Dear UKK members and colleagues,
The board of UKK is happy to publish this newsletter to help keep you updated on UKK’s advocacy across the Danish art sector. We are happy to share selected updates, accomplishments, and information with you about ongoing work to keep you informed about the scope of our organizational practice, but also our current activities and future projects.
On behalf of UKK’s board, we would also like to thank you for being a member. Without your continued membership UKK couldn’t exist, and we appreciate your ongoing support for UKK’s advocacy within the art sector in Denmark (and more broadly) as we continue to seek better working conditions for artists, curators, and art workers in different contexts.
We also thank you and encourage you to continue spreading the positive word and inviting your art sector friends, colleagues, and art students to become members of UKK. This way, we can collectively continue to build a larger and stronger organization and expand the foundation of our work into the future.
If you have any questions, comments, or feedback, you can always reach out to us at info@ukk.community.
Thank you again,
On behalf of UKK’s board, working groups, and organizational team.
///
General Advocacy – UKK in Dialogue Across the Art Sector:
Part of UKK’s advocacy to improve conditions within the Danish art sector starts with dialogue among institutions, governmental agencies, foundations, and others. As such, UKK’s board was invited to provide feedback on The Danish Arts Foundation’s grant program; UKK suggested expanding the artist working grant, encouraging diversity and accessibility of recipients, simplifying protocols and processes, and increasing support for freelance curators and art organizers, a.o. UKK’s was also invited to provide feedback to the Danish Cultural Ministry on their recent Cultural Policy Statement published in 2023. Our feedback focused on the report’s need for a more inclusive approaches to diversity, highlighted the necessity for a more equitable economy for artists based on the economic scale of the art sector revealed in the report, and highlighted the need for improved working conditions for artists working in municipalities, given the scale of funding in the art sector across Danish municipalities. Finally, UKK also nominates art workers to sit on institutional boards, and UKK board member Felis Dos has just been appointed to the AaBkC (Aarhus BilledkunstCenter) board, replacing former UKK board member Andreas Führer, who recently resigned the post. We would like to graciously thank Andreas for his support.
New Upcoming Projects - “Diversity Commons” and “Urgent Matters”:
UKK’s board is happy to announce that UKK will soon be launching two new collaborative projects - “Diversity Commons” and “Urgent Matters”. In Diversity Commons, our work will seek to co-create dialogue and awareness toward supporting a more inclusive and diverse art sector in Denmark through different public moments all over the country. “Urgent Matters” is UKK’s new program seeking to highlight acute socio-political issues and seek to identify “urgencies” artists and artworkers face within the Danish art sector toward generative solution making. The projects are still under development as planning and fundraising continues, but each project will be carried out in collaboration between UKK’s organizational team, its diversity and other internal working groups, and a host of interesting guests, partners, and venues across Denmark. Diversity Commons is currently supported by Bikubenfonden and Urgent Matters is currently supported by The Danish Arts Foundation.
If you are interested in supporting or learning more about the Diversity Commons or Urgent Matters projects, please email chair@ukk.community for more information.
Updates from Art Workers with Disabilities (AWwD) Working Group:
Art Workers with Disabilities are well underway with their project Mapping Disability Access to Danish art spaces, where artists and art workers with disabilities are auditing art spaces to map their access to opportunities and resources across the Danish art field. In 2024, the project is in its second phase and has received generous support from Roskilde Festival Fonden, BKF, Bevica Fonden as well as solidified collaborations with Building Diversity and researchers from Aalborg University Copenhagen. Within the next months you can expect a public event launching the project as well as a series of talks organized with Overgaden taking place in the summer of 2024.
Establishment of New Working Groups on “Diversity” and “Economy”:
Another aspect of UKK’s organization also involves the creation of working groups to more concisely address particular issues within the art sector and produce more targeted advocacy in cooperation with the broader UKK organization. As such, members of UKK’s board have recently formed two new working groups – focusing on “diversity” and “economy” within the Danish art sector. The newly formed UKK diversity working group, led by Felis Dos and Lawrence Ebelle, will focus on creating new understanding, community, and critique – internally and externally – in relation to ideation on new diversity initiatives and policies within the Danish art sector. The UKK art economy group led by Scott William Raby, Lawrence Ebelle, and Philip Pilekjær will focus on political-economic questions and research solutions to address the ongoing economic crises artists and artworkers face as one of the poorest professions in all of Denmark.
