Careers in the arts: Visions for the future

By Nadia Danhash, Kai Lehikoinen and Joost Heinsius

 

 

 

In this publication, Nadia Danhash and Kai Lehikoinen, both of whom were deeply involved in the project's activities, reflect on some of the most relevant aspects of how to make a living from the arts from their own professional perspective. In addition, there are some insightful interviews with artists and their experience in the world of work after graduation and the creative solutions they have found.

The research and case studies by Joost Heinsius comprise a large part of the book; they give an interesting snapshot of the diversity of creative hubs. These are stories of higher arts education institutions and how they are dealing with the changing world of work for their students, as well as examples of independent creative hubs which often deal with young professionals.

Read the publication below or download the PDF version here.

Published on 12 April 2018 at the NXT Seminar Making a Living in 2025 in Brussels.

More interesting publications as the NXT toolkits can be found on the NXT Project digital platform, www.nxt-creatives.eu

Intellectual Property Rights

Pricing Your Work

Making a Living from the Arts in 2025

12 April 2018, Brussels

On 12 April 2018, the final NXT Project Seminar - Making a Living from the Arts in 2025 took place in Brussels, hosted and in collaboration with Culture Action Europe and BOZAR, Centre for Fine Arts Brussels (Rue Ravenstein 23, Brussels).

The NXT Seminar, a small scale event, aimed to address the changes and challenges the sector is facing, thanks to the knowledge collected during the three years EU co-funded project. During the NXT Seminar, the NXT Project partners presented and discussed a final project publication, including the recommendations for policymakers and the European Commission.

Part of the final project deliverables is the NXT Project research, which collected the feedback of about 200 stakeholder institutions and included 9 case studies from both higher arts education institutions and creative hubs.

You can review the NXT Seminar programme here.

SPEAKERS

Tere Badia

Culture Action Europe, Secretary General

Tere Badia holds a degree in Art History from the Universitat de Barcelona and an MA in Information and Knowledge Society by the IN3 (Internet Interdisciplinary Institute) of the UOC. She is dedicated to cultural research and production in various formats. She has carried out several studies on cultural policies, networks and R+D+i for visual arts. Tere coordinated the platform DISONANCIAS in Catalonia for the promotion of the relations between artists and research departments of companies and organizations, as well as the network of visual arts production spaces of Catalonia xarxaprod. Until January 2018, Tere Badia was director of Hangar – centre for artistic production and research in Barcelona.

Andrea Braidt

Vice-Rector for Art and Research, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna

Mag. Dr Andrea B. Braidt MLitt is Vice-Rector for Art and Research at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna since 2011. The Vice-Rectorate for Art and Research, which was newly established with Braidt’s appointment at the Academy, is responsible for stimulating research activity especially in the field of arts-based research, for supporting the doctoral programs at the Academy, for conference and publication activity and for national and international co-operation and networks. She is on the ELIA Representative Board.

Cecilie Broch Knudsen

Chair, The Norwegian Artistic Research Programme

After having held the position of rector/president at Oslo National Academy of the Arts for eight years from August 2007 to August 2015, Cecilie Broch Knudsen was appointed chair of The Norwegian Artistic Research Programme by the Norwegian Ministry of Education in January of 2015. She has been an elected member of the representative board of ELIA for two periods.

Nadia Danhash/span>

Director, InnovationRCA, Royal College of Art

Nadia is an investment manager and business developer who has spent 12 years at the Royal College of Art developing enterprise and entrepreneurship programmes and supporting graduate entrepreneurs. Prior to that she held a number of roles in the biotech sector with senior positions in business development, strategic marketing and general management. At the Royal College of Art, Nadia leads its enterprise and entrepreneurship centre, InnovationRCA and in this role, she is responsible overall for the development and commercialisation of Royal College of Art Intellectual Property as well as the InnovationRCA Incubator which incubates design-led start-ups founded by graduates of the College. To date she has led investments in 50 companies.

Paul Dujardin

CEO and Artistic Director, BOZAR

Paul Dujardin is CEO and artistic director of the Centre for Fine Arts (BOZAR) in Brussels since 2002. Under his direction, the Centre has turned into an internationally recognised, multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary arts centre. He is also a passionate advocate of the European project. He has succeeded in developing BOZAR as an Agora, a platform to initiate a debate between citizens, the arts, decision-makers and other sectors. He is the animator of the steering committee of the ‘New Narrative for Europe’ project, an EU initiative attempting to given Europe a new and more cultural vision for the future of the continent.

