in 2007.

These days, when entrepreneurship is put forward as the solution of the cultural field’s economic difficulties, and when funding bodies on all levels are talking more frequently of Artists and cultural organizations having to be more entrepreneurial, searching for “sponsorship”, “alternative funding” and “market demand”, it might be time to kill some myths.

An issue of the Economist this spring (March 14–20, 2009) with a special focus on entrepreneurship, put forward five myths of entrepreneurs that needs to be put aside if we are to understand and catalyze entrepreneurship.

Myth 1. Entrepreneurs are lonely, socially incompetent geniuses that come up with great ideas. Instead, the article argues, entrepreneurship is a social activity. An entrepreneur might be very independent, but needs a business partner or social networks to succeed.

Myth 2. Most entrepreneurs are extremely young. Some have been very young, like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, the article lift forward. But a significant amount is also older, like Gary Buller who started the GPS company Garmin at the age of 52.

Myth 3. Entrepreneurship is driven mainly by venture capital. In fact, venture capitalists fund only a very small fraction of start-ups. Majority of money put into start-ups, the article shows, come from personal debts and of the “three f:s”: Friends, fools and families.

Myth 4. To succeed, entrepreneurs must produce a world-changing product. Instead, experience shows that the most successful entrepreneurs focus on processes rather than products.

Myth 5. Entrepreneurship cannot flourish within large companies. Small start-ups are very important, the article points out, but also large companies are being successful in keeping an attitude of entrepreneurship. The company Johnson & Johnson is put forward as an example.

The personal computer, the mobile phone and internet has made entrepreneurship flourish. Many initiatives has grown since these technological changes were introduced, entrepreneurs come from all parts of the world. Due to falling prices in communication, a global market can be reached instantly.

One interesting initiative is the The Indus Entrepreneur (TIE), started in Silicon Valley in 1992 by a group of Indian entrepreneurs living in the valley. Today they have 12.000 members spread in 12 countries. The idea was to promote entrepreneurship through mentoring, networking and education. A network meeting is held in Stockholm, on 27th of May, organized at the Stockholm-based meeting place the Hub.

“We need a new Georgian Utopia”. Magda Guruli, Curator and Artist, meet us in her  home in Tbilisi. 1970s and 80s was a very artisticly interesting period in Georgia, she tells us. Many interesting initiatives with artistic high quality were taken. After the Soviet period, this infrastructure fell  and everything needs to be rebuilt. A whole new infrastructure is needed. This takes time. Perhaps the gap between systems will allow for new ideas, a transformed artistic scene?  “In the system of Art, we are still in the mentality of Soviet. We need something completely new”.

Many Artist have their own NGO, as the platform to work from. They have their offices at home. The driving force is to do Art with high quality, but also be part of transformation of society.

Human Rights Center is a center working with issues like freedom of speach, discrimination, injustice. Through newsletters, research, workshops, training and projects they want to work for mutual understandning between ethnic groups in Georgia and put the focus on injustices performed by the Georgian government. Informing the public is as important as working with target groups like refugees. They offer services like legal support and counselling in entrepreneurship.

“Through Art you can make the changes otherwise not possible.”

The visit to Georgia is part of the project EKAE2009, run by Natverkstan and financed by the Swedish Institute.

The heroes survived. They were supposed to be killed after the film was made, but the film maker just couldn’t. The animated dolls were characters, personalities, so how could you kill them? Instead he hid them. After each movie he hid them in his house with the risk of getting caught. Intellectual property rights in the 70s, the government was afraid that the dolls would be used in another movie and they would have troubles with angry doll makers who wouldn’t get paid. Now we are able to watch them in a small, one-room museum. Beautiful hand-made dolls, made in Russia in the 70s for animated film made in Georgia. The most known is Bombora, a character who just wanted to go to school and in his frustration for not being able to sets fire on things. Now this character is posing over the entrance in the newly made amusement park at Tatsminda.

Wato Tsereleti, a well-known curator and Artist is describing the contemporary Art scene for us on a café. A major problem, many Artist tell us is space and funding. There is no space for Art or large events. In October the conference Artisterium is taking place, and a difficult part has been to find where to have it. A wonder, really, since Tbilisi is still very much a city in transition and there are many empty spaces. Wato Tsereleti has finally been able to find a locality, and the idea is to restore it into an Art center.

Many meetings has been taking place among visual Artists and Art education, between colleagues in the literature and publishing scene in Sweden and Georgia, as well as performance and film. Bakur Sulakauri Publishing is the biggest publishing house in Georgia, publishing around 200 books every year. They are meeting with colleagues at the publishing house Tranan in Sweden, together with writers, to discuss on how they can work together. The idea is that each Art form will come up with project ideas for future cooperation and exchange.

