Online seminars: Artists’ organising in times of upheaval – Learning from each other

The online seminar series—Contemporary Art Days Summit 2026: Artists organizing in times of upheaval—has featured three seminars: Learning from Hungary, Learning from Slovakia, and Learning from Poland. In the fourth session of the series, “Learning from each other, we are going to pause for a moment and reflect on the knowledge and experience shared so far. We also invite colleagues who are new to the conversation to join and share.

Various political upheavals in each country, the impacts on cultural policy and, most importantly, how artists and arts organizations responded to these changes are topics that have been on the agenda. Throughout the series Sara Edström and Emeli Person have been key dialogue partners bridging what we have learnt to the Swedish context.

A joint collaboration

The seminar series is produced by Statens konstråd and CAPIm – The Centre for Art and the Political Imaginary (HDK-Valand, University of Gothenburg, and the Royal Institute of Art), and is organised in collaboration with Bildkonst Sverige and Konstnärernas Riksorganisation.

Online seminars – Artists’ organising in times of upheaval

The seminars explore how art practitioners and organisations in Sweden can learn from experiences in European countries where political shifts have had a concrete impact on the arts sector. We will also look at how these changes affect the conditions and frameworks for art, and how artists and art organisations navigate them in different European contexts.

The seminar series departs from questions that are frequently raised in dialogue with the arts field in Sweden:

How are artistic freedom and the arm’s-length principle affected by different political changes?

What conditions are needed for the arts sector to operate sustainably over the long term?

How do shifts in political governance affect artistic and organisational strategies?

Each seminar focuses on a specific geographical and political context. We examine what political shift has taken place, how cultural strategies and cultural policy directions have changed under different political leaderships, and what strategies artists and art organisations have developed to respond to—and act within—these changes. The seminars foreground the relationship between art’s fundamental conditions and the political and institutional frameworks that shape artistic practices and organisations in each country.

The seminars are open and free of charge to everyone working with art: artists, curators, art educators, art organisations, and other practitioners in the field. Registration is required.

The seminar series consists of five sessions:

Friday, 27 March, 10:00–12:00 — Learning from Hungary

Friday, 10 April, 10:00–12:00 — Learning from Slovakia

Wednesday, 13 May, 10:00–12:00 — Learning from Poland

Friday, 5 June, 10:00–12:00 — Learning from each other

Friday, 4 September, 10:00–12:00 — Learning from the Netherlands

Friday, 4 December, 10:00–12:00 — Learning from Slovenia

Medverkande:

Sara Edström

Sara Edström is the Chair of Konstnärernas Riksorganisation (The Artists’ Association of Sweden), which represents 3,500 professional visual artists, applied artists, and designers in Sweden, and serves as the trade union for visual artists in the country. Konstnärernas Riksorganisation works to safeguard the professional, economic, and social interests of artists working in visual art and design. Sara is an artist based in Luleå, in Norrbotten, where she has also been running the self-organised platform Galleri Syster for the past 20 years.

Emmeli Person

Emmeli Person is an artist working within institutional structures and educational platforms. As operational manager of Bildkonst Sverige (Visual Arts Association Sweden) she supports arts organisations nationally to build long term and resilient structures. Emmeli has a background as Curator of Learning at Index Foundation and holds a Master of Critical Theory and Arts Praxis from Dutch Art Institute.

Mick Wilson

Mick Wilson is an artist, educator and researcher, currently Professor of Art and Director of Doctoral Studies at HDK-Valand, University of Gothenburg, and co-chair of the Centre for Art and the Political Imaginary. With three decades in higher arts education, he has held leadership roles across institutions in Sweden, Ireland and the Netherlands.