BKF and KL's network for art in public space held its planned third and final meeting on Friday. Interest in the meetings has been great, so the series of meetings is being extended.
On Friday last week, Nicolai Kultur in Kolding formed the framework for the third meeting of BKF and the National Association of Municipalities (KL) Municipal Network for Art in the Public Space, which aims to strengthen the work with professional visual arts in the municipalities. This time with 'Appreciating art' as the theme.
The meeting, attended by representatives from around 20 of the country's municipalities, gave examples of how art adds value to various aspects of municipal work and provided the participants with arguments for bringing art into play in daily and political work as well as in collaboration with external partners and other stakeholders.
Peter Kirkhoff Eriksen, who is senior development partner at the Bikubenfonden, was responsible for the day's first longer speech, where he presented the foundation's method for examining the thoughts and feelings that arise in the viewer in the encounter with the visual and performing arts. The method, developed in collaboration with the consulting company Seismonaut, is based on observations, interviews and conversations with a total of 200 visitors to art institutions in nine municipalities. Against this background, Peter Kirkhoff Eriksen spoke about why and how to develop a more nuanced language and stronger knowledge that can be used when discussing how art should be prioritized politically in a local area, and why it is not enough to count participants or look at box office receipts when you need to understand the value of the arts.
Read about the study at Bikubenfonden's website
In its recent call 'Kunst på banen', the Statens Kunstfond has focused on making more people feel that art and culture belong to them. Louise Straarup from the Art Foundation's secretariat talked about how the selected projects must make a difference for the individual, for the community and for the local community by developing new initiatives in partnerships. She also talked about how the art fund has gained experience in developing local art and culture offerings in different constellations and how creative processes, art and culture can add value to citizens' everyday lives - and thus to society in general.
Read more about 'Art on the field' at The Norwegian Art Foundation
Workshop at the network meeting.
Head of culture Lisbet Lambert and museum director Karen Holdaway Grøn talked about the gradual development that has taken place in the work with art in the public space in Kolding. It is a development that started with the preparation of maintenance plans and the revitalization of existing works and ended with new funds for art and the development of a future art strategy, in which the Trapholt art museum plays a central role. The participants heard about the value of working with the care and dissemination of existing works in the public space, and how it leaves its mark in the political sphere.
After the presentations, the participants of the network meeting had the opportunity to discuss the day's themes in a series of workshops, which provided further good examples of how to work with art in the municipalities.
There has been great support for the three events in the network so far, and it has therefore been decided to extend the series of network meetings with two more meetings. The first will take place on Tuesday 5 September, and the second later in the autumn. Further information on meeting venues and themes follows.
Photo at top: Moderator Mette Mechlenborg, Louise Straarup from the Statens Kunstfond, Rikke Winther Revsholm from Kolding Municipality, Karen Holdaway Grøn from Trapholt and Peter Kirkhoff Eriksen from the Bikubenfonden.