Learning from Each Other

This series considers the response of artists and arts organisations to political destabilizations and disruptions. In the fourth session entitled “Learning from each other” we pause for a moment to reflect on the knowledge and experience shared in the series so far. We also invite colleagues who are new to the conversation to join and share. Various political upheavals in each country considered— Hungary, Slovakia, Poland —have been considered with regard to the impacts on cultural policy and, most importantly, looking at how artists and arts organizations are responding to these upheavals. In each country these developments have been different based on the specificities of each national contexts, on the different kinds of political transformation experienced in each state, and also on the different histories of artists organizations in each context. Throughout the series Sara Edström and Emeli Person have been key dialogue partners bridging what we have learnt to the local Swedish context. They have helped us to explore a little deeper the information and perspectives shared by the guest speakers in each session. For this reason, we have invited Edström and Person to help us reflect and discuss further what we have already encountered and learned before we proceed with the next two events in the series “Learning from the Netherlands” and the “Learning from Slovenia”.  

As part of the session, the artists Jeanne van Heeswijk and Sophie Mak-Schram will present drawing out themes that will be further developed in the Contemporary Art Days and that are also informed by the experience of the Basecamp for Tactical Imaginaries. The session will also include short contextualising introductions by the convenors of the series Giorgiana Zachia (Public Art Agency) and Mick Wilson (CAPIm). Zachia will describe this year’s agenda for the annual Contemporary Art Days and how it responds to questions coming from consultations with artists and arts organizations, including those about the fate of “arm’s length” principle in state cultural policy and practice. Wilson will describe some of the different ways in which the international debates on cultural policy and arts organizations have been playing out in recent years drawing on current research by colleagues at CAPIm into organizational change and arts institutions. 

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 organizations 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. 

Jeanne van Heeswijk  

Jeanne van Heeswijk is an artist who facilitates the creation of dynamic and diversified public spaces in order to “radicalize the local.” Her long-scale community-embedded projects question art’s autonomy by combining performative actions, discussions, and other forms of organizing and pedagogy in order to assist communities to take control of their futures. Her work has been featured in numerous books and publications worldwide, as well as internationally renowned biennials such as Liverpool, Shanghai, and Venice. She was the 2014–2015 Keith Haring Fellow in Art and Activism at Bard College, Annandale-On-Hudson, NY; received the Curry Stone Prize for Social Design Pioneers, 2012; and the Leonore Annenberg Prize for Art and Social Change, 2011. Van Heeswijk was a BAK 2018/2019 Fellow and convened Trainings for the Not-Yet 2019-2020, together with BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht. She is the co-editor, with Maria Hlavajova and Rachael Rakes, of Toward the Not-Yet: Art as Public Practice (BAK/MIT Press, 2021). As of 2025 Jeanne is a driving force at BAK Basecamp for Tactical Imaginaries, the collective cultural infrastructure for gatherings, events, and presentations in Utrecht, the Netherlands. BAK Basecamp for Tactical Imaginaries is an initiative that unbuilds and re-builds cultural infrastructure to collectively confront the urgencies of today. 

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-organized platform Galleri Syster for the past 20 years. 

Sophie Mak-Schram 

Sophie Mak-Schram is an artist based in Wales whose practice spans artistic practice, art historical research and radical pedagogies and is currently Lecturer in Fine Art at Cardiff Metropolitan University and Civic Fellow at BAK Basecamp for Tactical Imaginaries.