The newly elected expert group for Culture and Art Programme has gathered for their first decision meeting in may 2020. Introduction, meeting preparations and decision meeting were all held online due to the coronapandemic. Chair of the Expert Group Anna Sparrman summarizes the experience as follows:
”To have the honour to grant funding to small and big scale professional cultural projects, midst this corona period, feels fantastic. The mission is even more important than usual and therefore we have granted more funding than ordinary, hoping that it will strengthen and raise culture.”
As a response to the serious need for funding in the fields of culture and art the expert group allocated more than half of the yearly budget of 2,2 million euros to this round of the programme. A total of 1 408 958 euros was granted to fifty projects, equal to a quarter of 186 applications for a worth of 5 994 255 euros. Granted amounts are between 3000 and 100 000 euros.
Funding highlights of the first round of Culture and art Programme in 2020
Among the applications that were granted funding within the first round of Culture and Art Programme in 2020 are some that we especially wish to highlight at this point.
Donna Quijote – theatrical dance on thin ice raises environmental questions with indigenous people in a global context. It is a multinational theatre production organized together with Ruska Ensemble, The Finnish National Theatre, The Greenlandic National Theatre, Qiajuk Studios, ARTErias Urbanas, Multilogos and artists from Samiland, Finland, Norway, Canada and Bolivia. Through the project artists are brought together to share thoughts of humanity and ecological disaster from their native viewpoint in national stages. Donna Quijote will expand the viewer’s perspective to indigenous people, nature, the ecosystem and lifestyle spectrum.
Ilzenberg Manor’s Small Festival for Kids brings professional high quality culture to the residents of the smallest townships and settlements surrounding this manor in Northern Lithuania, together with partners from Sweden, Finland and Estonia. The festival embraces various genres of performing arts as theatre, dance, puppets and circus for kids and children from 0 to 10 years. The collaboration offers children from economically disadvantaged families and from culturally distanced geographical locations the possibility for encounters with professional Nordic artists within dance and circus. The event is also a meeting place for Nordic artists and their professional colleagues from Lithuania and Estonia, which may engage new collaborative ideas and outcomes.
A meeting place for sharing competencies within analogue photography is to be created through ‘when the light hits just right‘ by Dots: förening för audiovisuell konst rf (association of audiovisual art). It is an all analogue festival, showcasing expanded cinema and analogue photography, in a 3-month exhibition at Vaasa Art Hall and Gallery Ibis, a public programme of filmscreenings, live cinema and workshops, and a conference for professionals. The project will be bringing together artists, curators, programmers, distributors, researchers and other professionals working within the field of analogue film and photography for the first time in that extent in the Nordic-Baltic region.
Young emerging female artists in the field of Hip Hop and House dance received funding for a one week summercamp ALIDE – in collaboration with AxAKavAT where they will be able to push the participants in their craft and practise the art of daring to act on ideas, wishes and projects. The workshops will be documented in a video aiming at inspiring others for communital support and a future growth of a networking sisterhood. The participants will also be collaborating locally with a childrens summercamp and inhabitants of the village of Karepa in Northeastern Estonia.
Seyðatónar / Sheep Music is a collaboration between Hafdís Bjarnadottir, Passepartout Duo and several museums, farms, festivals and performers. It will result in a series of musical interventions for people and sheep in the Faroe Islands, Iceland, and Scotland, putting an emphasis on local farming, knitting traditions and shepherding cultures. The project aims to bring people together and raise conversations about the values of a community, all conceptually based on the hypothetical question: “what kind of music would the sheep like to hear?”
You can find all the granted projects from this and previous rounds by scrolling down the page Results.
Application rounds twice a year
Culture and Art Programme supports Nordic cooperation within art and culture. You can apply for funding for a collaborative project with artistic or cultural quality which promotes a multifaceted and sustainable Nordic region. The grant programme is administered by Nordic Culture Point.
Funding is being distributed twice per year. The next application round is from 10.8-10.9.2020. Please note that the application deadline is at 15.59 Finnish time.
The image is by Performance Køkkenet in Nordic Actions in Nature 2018, a project granted funding from Culture and Art Programme in 2018. The project connected nordic performance artists whom engaged in issues concerning environment and sustainability.