Maria Hansen

ELIA Executive Director

Maria Hansen was born and raised in Germany. She lived in Canada from 1987 to 1995 and holds an MBA from the University of Ottawa. Maria has worked in the performing arts for almost 30 years. In 2007, she became Managing Director of the Municipal Theater and Philharmonie of Haarlem. After 10 years in Haarlem, she decided to take on a new challenge. She is now Executive Director of ELIA – European League of Institutes of the Arts, the European network of Higher Arts Education networks. Maria has served many boards, including that of Oorkaan and the International Society for the Performing Arts (ISPA). For ISPA's June 2018 Congress in Leeuwarden/Friesland, Maria is chair of the program committee.

Joost Heinsius

Project Developer at Values of Culture and Creativity, Researcher

Joost Heinsius is Journey Leader at Values of Culture and Creativity. He is a researcher, a project and program developer working on strategy, financing and crossovers, both inside and outside the cultural sector. Heinsius is a connector of insights from the social and business sector to the cultural sector and vice versa.

Kai Lehikoinen

Professor at CERADA, University of the Arts Helsinki, Vice-Director at ArtsEqual

Kai Lehikoinen has been recently appointed Professor to lead the Center for Educational Research and Academic Development in the Arts (CERADA) at the University of the Arts Helsinki in Finland. He is also Vice-Director of the ArtsEqual Research Initiative. His current research interests include the arts in society – their contribution to equality, well-being, work development, innovation processes and learning, and expanded professionalism of artists in hybrid contexts at the interface between the arts and other fields.

Pier Luigi Sacco

Professor at IULM University Milan, Visiting Professor at Harvard University, Researcher

Pier Luigi Sacco is Professor of Cultural Economics and Deputy Rector for International Relations at IULM University, Milan; Director of the IRVAPP centre of Bruno Kessler Foundation, Trento; Senior Researcher, metaLAB (at) Harvard, and visiting scholar at Harvard University. He is the Special Adviser of the European Commissioner for Education and Culture, member of the Europeana Research Advisory Board, of the Economics of Culture Committee of the Italian Ministry of Culture, of the Advisory Council for Research & Innovation of the Czech Republic, and of the Advisory Council of Creative Georgia. He is Senior Editor of the Leisure and Tourism Section of Cogent Social Sciences. He has published about 200 papers on international peer-reviewed journal and edited books with major international publishers. He works and consults internationally in the fields of culture-led local development and is often invited as keynote speaker at major cultural policy conferences worldwide.

Julie Ward

Labour MEP for North West of England

Julie Ward is a Labour MEP for the North West of England. She is also a writer, theatre-maker and cultural activist who began her working life on the factory floor before becoming a community arts worker and co-founder of a successful SME in the north of England, subsequently being named NE Woman Social Entrepreneur of the Year in 2003. Julie was elected in 2014 and is a member of the European Parliament’s committees on Culture and Education, Regional Development and Women's Rights and Gender Equality.

Making a Living from the Arts

14 - 15 September 2017, Amsterdam

THEME

The world of work is changing in all fields including the arts. The demand for constant reskilling and life-long learning, the growing flexibility required in career development and the interdisciplinarity approach are becoming major themes for the future development of higher education.

With the societal challenges and the pressures of globalisation, it becomes increasingly important for artists to strengthen their position in society. For arts educators, the challenges are to meet the needs of future artists and to signify the impact of the arts in communities. As a platform for knowledge sharing, Making a Living from the Arts gives the stage to models and practices in the field of cultural entrepreneurship inside and outside higher arts education.

Investors, hub managers and entrepreneurship experts give insights on successful (or not successful) practices and models. Examples of artists’ creative solutions to societal issues and models of institutional structures both inside and outside higher arts education institutions are showcased.

The conference began by challenging values, beliefs and myths around the word ‘entrepreneurship’, stimulating a critical debate on different discourses and the misconceptions around Entrepreneurship and the arts. Bringing examples of innovative practices, the NXT Conference aimed to reclaim the entrepreneurial field as applicable to artists and arts practitioners with a common and understandable terminology associated with it.

