Arts and culture in a time of upheaval

Is there a Nordic way of looking at the field of cultural policy?

There are many organisational similarities between the Nordic countries, and this also applies to the underlying principles and traditions of cultural policy for public funding of art and culture.

The cultural ministries and arts councils were structured in more or less the same way when they were developed in the 1950s and 1960s. Initially, the Nordic cultural agencies had more independence as government bodies at arm’s length. Nowadays, the arts council secretariats interface with both the ministries and the arm’s length bodies, and the ministries have tightened their control of the arts institutions. Thus, the institutional structures in the Nordic countries are comparable in some respects, making it possible to understand how the influence of cultural policy has changed from a Nordic perspective.

Another shared characteristic is regionalisation. Several Nordic countries have looked for ways to decentralise resources in recent years. This has been partly successful, as the increasing importance of local involvement and local cultural policy demonstrates. But there are some dilemmas, since the concept of quality changes when decisions are made locally. And many arts institutions would prefer to continue referring to and receiving funding from the national art councils, since government funding is a status indicator and a form of certification. This causes constant friction. The government won’t let go of its money, but the decisions on artistic quality should be made with regard to regional or local conditions.

For many years, the Nordic countries shared a clear international focus. But the political interest in international collaborations on art and culture is waning – possibly with the exception of Sweden’s focus on issues of freedom of expression for artists and other arts professionals. Here, more is invested in international bodies such as UNESCO. However, it seems like no new national ideas on international cultural policy are being created. And perhaps this would have to be initiated at a local level, if it is to be redone.

»We want to transcend borders and encourage international collaborations on grounds other than national belonging.
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We believe that the Nordic arts scene has the potential to pioneer the development of deep and durable networks that are naturally borderless and global.«

What is the Nordic Culture Fund's capacity and ambition with regard to policies for handling art and culture?

To increase its contemporary relevance, cultural policy needs to evolve. Today, it is constantly one step behind. We want to help promote such development by investing resources in getting more knowledge, supporting arts policy research and creating forums for regional, national and Nordic discussions. Cultural policy in the Nordic countries is in dire need of dialogue with itself and a more horizontal orientation, that is, across sector boundaries. Cultural policy today is primarily a matter of distribution of funding. Many artists and arts institutions have even begun to see cultural policy as an impediment to artistic development. Reforms and new support schemes more often come from the reasoning of financial policy than from that of cultural policy. Knowledge-driven development of ideas is lacking. The Nordic Culture Fund could contribute substantially here.

The Fund's strategy emphasises a strong global focus that is different from the concept of international collaboration.

For historic reasons, the global perspective comes naturally to the Fund. The Nordic Culture Fund was founded just after the Second World War, as an autonomous organisation with a mission to operate internationally in and outside the Nordic Region. Our organisation is not politically directed. When we refer to a global focus, we mean the globalising potential of art and culture. Art and culture almost always have a local perspective, but good art projects often have the capacity to link the local and the global.

When we highlight this as a special focus, it is because borders mean less and less in our environment and the projects we support. We have found that we’ve reached a form of watershed, where the models that formerly characterised international initiatives are less relevant. Thus, nation branding is not as pertinent in the new world order and in the current context. Perhaps we should look at other ways of doing things? As separate nations or Nordic region, we are no longer bearers of the narratives about ourselves; instead we are influenced in new ways by the challenges of other countries. The Sustainable Development Goals of the UN have become increasingly central to art and cultural life and demand personal accountability, reducing inequality, the development of new concepts of quality and a return to the rights perspective, artistic freedom and free movement for artists.

We want to transcend borders and encourage international collaborations on grounds other than national belonging. Internationalism is defined by borders between nations and is therefore more limited than globalism. It’s actually inherent in the word itself: inter – national. The global perspective is more borderless, and a more united and dynamic way of seeing the world. We believe that the Nordic arts scene has the potential to pioneer the development of deep and durable networks that are naturally borderless and global.

What are the crucial issues for future cultural policy?

There is a deep frustration in the cultural world today, over increased control, higher demands on efficiency, commercialisation, globalisation and a fragmented public sphere. To gain an overview of the current situation, we need a perspective on how cultural policy has evolved – and changed. The relationship between politics and the arts is vital. It’s often described with the term “at arm’s length”. We claim that arts and culture are not politically controlled, and yet we constantly see examples to the contrary. Is “arm’s length”, in the way it is currently practiced, really the best guarantee for a free arts scene?

After all, the arm’s length principle is a paradoxical decision-making structure. The politicians decide the framework and funding, while representatives of the arts scene and artists decide who gets funding.

This paradox, in turn, includes even further decisions, for instance on reporting, programming, agreements over several years, etc. Thus, the arm’s length principle is very precarious. Still, “arm’s length” has become an iconic concept that is convenient to refer to whenever anyone challenges the cultural policy, the arts scene or the arts institutions. And all the parties concerned seem to suffer from some kind of contact phobia.

Another equally sensitive topic is the role of the institutions. We need much more "exibility in the arts sector, but rigid, strong institutions have been built into the system. Many institutions today lack both compass, objectives and funding. Most arts institutions relate both to the era when they were !rst founded, and to the present, while for many reasons it can be more difficult to relate to the future, especially because of the funding structures. This leads to yet another paradox, since one of art’s capacities is that it can offer another understanding of time, and reflect on a spectrum of possible futures.

The third issue is sustainability. We talk about social, economic, ecological sustainability – but what is sustainability in the arts? The future will demand that we define this. Here, we also need to look at arts funding. There is a great Nordic interest today in developing a broader funding for art and culture. In that context, it is also necessary to look at the population and understand what the audience is today. The pandemic repercussions have made clear how digitalisation has changed the way we take part in art and culture. The experience that until recently arose collectively in a particular place is now often individual and can arise in infinitely many, mutually different spaces and times. What will this mean for our ideas about geographical boundaries and about center and periphery?

Politically, the arts are regarded as a vertical field and are handled as a sector with some degree of impact on other sectors, including business. But art and culture also develop horizontally and are incorporated in other sectors and fields. Artists can be so much more than artists, and often describe themselves today as, say, a curator, writer, pianist and cinema owner, all rolled into one. This adds even more to the complexity in relation to cultural policy, but when the perspective is broadened it also entails possibilities. The Nordic Culture Fund collaborates with UNESCO and the WHO to explore a number of horizontal issues through projects with artists, researchers and journalists. These may provide us with new knowledge that can be applied in new contexts. Instead of cultural policy, we should perhaps broaden the framework by talking about the politics of art and culture.