The Contemporary Art Days Summit 2026 in Uppsala offers a packed programme of conversation topics, communal cooking, workshops, and visits to art venues accross Uppsala region. Here you can read the full programme. When registering, you need to choose a conversation topic in order to purchase a ticket. You can see the various options in the programme. The programme is updated on an ongoing basis and changes may occur.
Register for Contemporary Art Days 2026 > (Registration opens in August)
09.00–10.00 | Wednesday 14/9
Registration
Entrance 3J is right next to Ihresalen but you may also use the main entrance situated at 3H/3R or the entrance at number 16 (3L) and follow the corridors to Ihresalen.
10.00–10.20 | Wednesday 14/9
Opening
10.30–11.30 | Wednesday 14/9
Funding workshop 1: Allmänna Arvsfonden: Sweden's Inheritance Fund – apply for funding to realise your idea.
Choose to attend a funding workshop or take part in a seminar on public art.
In Swedish.
10.30–11.30 | Wednesday 14/9
Funding workshop 2: Presentation of the Swedish Arts Council's (Kulturrådet) grants within visual art, form, and craft
Choose to attend a funding workshop or take part in a seminar on public art.
In Swedish.
10.30–11.30 | Wednesday 14/9
Funding workshop 3: Svenska Postkodlotteriets Stiftelse
Choose to attend a funding workshop or take part in a seminar on public art.
Get to know Svenska Postkodlotteriets Stiftelse, a potential funder offering several forms of support for art and cultural projects. The presentation is tailored for arts practitioners. You will learn about the various forms of cultural support on offer, tips and tricks, and important things to consider when applying for funding.
In Swedish.
10.30–11.30 | Wednesday 14/9
Funding workshop 4: Information session with Nordic Culture Point: funding opportunities for Nordic-Baltic collaboration in art and culture.
Choose to attend a funding workshop or take part in a seminar on public art.
In Swedish.
10.30–11.30 | Wednesday 14/9
Seminar: Process, collaboration, and design in practice. Public art in Uppsala City and Region Uppsala.
Choose to attend a funding workshop or take part in a seminar on public art.
In Swedish.
11.30–12.15 | Wednesday 14/9
Lunch
A vegetarian lunch will be provided.
12.30 | Wednesday 14/9
Buses to the various venues across Uppsala where the group conversations take place.
13.00–17.00 | Wednesday 14/9
Topic 1: Cultural spaces as shared spaces: Re-tooling the commons
The Contemporary Art Days Summit 2026 features six thematic discussion groups. This discussion topic focuses on shared ownership, collective stewardship of resources, and ways of organising that prioritise community resilience over growth. The commons has a long history conceptually and practically, particularly in the Swedish context where forests, grazing lands, and other resources were historically managed as allmänningar — collectively governed commons that depended on shared responsibility and negotiated access. While many of these arrangements have changed over time, they offer important historical precedents for contemporary discussions about collective ownership, stewardship, and democratic governance.
13.00–17.00 | Wednesday 14/9
Topic 2: Instituting otherwise in challenging political times
The Contemporary Art Days Summit 2026 features six thematic discussion groups. This discussion topic focuses on challenges faced by institutions as (mellanslag) well as individuals: rising costs, political polarisation, societal expectations, self-censorship, precarity, exhaustion. Cultural institutions — as models rather than mirrors for society — could imagine themselves structurally otherwise.
13.00–17.00 | Wednesday 14/9
Topic 3: Art in public space: who is it for, who is it from?
Contemporary Art Days 2026 features six thematic discussion groups. This discussion topic focuses on public art. Art in public space occupies a contested terrain: shifting between applied art, monuments, design, use function, urban development, place-making, and social infrastructure.
13.00–17.00 | Wednesday 14/9
Topic 4: Stretching the “we” of art: Learning with communities
Contemporary Art Days 2026 features six thematic discussion groups. This discussion topic focuses on the “we”.There is often an implied “we” in the arts: the “we” who seeks to reach new audiences, engage those considered “hard to reach”, and represent stories not yet heard. Yet these efforts can sometimes leave existing institutional assumptions, structures, and decision-making processes untouched.
13.00–17.00 | Wednesday 14/9
Topic 5: Reciprocal influences: Creative practices and grassroots organising
Contemporary Art Days 2026 features six thematic discussion groups. This discussion topic focuses on creative practises and grassroot sorganising. The arts have increasingly been encouraged—and at times expected—to engage with communities, social issues, and political realities. At the same time, many grassroots initiatives and social movements rely on creative methods to build collective identity, communicate ideas, create public visibility, and imagine alternative futures.