And as we walk to all these meetings, have  discussions between colleagues in the Art world, we pass the cells at Rustaveli Avenue and get reminded of the situation in this country. What is it we see in the streets? At Rustaveli, near the Parliament and Freedom Square the streets are filled with cells, small plastic covered boxes where people stay all day, all night in protest of the government. It’s difficult to analyse or understand what the cells stand for. Is it an organized protest of a well defined opposition? Or a more a protest of angry inhabitants showing their miscontent of the president? Or is it a show put forward by a few people with economic resources wanting to overthrow the president and take power? Perhaps it’s an Art show, or an installation? We get different versions, different stories. But it is clear that many people are very tired of the situation, of the threats of war, and long for coming back to a normal situation.

The visit is part of the project EKAE 2009, run by Natverkstan and financed by the Swedish Institute.

National Endowment for the Arts in the US recently published a research done on unemplyoment rates for Astists since the financial crisis. The findings are not surprising, but still sad news in a field where income levels are known to be lower than the rest of the working force.

The study put forward several findings:

• Artists are unemployed at twice the rate of professional workers, a category where Artists are put since their high levels of education.

• Unemployment rates for Artists have risen more rapidly than for US workers as a whole.

• Artist unemployment rates would be even higher if not for the large number of Artists leaving the workforce. Some decline may be Artists’ difficulties of finding job prospects.

• Unemployment rose for most types of Artist occupations. High unemployment rates are found in performing Art (8.4%), fine Arts, art directors, and animators (7.1%), writers and authors (6.6%) and photographers (6.0%).

• The job market for Artists is foreseen as unlikely to improve until long after US economy starts to recover.

At the same time as these discouraging news are put forward, another report by National Governors Association recognized that the Arts directly benefit states and communities. This is done through job creation, tax revenues, attracting investments, invigorating local economies, and enhancing quality of life. Figures are put forward by Americans for the Arts, that there are 100.000 nonprofit Arts organizations that support 5.7 million jobs and return 30 billion dollars in governement revenue every year.

Read more of the study here.

Committee of the Regions, a political assembly giving local and regional authorities within EU a voice within the EU structure, arranged a two-day meeting in Brussels on 20 – 21 of April. More than four hundred participants gathered, together with a hundred invited “young talents” from many parts of Europe, to discuss what makes regions and cities creative, what would make Europe more creative and together with practical examples both in panels and study visits around Brussels.

The first panel discussion addressed the question “What makes regions and cities creative?”. A crucial question for EU-Commission if the aim of the year of creativity and innovation is supposed to give results in more innovation and affect economy in a positive way. Many things were put forward, both by the panel, and also by the many young entrepreneurs, cultural practitioners and students in the audience. Why doesn’t education in Europe have more ideas about how to foster creativity? How come the visionary eyes of the young child is gone in the eyes of grown-ups? What happens going through the educational system? Many Art Educations are quite conservative, how could these change? How can Artists and politicians work more together? Are there educational tools to be used? Where do you turn to if you have ideas of something to start?

On the question “If you get to choose, what is the priority action at EU level?” the answer was unison: Get rid of the blocks in EU, make access to EU money less bureaucratic!

A crucial question if the hopes of creative economy is to come true. There is also a close link between the year of intercultural dialogue in EU last year, and the year of creativity and innovation. If new creative ideas are to happen, the wide variety of competence, skills, cultural and ethnic backgrounds need to be addressed and taken care of in a different way than is done today. There are hopes that the creative field will be the new savior in the financial crisis. Perhaps it will be. But only if you do a correct analysis of the field, understand how running organisations, Artistic practice, projects work, using the competence in the field to find the right incentives to catalyze the potential – there are of course an enormous potential. If you don’t, and get stuck in policies and the overestimated perception of what creativity and innovation is, it will be more difficult. There is a balancing act that needs to be performed.

Artist Jörgen Svensson represented Region Västra Götaland with the project Art and Politics and the project Community Art Lab formed together with Nätverkstan, a project based on using creative processes as a tool for city development. Interesting projecs were for instant FIRST innovation Park in Brno, Czech Republic, and the housing project led by Territorial and Urban Development of Castilla-La Mancha in Spain, led together with Mia Hägg, an archtiect in Paris running Habiter Autrement. Urbact, European Programme for Urban Sustainability, just launched a report that can be found on the website.