More in-depth, the following topics were at the core of the discourse:

Approaching entrepreneurship in higher arts education

If entrepreneurship is understood as a tool to empower young artist’s sense of independence, what are then the skills and knowledge that art students need? In this rapidly changing field – funding structure, artist identity and traditional disciplines – higher arts institutions are challenged to reconsider what are the relevant and effective educational models to meet the needs of the artists of the future.

Entrepreneurial initiatives: new models of education?

Creatives as the source of innovative solutions are already contributing to developing new business and educational models, which are originated by their needs. Is the development of the creative industries an alternative or the confirmation of the neo-liberal market? Examples of creative centres showcase how non-institutional organisations create and transfer knowledge, stimulate and support artistic practices.

Social impact and social innovation

Examples of innovative practices are showcased to stimulate a debate on how arts educators and cultural practitioners can translate the intangible benefits of the arts in society into the language of policy makers, civil servants and politicians. How can the arts and culture world provide alternative ways of looking at impact, and change the discourse of the tangible benefits, evidence-based decision-making?

Expanded Professionalism in the Arts

The role of professional development in the arts is to equip artists with skills, knowledge and confidence in order for them to play an active role in society and earn a living from their artistic practice. Using their professionalism at the interface between the arts and other fields. Models of expanded professionalism in the arts are presented to stimulate a discussion on the needs of the artists of the future and the role of arts educators.

Creative responses to labour struggles

Looking at the material conditions and labour struggles facing artists today in contemporary practice and the innovative initiatives that are emerging to respond to them. The examples presented stimulate a critical debate on models of sustainable practices and the impact of public funding and policy making. Delegates discuss the conditions to reframe the arts’ world value system the relation between artists and the institution/enterprises that contact them.

SPEAKERS

Anna Kinneir

Anna Kinneir is the Partnerships Lead at Makerversity. Her career has focused on creative business - especially for those starting out - with previous roles at It's Nice That, Imagination and Bonsoir Paris. Makerversity is home to Europe's best emerging creative, tech and innovation businesses. It provides its member community with cutting-edge facilities that combine co-working space with clean and messy workshop space, software, machines, tools and expert technicians. Our education initiatives and curriculums build the future workforce and inspire careers in making. Alongside facilities, The Learning Lab kick starts creativity and improves learning agility through 21st-century skills and user centred thinking to build the future workforce and invent solutions for tomorrow.

Anne Breure

Anne Breure is the artistic director of Veem House for Performance, a house for performance, dance, and discourse for making and presenting radical, daring, and experimental work.

Elisabetta Lazzaro

Elisabetta Lazzaro is a cultural economist and Professor of Creative Economy at HKU University of the Arts Utrecht. She has formerly been a professor at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium, at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, USA, and at Padua University, Italy. She holds a PhD in Economics jointly from Université Libre de Bruxelles and Université Paris 1-Panthéon-Sorbonne. Lazzaro’s publications and research focus on cultural economics, management and policy analysis.

Gwenoële Trapman

Gwenoële Trapman is the artistic leader of the Production and Stage Management study programme at Academy of Theatre and Dance, Amsterdam University of the Arts. The study programme operates between aspiration and action: students learn to grasp and translate their artistic ideas and those of others into concrete activities, the formulation of plans, budgets and scenarios.

Iliana Fokianaki

Iliana Fokianaki is writer and curator based in Athens and Rotterdam. In 2013 she founded State of Concept Athens, the first non-profit gallery in Athens that promotes Greek and international artists through solo exhibitions. State of Concept is also focusing on a pedagogical programme that enables Greek art students and artists through free consultations, to further their studies and develop their projects.

James Doeser

James Doeser is a freelance researcher, writer and consultant based in London. His clients include universities, arts organisations and policy-making agencies in the UK and beyond. His work primarily involves the application of rigorous research methods to complex problems of policy and practice.

Joginte Bucinskaite

Jogintė Bučinskaitė is a communication curator at Nida Art Colony of Vilnius Academy of Arts in Lithuania. The topic of her interest is the tension between the practical and theoretical communication of contemporary art.

Kai Lehikoinen

Kai Lehikoinen is a university lecturer of performing arts at the Theatre Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki. Recently, Kai Lehikoinen has been appointed Professor to lead the Center for Educational Research and Academic Development in the Arts (CERADA) at the University of the Arts Helsinki in Finland. He is also Vice Director of the ArtsEqual Research Initiative.

