The Free to work seminar is an invitation to share life stories from different creative communities, and to help set certain ‘ground rules’ on what should constitute modern working conditions for artists today.

Narratives around artistic production often revolve around opportunities (or lost opportunities) to work. From the New York loft scene in the 60s to totalitarianism and iron curtain cultural production, to marginalized folk cultures or Scandinavian public funding schemes and city gentrification, it often boils down to issues of finance, politics, space, belonging, or the leeway to pursue artistic directions without hindrance. Although these opportunities vary massively between place, expression, ethnicity, gender, genre, and style, they typically involved issues surrounding time-allocation, belonging to a creative community, having access to a safe working environment, enjoying a living wage, and full artistic freedom.
In the seminar, we will hear from Roma communities in Eastern Slovakia, contemporary workspaces, persecuted artists, and artistic practices, and gauge the level of the freedom barometer within their working conditions.
Schedule
10:00 – 10:15 Petter Frost Fadnes (NO) Saxophone player and researcher. Title: Welcome/Introducing Angrusori
10:15 – 11:00 Sergej Tchirkov (RU) Accordionist and PhD-candidate at UiB. Title: Flee to work, free to what?
11:00 – 11:30 Jana Belišová (SK) Ethnomusicologist. Title: The history of the Roma as a history of rejection and exclusion
11:30 – 12:00 Mike Fletcher (UK) Reed player and researcher. Title: A Case Against Freedom
Lunch 12:00 – 12:30
12:30 – 13:15 ICORN – Helge Lunde (NO) and Hayat Al-Sharif (YE) Safe Haven NGO and photographer Hayat Al-Sharif. Title: Safe from persecution, free to create
13:15 – 13:45 Nils Henrik Asheim (NO) Composer and organist. Title: Privilege and responsibility in a free artistic practice?
13:45 – 14:30 Tarjei Mandt Larsen (NO) Philosopher. Title: Perspectives on artistic free speech
Påmelding ved petter.f.fadnes@uis.no innen 20. mars
19:00 pre-concert talk at T-time, Tou
20:00 concert Angrusori at Maskinhallen, Tou