If you are interested in supporting or learning more about the work of these new working groups, please email info@ukk.community or chair@ukk.community respectively for more information.
The Danish Composers’ Society and UKK on Fair Practice Culture:
Fair Practice Culture is a joint initiative that investigates certification as a method to create better and safer working conditions for the art field. This is inspired by the Netherlands, where, since 2016, a Fair Practice Code has been developed and implemented – a “culture’s swan label” for fair working conditions that state-funded cultural institutions must follow in order to receive funding. During 2023, we debated at Kulturmødet Mors and held four workshops with more than 100 artists, art workers, and representatives from cultural institutions. In the workshops, the coalition worked with and discussed the Dutch model and its values, as well as what a Danish version should contain in order to work for the Danish art field. The purpose of the model is to create a common starting point for fair working conditions based on five values: sustainability, diversity, solidarity, transparency and trust. We are currently working on a report that will present the results of the project, which will be published soon.
The project is led by Sine Tofte Hannibal, of the Danish Composers’ Society and Maj Horn, artist and former chair of UKK, and is supported by Bikubenfonden, Augustinus Fonden, the Danish Composers’ Society/Koda Kultur, and UKK.
Putting Focus on International Collaborations:
UKK has recently worked to strengthen international ties between the Danish art sector and other countries. Not long ago, UKK board member Felis Dos joined an assembly with the Norwegian art interest organization Verdensrommet at UKS and Office for Contemporary Art Norway in Oslo as part of the launch of the “Aliens Network” - a transnational effort established by Verdensrommet to gather tools, exchange knowledge and bring answers to crucial challenges faced by non-EU/EEA creative professionals working in the Nordics. UKK has also entered into ongoing dialogue, exchange, and project development as part of a growing consortium of international art interest organizations focusing on the role of art within rapidly changing geo-political contexts in Europe (and globally). Along with NICC (Belgium), UKS (Norway), and Platform BK (Netherlands), UKK began discussions on “art and citizenship” toward future European collaborative advocacy. Recently, this consortium – along with other art organizations like La Buse (France), et al. hosted a digital meeting with NYU scholar Gail Segal on her essay “A Praise of Doubt,” anthologized in the book entitled Artistic Citizenship: A Public Voice for the Arts as part of ongoing research.
UKK Collaborates in Report on Improving Artist Housing and Studio Needs:
In late 2023, a study was published entitled “Artistic Environments: The Development of the Diverse City” in which former UKK co-chair Michala Paludan participated within as part of a broader coalition of organizations including BKF, The Danish Association of Architects, and The Association of Artist’s Housing of 1873, et al. The study highlights the poor economic and spatial challenges artists face within Danish cities, the socio-economic and cultural value artists create within (built) environments, and suggests potential studio and housing solutions for artists within Danish cities, a.o. findings. Architect and UKK board member Lawrence Ebelle and Artist and UKK chair Scott William Raby contributed a public statement from UKK on the report:
“This study highlights positive impacts artists create across society in spite of ongoing economic and urban housing challenges. Research supports prioritizing artists’ spatial needs through long-term investment in new affordable housing solutions in Danish cities. The study proposes unique architectural scenarios, and with transparent and inclusive (re)development processes, (spatial) conditions for artists can be improved.”
Developing a UKK Organizational Protocol:
As part of seeking to improve and clarify organizational workflow, processes, and (external) partnership criteria, UKK has been researching and developing a new UKK protocols document since last year. By taking inspiration from other arts advocacy organizations, experimental art institutions, and other unique art initiatives working in different social-economic and geo-political (advocacy) contexts across Europe and North America, UKK’s board has sought to gain new insight into how we can more effectively, democratically, and sustainably operate as an arts interest organization. Since our charter’s bylaws say little about how UKK actually operates on a daily basis, our board has found it important to create a more streamlined and detailed supplement to our governance model for our organization going forward. While we have been working to understand how other art and cultural organizations operate, we have been seeking guidance from the Belgian Art/Legal organization TWIIID to help advise on the creation of UKK’s new guidelines. This guidelines document will be finalized and published soon on UKK’s website.