Welcome to the Nordic Culture Fund’s new website – greetings from the Fund’s director

Today it is with great pleasure that we launch the new website of the Nordic Culture Fund. The motivation behind this project has been to present relevant knowledge of the work of the Fund, its current initiatives and the expression of our strategy.

With the new website, we also aim to reinforce our message about the importance of well-functioning international cultural co-operation. When the world is in turmoil, that is precisely when we need the perspective of art and culture on the direction in which we are going. Through our funding programmes, partnerships and cultural policy work, the Nordic Culture Fund aims to boost the potential of art and culture in our society and maintain the opportunities for artists and cultural actors to develop and enter into new co-operations and networks.

Growing interest in collaborations

Looking back over the past year, we can see that there has been a renewed and steadily increasing interest in the Nordic co-operation. After two years marked by the Covid pandemic and the resultant shutdowns, we now see a strong need to establish and reactivate new and existing contacts and collaborations. In concrete terms, this can be seen in the record number of funding applications and funded projects that share the vision of an artistic and cultural life that is dynamic, experimental and free.

In our work, it has also long been important to link the Nordic with broader international and global perspectives. An important milestone in our efforts to strengthen our global focus was reached in autumn 2022, with the launch of the first major application round in the Globus theme initiative. Over 200 applications received, involving actors from 110 different countries, demonstrate how arts and culture can lead the way in shaping new types of global and international networks and collaborations that can contribute to new understandings of a sustainable and viable future. Through collaboration in these projects, the Nordic region becomes woven into broad global networks with actors from different parts of the world. We look forward to following the future journey of the projects.

The work with Globus also demonstrates how issues of artistic mobility, freedom and cultural rights cannot be solved within national frameworks alone, but must be more firmly anchored within the international policy dialogue. Here, the Nordic countries have an opportunity to play a leading role.

The importance of arts and culture in times of crisis

In the Nordic countries, the year of crisis and the altered security situation has given rise to a further strengthening and deepening of the official Nordic co-operation, which began as a peace-building initiative after the Second World War. Cultural co-operation has formed the foundation of these efforts.

The year 2023 also marks the 58th anniversary of the founding of the Nordic Culture Fund. On 3 October 1966, the Nordic ministers of culture and education signed the agreement to establish a Nordic Foundation that would be able to work internationally, both inside and outside the Nordic Region. The intention was to create an autonomous body that could act freely and rapidly. 

That is also the foundation on which our work is built today. We view the Nordic artistic and cultural co-operation as an essential key to the future, and it is now more important than ever to ensure that the vital commitment and investment in arts and culture is re-established as part of the pathway towards a more integrated and sustainable Nordic region.

Benny Marcel

Director, Nordic Culture Fund