13.00–17.00 | Wednesday 14/9
Topic 6: Daring to dialogue: embodied approaches to engaging each other
Contemporary Art Days 2026 features six thematic discussion groups. This discussion topic focuses on embodied approaches. Even within the arts and cultural sector, dialogue often takes familiar forms: discussion, writing, presentations, and conversations around tables. These approaches can be valuable, but they also privilege particular ways of communicating, participating, and producing knowledge.
17.00–20.00 | Wednesday 14/9
Communal cooking within the conversation groups
The conversation continues at the cutting board. Each group becomes a cooking crew, where participants together prepare and cook the meal that is then shared in the same room where they have been sitting and discussing. The idea is to let the collective organizing we talk about during these days take on other dimensions. Cooking together is itself an act of co-creation: someone chops, someone stirs, someone tastes, and the conversation continues at a different pace and with different muscles at work.
Each cooking crew is led by an art colleague who brings their own practice and way of thinking about community, infrastructure, and resource-sharing — not as chefs in the traditional sense, but as conversation partners who happen to be standing at the stove.
20.00 | Wednesday 14/9
Closing and return journey
After the activity ends, travel from the venue is at your own arrangement. Local public transport is available from all locations except Sprakateatern/Teater Aros, which is centrally located. A valid ticket is required to travel on local public transport. You can find more information on how to buy tickets, timetables, etc. on Uppsala länstrafik’s website>
09.00–12.00 | Thursday 15/9
Group conversations continue
The conversations from the previous day continue in the same constellations in different rooms, starting at 09:00. Please arrive in good time. Coffee will be served on site in the group rooms.
12.00–13.00 | Thursday 15/9
Lunch
13.00–14.30 | Thursday 15/9
Afternoon coffee
15.00–16.00 | Thursday 15/9
Pecha Kucha
During the Pecha Kucha, seven arts organisations will talk about how they work with different aspects of cultural infrastructures.
16.00–17.00 | Thursday 15/9
Networks in conversation: one month after the election
One month after the election, networks of art organisations come together to present the issues they are currently working on and to jointly examine the situation. This seminar is an opportunity to identify what collaborations are needed going forward and what the field needs to rally around in order to stand stronger. What alliances are required for art actors, despite differences in conditions, perspectives, and interests, to act with greater force and create more room for action? How can solidarity, organising, and collaboration help strengthen contemporary art’s infrastructures in a time of political and societal renegotiation?
17.00–17.15 | Thursday 15/9
Closing
17.15–18.00 | Thursday 15/9
Dinner on your own
Move over next door to Uppsala Art Museum, with the option of dinner at your own cost. A number of food trucks will be set up in Borggården. It is also possible to eat at Uppsala Art Museum’s café.
18.00–21.00 | Thursday 15/9
Art Night, Uppsala Art Museum
Art Night is the museum’s themed evening featuring art, guided tours, creative activities, food, drink, and music, held every Thursday 17.00–21.00. Admission to the museum is free all evening. Several things will be happening across the museum’s different floors on 15 October.
Read more aboute the evening at Art Night (in Swedish only)>
08.30–12.00 | Friday 16/9
Bus Trip 1. Public Art in Focus – from Uppsala University Hospital to Rosendal, Ulleråker and Hospitalet
Discover Uppsala’s public art on a guided tour with stops at Uppsala University Hospital, the urban regeneration areas of Rosendal and Ulleråker, and conclude with coffee and refreshments at the artists’ studios at Hospitalet.
- The bus departs at 08:30 from Uppsala Central Station and returns to Uppsala Central Station at 12:00.
08.30–12.00 | Friday 16/9
Bus trip 2. Creative encounters at Hospitalet
An inspiring morning of networking, open studios, and creative workshops in Hospitalet’s artistic environment. Meet the practitioners based there and get creative yourself!
- The bus departs at 08.30 from Uppsala Central Station and returns to Uppsala Central Station at 12.00. The journey to Hospitalet takes about 15 minutes.
08.00–12.00 | Friday 16/9
Bus trip 3. Studio Kapellet – working artistically in the countryside
A visit to Studio Kapellet in Östervåla, including a tour of the sculpture park, an introduction to Kapellet’s activities, and a performance by resident artists Afrang Nordlöf Malekian and TM Möller. Studio Kapellet is run by artists Hanna Wildow and Dick Hedlund.
- The bus departs at 08:00 from Uppsala Central Station and returns to Uppsala Central Station at 12:00. The journey to Studio Kapellet takes about an hour, so the on-site programme runs from 09:00–11:00.
Read here fore more information at Site Visits – 16 October >