Equity by Design: Power, Money and Decision-Making Across Nordic Arts and Culture

Arts and culture do not simply reflect society. They shape whose stories are preserved, whose ideas enter public life, and who gets to build a future. The cultural landscape is also shaped by where money flows, who leads institutions, who sets priorities, and who has real influence over those decisions.

Power and money determine which organisations can plan beyond the next funding round, which artists can sustain a practice, whose work reaches an audience and who absorbs the uncertainty, the unpaid labour and the financial risk.

In Norway, 41% of visual artists say they manage financially because someone else in their household earns more (Kunstnerundersøkelsen 2019, Telemarksforsking/Kulturdirektoratet). In Denmark, nearly three quarters of everyone who received an arts grant in 2024 had already received one in the previous nine years (Statens Kunstfond, Årsberetning 2024). In Finland, artists with a foreign background were significantly more likely to receive a grant in 2019 than artists with a Finnish background, yet their median income stayed considerably lower (Cupore, Diversity Report 2023). Getting funded and being able to live from the work are not the same thing.

Decisions affecting the sector are made across governments, funding bodies, institutions, boards, panels and professional networks, often without the people most affected having meaningful influence over the choices being made.

This digital session will explore:

• How does money and resources flow within the ecosystem, and what would it mean to design these systems more equitably?
• Who decides what counts as artistic quality, relevance or excellence and what would it take to make that power more accountable and more shared?
• What leverage do artists, cultural workers and the public have to challenge, influence or reshape the systems around them?

This conversation will bring together people who experience and shape arts and culture funding from different positions. Speakers include Henri Terho, Director of the Arts and Culture Funding Department of the Finnish Arts and Culture Agency (KUVI), and Sarri Vuorisalo-Tiitinen, Managing Director of Globe Art Point, alongside Chisom Udeze, Executive Director of Diversify. Moderated by Sayantani Saha, Senior Manager at Diversify.

This session draws on Diversify's Nordic Equity Framework, co-created with practitioners from across the Nordics and currently being piloted by arts and cultural organisations in the region.