Luka Piskoric

A co-founder and managing director at Poligon Creative Centre in Ljubljana, co-founder of Slovenia Coworking and Crowdfunding.si.

Marie Le Sourd

Marie Le Sourd is the Secretary General of On the Move, the cultural mobility information network active in Europe and worldwide. Prior to her On the Move 's experience, Marie worked in Singapore for the Asia-Europe Foundation and directed the French Cultural Centre in Yogyakarta-Indonesia.

Michiel Schwarz

Michiel Schwarz is an independent thinker, curator, consultant interested in how the future is shaped by culture. Developing projects from his Amsterdam-based Sustainism Lab. He is the co-creator of the 2010 Sustainism manifesto (with Joost Elffers) which launched the word ‘sustainism’ in the public arena.

Milena Dragicevic Secic

Milena Dragićević Šešić is the Head of the UNESCO Chair in Studies of Interculturalism, Art and Cultural Management and Mediation at the University of Arts in Belgrade. She is a prominent researcher in the field of cultural studies and cultural policies. She conducts numerous training programs and workshops throughout Europe. She also serves as a consultant on strategy building and organisational reform to cultural institutions and third-sector organizations.

Robert Glas

The artistic practice of Robert Glas is an ongoing investigation into the technologies nation-states use to manage the movement of people across territories. This process results in short films, photography and installations exhibited at the Van Abbe Museum, Kunsthal and Gallery Joey Ramone. In 2016 he received the Mondrian Young Talent Grant and was invited to join the Academy honours programme for young artists and scientists (KNAW & Akademie van Kunsten).

Roberto Gómez de la Iglesia

CEO of c2+i, culture, creativity, innovation (A company that works in the Creative Economy: how to improve creative sectors and creative cities, and how to make other sectors more creative) and General Manager of Conexiones improbables (A Methodology for artistically and culturally based Open and Collaborative Innovation; NICE Award 2014).

Stephanie Feeney

Stephanie Feeney is Project Lead for Coaching and Programme at Z-Kubator, the in-house incubator of Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK). She supports and guides ZHdK staff and students to develop independent projects that take them beyond life at the university. Stephanie has been working in startups and startup support organisations for the last ten years.

Stephen Rockman

An experienced angel investor, Stephen Rockman actively champions entrepreneurship, innovation and social impact. Stephen helps to guide and challenge the entrepreneurs and start-ups based at InnovationRCA. Stephen has been investing in, advising and mentoring start-ups for more than ten years. Previously he spent 25 years in commercial and strategic roles with technology corporates and start-ups. After some years as an angel investor, he founded Merism Capital in 2010, to invest in seed and early-stage impact businesses.

Susan Jones

A published writer and researcher on contemporary visual arts matters, Susan Jones has a specialist knowledge of artists’ practices, livelihoods, career paths and employment patterns and a particular interest in the impact of artist-led and socially-engaged practices on the arts ecology and cultural value.

HOST

The NXT Conference was organised in partnership with Amsterdam University of the Arts.

The Amsterdam University of the Arts is constantly innovating and developing. It occupies a prominent place, both nationally and internationally, in education, the arts and cultural life. The courses are given in alluring locations in Amsterdam, the cultural centre of the Netherlands. The AHK offers courses at bachelor and advanced or master level in the following subjects: fine art and design, music, film, theatre, dance, museology, architecture and arts education.

What is the NXT Residency?

During the Netherlands Presidency of the Council of the European Union, ELIA hosted a Residency for Emerging Artists.

For the NXT project, ELIA selected 5 talented emerging artists that participated in the NXT Residency programme in Amsterdam between April 1 - June 30, 2016.

The artists in residence joined the project Europe by People.

Here are the 5 selected artists (in alphabetical order):

Rémi Duprat - Ecole Européenne Supérieure d'Art de Brest

Dora Durkesac - Academy of Fine Art, University of Zagreb

Zofia Kuligowska - Performance Art in University of Arts in Poznań

Ben Smart - University of the Creative Arts Farnham

Viktor Vejvoda - Academy Fine Arts, Prague

Reinvented, reused, repaired: Final showcase of NXT residency artists

During the last weekend of June, the NXT resident artists showcased the projects they have been working on since April, at the FabCity Campus.

