BKF's spokesperson Marie Thams welcomed and moderated.
On Wednesday, the Association of Visual Artists held its annual municipal conference at Kulturmaskinen in Odense with inspiring presentations from foreign and Danish presenters. The packed room consisted of, among other things, members of municipal visual arts councils, cultural consultants and professional visual artists, who all became a little wiser about how art in the public space can stand up, but also a sense of how many authorities, institutions, individuals, money and the resulting challenges that must be overcome before successfully coming out the other side. But today's program gave many good examples of how it can be done.
Mayor Steen Wrist, Fredericia
For example, from Fredericia, where mayor Steen Wrist himself was present to give an inspiring presentation of the municipality's ambitious plan for the 'Art workshops in the Culture Barracks'. The cultural barracks will be a national residence, studio and workshop environment for the three Danish art academies and nothing less than a new epicenter for culture, which will also house an art and business HUB with knowledge sharing across the academies and the city, and provide interaction between crafts and art in collaboration with the artisans' association.
Remote healing of residential area
A completely different project was presented by Søren-Emil Schütt from 'Til Vægs', an exhibition platform for art in public space. 'Til Vægs' sees art as an activist method for change and community, and has tried to wedge art into as many contexts as possible as a mediator and medium between society and individuals – for example, when a group of citizens wants green areas and a another group would rather have ball fields - and have tried to tackle local issues with concrete solution proposals, which include both the creation of gardens, the renovation of stairwells and a successful remote healing of Lundtoftegade to keep the neighborhood off the ghetto list.
And there were good points to be gleaned: Anne Blond, chairman of the Tønder Visual Arts Council, told about 'Our art out there', which has mapped the municipality's art in the geographically large municipality, and at the same time, among other things, has contributed to the visual arts council becoming known on internal municipal lines and has given pride and increased artistic awareness a flourishing in the area.
Artistic director Marika Seidler from Seidler's Sensorium talked about 'Å Vil Liv', which is an art project at Ådalen in Egedal Municipality for six 6th graders with a total of 168 children, who both make naturalistic observations and get aesthetic experiences, while at the same time himself works with art in house artist workshops.
Carsten Jensen and Maibritt Larsson from Ikast-Brande Municipality.
While Maibritt Larsson and Carsten Jensen from Ikast-Brande Municipality talked about the project 'Gables in 17 Jutland towns tell local and global stories', which is a collaboration with nine municipalities, 17 cities, 17 gable tenants, 17 local groups, 17 world goals, 17 arts and 17 artists. Which naturally gave rise to many strategic considerations about communication, acceptance and cohesion around the project. But in the end, fortunately, also a lot of festive vernissages.
The one percent rule
The first foreign contribution of the day came from Taru Toppola, head of public art at Finland's second largest art museum Helsinki Art Museum, where her department curates and coordinates art projects in public space in the city of Helsinki and is responsible for the maintenance of existing public artworks. She talked about some of the many different projects that her department works with, whose funding and creation processes are almost as different, and the consequences of which can also turn out in very different ways, which she told honestly about. Often the expectations for a given project are too high, and she warned against thinking that art could solve all problems.
Frida Klingberg, Kulturförvaltningen – Gothenburg Art
Frida Klingberg from Kulturförvaltningen – Göteborg Konst stood for the same realism. Among other things, she talked about the one-percent rule, which requires that one percent of the budget for state construction projects goes to art, a rule that is also followed by approximately half of the municipalities and regions in Sweden. Many of the projects that the Cultural Administration is responsible for involve many different authorities, and she described both the advantages and disadvantages of getting into the projects early and late.
BKF will of course also hold a municipal conference next year. But the work for art in public space continues already on 17 March, when there is a third meeting of the municipalities' network for art in public space, which BKF facilitates together with KL. The theme will be 'Appreciating Art'.