The Nordic Culture Fund is a partner at ICORN’s General Assembly in Copenhagen

Hosted by the City of Copenhagen and in close cooperation with Danish PEN, Art Matter, and the Nordic Culture Fund, ICORN will hold panel debates, workshops, and cultural events across the city. The main focus of these events is to explore and discuss the role of writers, artists, and journalists in upholding and developing democracy. More than 300 artists, writers, journalists, and human rights defenders from 40 different countries, as well as representatives from 86 cities, will participate in the general assembly.

The support from the Nordic Culture Fund will specifically contribute to the implementation of the cultural program during the general assembly. This will include translation workshops, concerts, readings, and artistic performances by artists from the Nordic countries and the rest of the world. The events will take place at VEGA on Thursday, May 30, and at Nikolaj Kunsthal on Friday, May 31, through the public event, ‘Art Bar: DISRUPT!’.

On Thursday, May 30th, the Nordic Culture Fund will also co-host a UNESCO-led workshop on the topic ‘Defending Critical Voices Offline and Online: The UN and Freedom of Expression’. The workshop will be followed by a panel discussion, which will discuss the possibilities for promoting alliances between journalists, creative professionals, and different levels of governance in addressing challenges to freedom of expression and cultural rights.

Background

For almost 20 years, ICORN has been working to improve the conditions for freedom of expression worldwide by providing long-term protection for writers, artists, and journalists who cannot express themselves freely without harassment or fear of persecution. The network has its secretariat in Norway, and many of the network’s cities are located in the Nordic countries.

In 2024, ICORN and the Nordic Culture Fund entered into a strategic partnership, which primarily focuses on:

• Sustainable cultural cooperation: To find sustainable and flexible ways of collaborating that can create a more holistic and inclusive approach to cultural policy, artistic mobility, and the diversity of artistic practices and expressions.
• Connections between the local and global: To explore how local and global conditions are interconnected and create new meaningful ways of expression that are important for the development of free and resilient societies.
• Freedom of expression, democracy, and human rights: To investigate and discuss how we can improve the conditions for freedom of expression, democracy, and human rights both locally, nationally, and internationally, with a focus on both Nordic and global perspectives.