The Community Art Lab project will soon be posted on this website. Other posts connected to this are for instand Robert McNulty from America for the Arts, on Migration and Entrepreneurs, the seminar in Barcelona in January on the same topic, and examples from India. A programme of the seminar can be downloaded here CreativeCitiesRegions16-04-09. Encatc had a smaller seminar in the afternoon of the 21st of April to continue the discussion, with interesting inputs from Pascale Bonniel Charier of experiences from Grand Lyon and Donato Guiliani from Region Nord Pas de Calais. Download the programme for the Encatc seminar here seminar_encatc090421.

One of the more interesting suggestions in the new report on Swedish Cultural Policy put forward by the Committee of Inquiry on Cultural Policy is what is called cultural policy as aspect policy. With this it’s stated that cultural policy should interact with societal issues like education, business, regional development, health and environment.

”We understand cultural policy as an aspect of all policy areas”. The intention is that ”perspective, creative talent, knowledge and insights that the authorities, institutions and practitioners within the cultural field hold can be important for societal development”. Quite rightly, it’s pointed out that this is not new, but the Committee believes that the development needs to ”accelerate and accentuate”.

To the extent it has been noticed, the suggestion has been met with positive response. Hopes have been put forward that the issues within the cultural field will be treated as issues within the environmental field. Today all public activities and all political decisions should be saturated with environmental awareness.

It sounds fantastic, but is it realistic? From what position does culture invite for interaction? And what sort of societal development is addressed?

A better comparison is perhaps done with the aid policy? It’s an area of policy that has been equally questioned and debated as cultural policy. It’s an area as exposed to cyclical changes and ideologies.

In 2003 the Parliament adopted Sweden’s new Policy for Global Development (PGU). The new development policy should include ”both an effective aid of high quality and coherence that includes all policy areas”. Hopes were high. But what happened? During the governance of the Allians parties, the results have had a reverse PGU, where all other policy areas impoverish aid and its budget: Refugee camps, dept depreciation, depreciation of costs for Swedish embassies.

1998, the same year as the Region Västra Götaland was formed; Göteborg formulated its Strategy for Cultural Policy, the so-called version 1.0. One of the main tracks was that culture should ”permeate all policy areas”. Now, around eleven years later we can ask: Is this what happened? Or did culture become an aid-assistant for health, regional development, and integration?

There are many good reasons for the aspect policy that the Committee is looking at. Culture can and should contribute to societal development. But if small policy areas like culture will be able to play such a central role, its integrity as to be ensured. Then you have to make sure that cultural policy is neither invaded, nor dissolved in other policy areas.

Written by Karin Dalborg, Manager of Kulturverkstan, Education in Project Management within culture, run by Nätverkstan. The article was published at the Internet Journal Alba on March 9, 2009. For the Swedish original, have a look at here.

The latest week an upset and spiteful debate on where the boundaries of Art and Artistic practice should be set has been filling pages in Swedish newspapers. Origin of the discussion is a student at University College of Arts, Crafts and Design who acted like she needed psychiatric help and was put into hospital. When truth came out that she was an Art student doing an Artistic project as part of her examination work, many reacted from the hospital management, public and Cultural Minister. Didn’t she just take resources at the hospital from those who really needed help? How can this be Art? Are methods like this part of Art work and can it by the University be seen as examination work? Shouldn’t she pay the hospital for the resources she used? The debate got new wood when it was known that another student at the school had illegally sprayed graffiti and filmed it, a piece called “Territorial Pissing”, as his Artistic work.

“Students of University College of Arts, Crafts and Design are just follow the new Cultural Policy”, journalist Stefan Jonson says in today’s Dagens Nyheter. In the report on new Swedish Cultural Policy, the Committee suggests that “An entrepreneur can be seen as a person that is questioning established relations and perceptions”, which should mean, Stefan Jonson argues, that these two students have been doing exactly that. They refuse to stay within the boundaries of Art and let their competence spill over to other parts of society, and does this as Artists always do. Across established structures and limits. The point he is making is: This should then be in line with what the Swedish Cultural Minister would like to see more of?

The reports of the Committee of Inquiry of Cultural Policy on Swedish Cultural Policy and more articles on the topic can be found here.

The Committee of Inquiry of Cultural Policy was formed in summer 2007 with the task of revising Swedish Cultural Policy and the Cultural Policy Objectives. On February 27 2009 they presented their results.

Cultural Policy in Sweden was formed in the 1970s, the Cultural Policy Objectives were written and decided by Parliament in 1974 (an English translation of these are found here). The objectives had wide political support from right to left on the political scale, since it was a study commissioned by the Parliament. The Policy was revised in 1996, but only on a very cosmetic level. One of the most discussed objective of the 1974 Policy is: “To promote cultural diversity, artistic renewal and quality, thereby countering the negative effects of commercialism”. An interesting – and critisized – objective. What does it mean to “counteract the negative effects of commercialism”? Some argue that it put cogs in the wheel of entrepreneurship and moneymaking, others that the objective only speaks of negative effects which is something to strive for; it’s not against commercialisation as a whole.

