“Without culture, we are nothing” – A portrait of Maria Mediaas Jørstad

By Signe Wulff

An almost tangible feeling of bearing a large and heavy responsibility struck Maria Mediaas Jørstad when she saw a statistic about the relationship between young people’s election participation and their consumption of culture. The statistic, which was based on the voting habits of young Americans, showed that among young people in the survey who had a regular consumption of art and culture, 45% made use of their right to vote in an election. Among those who did not have a relationship with art and culture, on the other hand, voter turnout was shockingly low – just 1%.  

The statistic was “mind-blowing”, says Maria. “Art and culture make us understand that we are part of the world, that we have a place in it, that we each mean something. Art and culture create trust, discussion and cohesion.” In a world that is becoming increasingly divided, chaotic and dramatic, it is very clear that there is a need for this cohesion, she continues: “Art and culture are not just decorations on the cake, but an important ingredient in our society. A vital piece of our democracy.” 

It is this significant piece that she now holds in her hand, and which she has the opportunity to play, by virtue of her position as Director of the Nordic Culture Fund – a position she assumed in September 2023. “It is very important to me that art and culture have the best possible framework,” she says, and continues in sing-song Norwegian: “It is enormously important to work here in the Fund and administer that responsibility.” 

Maria, who was born in Stockholm and grew up in Oslo, was herself struck by art when, after secondary school, she attended a folk high school with theatre as her main subject. Here she experienced such an intense feeling of belonging that she kept to the same path when she went on to study at university. Maria graduated as a theatre producer from Stockholm University of the Arts in 1999. After graduation, she worked for a number of years as head producer at the National Theatre in Oslo, and she has also had the unique experience of working closely with the members of ABBA on the major production of MAMMA MIA! that was presented in Oslo in 2009.  

In 2015, the Norwegian Ministry of Culture established Talent Norge, and Maria was hired to lead this new organisation and build it up. The goal was to make a solid investment in young talents in the field of art and culture, and to secure both public and private funding for this. Maria managed the organisation with great success. After eight years under her leadership, around 50 talent programmes had been established for more than 700 active talents every year. Talent Norge became a model that attracted great international interest, and we now see similar models being established in several other countries. 

Maria’s experience from Talent Norge is that there is no reason to be afraid to talk about talent development within arts and culture, because the work of the organisation showed that it actually made a difference to approach talent development in a systematic and technically grounded way, as is done in the world of sport, for example. “It’s not about competition, but about identifying the frameworks and prerequisites that the young person needs in order to have the potential to unfold their talent. And it’s about a society that shows that it invests in artists – and in art as a way of life,” she says.  

From her new position in the Nordic Culture Fund, Maria will operate in the Nordic Region and strengthen cultural co-operation. The Fund is an official part of the Nordic co-operation and has an organisational basis in and close co-operation with both the Nordic Council and the Nordic Council of Ministers. The Nordic Culture Fund was founded in 1966, and Maria is impressed by how visionary it was to set up an indepentent, transnational cultural fund at the time: “They understood right from the foundation of the Nordic co-operation that culture had to play a key role. Culture creates our identity and our solidarity.”  

It implies certain obligations to assume the mantle of the visionary founders – and to lead a robust and well-anchored organisation in a privileged part of the world, she says: “Together, the Nordic economies make up the world’s twelfth largest economy, and our societies are founded on important values such as freedom of expression and artistic freedom. But we do not live in isolation in our part of the world, and it is important that we think of and anchor our work in global terms.” 

In 2020, the Nordic Culture Fund launched the thematic initiative Globus, which brings art and culture into global arenas and gives artists and cultural practitioners outside the Nordic Region new opportunities to apply for funding. The venture has been a great success, says Maria, and although it is scheduled to conclude at the end of 2025, her vision is that the concept should be continued and refined.  

She wants the Fund to continue to open up to the world; partly because art still knows no national borders and freely flows in and out of nationalities, cultures and territories, but also because the world is so dramatic right now, she says. In her foreword to the Fund’s annual report for 2023, she wrote: “The importance of strong international and Nordic cultural co-operation is now even clearer, when the level of tension in the world is rising and major humanistic and geopolitical issues are making themselves felt.”  

The world map of art is changing and there is a need to encourage transnational, global communities: “The war in Ukraine is bringing about changes in our own neighbourhood. Some collaborations are being reinforced, while others are transforming. Take, for example, the cultural co-operation in the Barents region, which is changing its mandate, while our community with the Baltic countries has been given a new focus. There is no doubt that there is a need for initiatives such as Globus, which invite knowledge sharing, support and cohesion – and partnership as equals. We want to contribute to all types of conversations – and to openness – about art. Disagreement is not dangerous but rewarding. It is a privilege to be a steward of art and culture, because with it we can not only reveal the nuances, but also insist on them,” she says.  

Maria has personal knowledge of what it is like when art is no longer nuanced or free. Her husband is from a Kven family and leads a Kven theatre in Norway. The Kvens are a group of people who originally lived in the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. The Kven culture was Norwegianised during the 19th and 20th centuries, and is now the subject of the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that the Norwegian Parliament established in 2018 to investigate injustices committed by the Norwegian state against not only Kvens, but also Sami, Norwegian Finns and Forest Finns. “This is one of the first things you do if you want to destroy a people: You take away their culture, then their identity disappears, and eventually the people become completely invisible,” says Maria. 

Maria has an incredible eye for patterns and routines, and a corresponding ability to work in a structured way to change things that do not work. So says Ingrid Lorentzen, Artistic Director of the Norwegian National Ballet, who has shared a workplace with Maria and Talent Norge in the beautiful opera house in Oslo harbour. The two have worked closely together for many years, and are the main architects of the choreography programme Artemisia, the goal of which was to ensure that choreographers have equal opportunities, regardless of gender. Since the Artemisia initiative was launched in 2019, female choreographers have created 27 new works – seven of them for the Main Stage, where no female choreographer had previously been at the forefront. “Maria brings energy and life, and has an eminent ability to see everything in a wider context. Most importantly, if something does not work, she dares to change it,” says Ingrid Lorentzen, and continues: “Most of us are limited by what we know, but Maria is not like that. She has taught me that if you see something you can change for the better, then you should do it now, because you don’t know how long you have the momentum.” 

Momentum. That is exactly the sense that Maria has in her work at the moment. She feels that she has joined a well-functioning Fund that rests on a strong foundation and, with a ballast of solid work, is ready to move into a new era – both with her as Director, but also with a new strategy period and a 60th anniversary just around the corner.  

The Fund is already working proactively to facilitate new networks and collaborations, and this is a line that Maria will continue. She will also look at how the Fund can help to create and inspire broader financing of the Nordic cultural co-operation. During the eight years that Maria led Talent Norge, private donors contributed more than 50% of all funding to the talent development programmes, which meant more than half a billion kroner in private financing for young talents. This is experience that she feels it is obvious to bring with her to the work of the Fund and to other Nordic contexts.  

In Talent Norge, she experienced the strength of making use of both private and public forms of funding. This helps to reinforce and anchor art and culture in society, she believes – and with more support available, to reach wider and further: “It is healthy to get creativity out to all corners of society. Art can get us out of our echo chambers. Art creates empathy and trust. And that is something we need.”