Yesterday I attended a seminar which focused on the regional art centres (dance, film, photography, children’s culture), their meaning for the cities and regions and future possibilities. The participants came from all over the country and from various organisations and institutions i.e. the Arts Council of Finland, Ministry of Education, regional dance centres in Kuopio, Oulu, Kajaani, regional arts councils and cities like Kuopio, Oulu, Jyväskylä etc. etc. So there were individual artists, art managers and producers as well as politicians and heads of cultural departments present.
I only attended one day of the two day seminar, but I was deeply troubled by the fact that the regional art centres are run by arts managers and producers which form more or less permanent staff but their main purpose of producing art and cultural events, productions, and cultural services is fulfilled by the individual, freelance artists. So most of their funding goes to the organisation and only a very small amount actually goes into freelance artists who in short term projects or with single contracts create the content and fulfil the aims of the centres. So the centres themselves are nothing without the work, input, insight and knowledge of the artists, but the artists themselves get very little from their funding.
There’s nothing new about this and this is not the first time I’m disturbed about it. There are for example 400 000 € EU funded art projects from which 4 000 € actually goes to the artists. So do the projects and regional centres actually benefit more art managers than the art itself, let alone the artists?
And is this a too sensitive question to ask?

I myself juggle between making work as a freelance artist and producing work by other artists and running a festival. There isn’t probably a day, I don’t think about giving up on one or the other. To get paid enough to compensate the time used is very difficult in both fields (at least in these geographical levels I live in) and my strategy has been to partially support myself with managing art because to work as a freelance artist is so insecure and there’s no guarantee of the future – you might know the next month, six months or even a year, but that’s furthest sense of security that I have ever reached. As a way of life, I must say, it’s very straining, demanding and exhausting. And as I’m getting older, I’m slowly beginning to lose hope that things will ever get better. I only get more exhausted and more cynical and my body deteriorates slowly, but surely.

That’s is not completely true though. The work with Jaana has been a real joy, for example. And there are a few other things I’m very excited about at the moment.

So it’s a paradox.
Hmm. Would life be too simple without it?

Let me know if you have any thoughts.
Johanna