The result of the Committee’s work come in three books of a total of 900 pages. Book 1: “Basic Analysis” (Grundanalys), Book 2: Programme of Renewal (Förnyelseprogram) and Book 3: Cultural Policy Architecture (Kulturpolitikens arkitektur).

A flow of articles has been written since the presentation, many of them questioning the work. Is the most important thing with Cultural Policy the administration and structure? Why would a few large authorities administrating culture be more effective than many smaller ones? Will more money triple down to the artist? Points are made that the work is a passing comment, too quickly put together at the cost of precision; it’s not a work commissioned by the Parliament, it will therefore lack a wide political support; and most important the suggestions lack support in the cultural field. It has not, though, as many feared, been a show in neo-liberal views of culture. Critics seem quite unite in their conclusions that this is not the case.

On May 19 closes the time for referrals. In the meanwhile, cultural organisations, institutions, artists, and artists’ organisations are reading the results with magnifying glass. Many are affected if the results of the Committee should become real. There is a need of renewal, but do the Committee’s results give the ultimate solutions to how this should be done?

Read articles by Sven Nilsson in the daily Sydsvenska Dagbladet and kulturbloggen, Magnus Eriksson in Svenska Dagbladet, Åsa Linderborg in Aftonbladet, Bengt Göransson in Dagens Nyheter, Gabriel Byström in Göteborgs-Posten, and David Karlsson in Dagens Nyheter and here. Several articles can be found in Aftonbladet here. And in Dagens Nyheter here. Unfortunately all articles are in Swedish.

Parallel with the Committee’s work, a “shadow” study was done, organised by Orionteatern. Also have a look at this blogpost, written in August on this site.

Download the reports of the Committee of Inquiry on Cultural Policy in Swedish (an English summery is supposed to be published soon).

Book 1 Basic Analysis: e6ab6539.pdf.

Book 2 Programme of Renewal: 7a302f931.pdf.

Book 3 Cultural Policy Architecture: 39524981.pdf.

Combine our former note on the newly released book The Cultural Economy, by reading the interview of one of its editors, Yudhishthir Raj Isar. The interview is found on the blog of Tobias Nielsén and Emma Stenström (unfortunately this interesting site is only in Swedish).

The Minister of Culture and Minister of Enterprise arranged today in Stockholm the third meeting for dialogue between cultural and business fields. Around twenty organisations, entrepreneurs and regional structures from both culture and business was invited to discuss issues like: How can national, regional and local offices get better in using culture and creative industries as a resource for growth? What tools and what kind of cooperation’s are needed? How could we get better in catalysing the potential in creative industries? The new in the meeting was that the Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Enterprise were sitting by the same table, with an ambition to find mutual solutions. And they have, which was announced at the meeting, devoted 1,4 million euro (13 million SEK) in the new budget to initiatives within this field. It’s a good sign. As cultural entrepreneurs we have experienced what it feels like when you can’t discuss with any of the ministries, since none of them feel responsible for the issues put forward. In content we are culture, in form we are a business. You fall in between two chairs (a Swedish expression). So it’s great to finally witness the two different Ministers talk to each other to find solutions. It’s always, though, risks in discussions like this to forget what we are talking about. As we speak of creative economy, creative businesses and innovation, we need also to speak of the situation for artists. It’s a coin with two sides; one doesn’t exist without the other. There will be no creative industry without high quality artists that can produce content.

The Swedish Public Employment Service just came with a report on the employment situation within culture 2008-2009. According to the report 83.000 people in Sweden was occupied within the cultural field in 2006, which correspond to 2 percent of the total workforce. You should be a bit careful of the figures, though. Different reports have different statistics, probably since they are measuring in different ways. This report put forward a few trends the coming two years:

1. Overall, demand for cultural services is growing, but during 2008 in a slower pace.

2. On the other hand they spot a growth in the amount of artists and cultural practitioners that start their own small businesses. There are 6800 companies with at least one person hired within the field.

3. The type of jobs in the cultural field is still multiple jobbers, short-term projects, part-time work. It’s a project based work situation. More often you need to have your own business to be able to take assignments.

4. Larger institutions are cutting down and people loose their jobs. The employers of today within the cultural field are the small businesses.

5. A multitude of competencies are needed when working in the field.

The report, in Swedish, can be downloaded here kultur_prognos_08_09.pdf.

Photos of Stockholm are found on www.fotoakuten.se.