FabCity was a temporary and freely accessible campus at Java Island in Amsterdam. It was conceived and realised as a green and self-sustaining city where urban innovators, students, creatives and artists worked on their pavilions, installations and prototypes. The NXT residents each found a way to connect to the ethos of this city of the future, for example by reinventing the rules of behaviour in public space and by repairing and reusing household objects to promote sustainability. Here are some of the highlights.

Viktor Vejvoda’s bike and electronics repair container ISO Café was a huge success, not just during the final weekend but throughout the 3-months of the residency. Viktor had a high amount of visitors, equal to the large institutions present on the FabCity campus. Artists, companies, professionals and local inhabitants used the ISO Café as a meeting point, a confrontation moment, and a creative environment in which broken everyday objects are repaired, reused and reinvented. Viktor documented his journey on his blog, amsterdaminiso.tumblr.com.

Remi Duprat is an artist who works with sculpture, photography and installations. At the beginning of the residency, Remi shared the container workshop with Viktor, to experiment on building sculptures with recycled materials. Through the medium of sculpture, he attempts to create a new image and cleanse the object of its connotations. Furthermore, Remi continued working on an ongoing research on the concept of landscape as a complex object. Because of a solo exhibition in Paris, Remi could not attend the final showcase at FabCity.

During the course of the residency, Ben Smart developed a research on urban development. After confronting himself with various stakeholders, Ben was advised by the Amsterdam City Hall urban planning office, to look into a specific area in the west side of the city. Thus Ben developed a model for a part of the street called Jan Evertsenstraat. His plan was to collect creative solutions from residents and other stakeholders, who are normally less involved in the urban development process.

The Spacehunters Collective, aka Dora Durkesac and Zofia Kuligowska, collaborated on You have bright future behind you, a multimedia installation inspired by their shared living experience in close quarters in Amsterdam. The exhibition was composed of objects, photos, quotes and videos, harmoniously installed in the circular space of the Network Democracy Dome. Visitors could enjoy the multiple projections sitting on chairs set in a circle in the centre of the space.

Both artists developed individual artistic projects in addition to their collaborative installation.

On Sunday afternoon, Zofia performed a piece entitled Dog Wrapped in Bacon in which the audience was asked to divide their attention between pre-recorded videos uploaded on YouTube and the actual performance. It was a dynamic performance piece at the tip of Java Island. You can view her videos on her YouTube channel here.

In addition to the performance at FabCity, Zofia started a long-term project in Amsterdam that she will continue working on in other cities. Project Sirenium is a network of enjoyable and pleasant places in public spaces - accessible for everyone and open for all of you to make it grow. See the Project Sirenium Facebook page here.

Photos and illustration by: Zofia Kuligowska

Dora’s Beautiful Struggle is a project platform where artists can talk and discuss their unfinished and unrealized projects, as well as share artistic methods and research. The concept developed by Dora aims to be a fruitful confrontation which brings on questions about the artistic intellectual property, collaboration, conceptual and project management skills.

Visual by Dora Durkesac

The FabCity Campus closed down at the end of June. It has been an interesting 3 months and the artists all had their individual journeys throughout the residency.

NXT Residency2017: Make Yourself an Expert Hub

As part of the NXT project – Making a Living from the Arts (co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union), ELIA - European League of Institutes of the Arts organised a residency programme in April-May-June 2017, hosted by the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, in cooperation with Make Yourself an Expert HUB 2017 and the Centre for Knowledge Transfer East (WTZ OST).

SELECTED ARTISTS for NXT Residency 2017

We are very excited to announce that 5 talented international artists were selected for the NXT Residency that will take place April - June 2017 in Vienna. They will be joined by the 5 local artists listed below.

Here are the artists in alphabetical order:

Josef Bares – Academy of Fine Arts Prague

Aloïs Bordenave – Royal College of Art London

Samantha Harvey – Central Saint Martins

Ana Garcia-Pineda – Felicidad Duce Institute of Design

Ivana Tkalčić – Academy of Fine Arts Zagreb

 

The 5 local artists joining the group above are:

Iris Dittler - Academy of Fine Arts Vienna

Veronika Burger - Academy of Fine Arts Vienna

Katrin Bruder - Academy of Fine Arts Vienna

Lena Gold - University of Applied Arts Vienna Siegfried Skalar