Towards a shared platform for freelancers
Preliminary investigation project 2019-2020

Project Description

Arts Management Helsinki has tried to improve the working conditions of artists by acting as a production office and a working community for freelancers. Since 2015, Arts Management Helsinki has offered freelance artists continuous, personal service and production assistance. The operation has been made possible by Arts Management Helsinki’s own investment and commitment, and in 2018–2019 also by a project-specific grant awarded by the Arts Promotion Centre Finland (Take).

Arts Management Helsinki’s artist service has included a total of more than 60 artists, of which 20-35 at the same time. Through the work community, the artist members have also received collegial support from each other. There would be a wider need for the service, both quantitatively and content-wise, but in its current form and existing resources, these needs have not been met.

It would be important for freelance artists to have a support structure that makes artistic work more meaningful and safer. In the free field, work-related stress and anxiety, work group conflicts, abuse of power and work burnout occur, which could be solved at an early stage with appropriate support measures. A large part of the challenges regarding the working life of artists is connected to the fact that there is very little work available from employment relationships. The productions of the performing arts are realized more and more often as joint productions and/or with the support of grants. It is typical that there is no entity in the productions that wants, could or knows how to bear the employer’s responsibility.

Since 2013, Arts Management Helsinki has been in contact with the European Smart network and has followed the localized local activities of Smart organizations in different countries. Smart, or Société Mutuelle des Artistes, is a community founded in Belgium in 1998, which acts as a common work platform for artists and professionals in the creative field. Smart currently operates in eight European countries. In Belgium, the local Smart organization has 12 offices and more than 85,000 users. The European network of autonomous Smart partners serves more than 100,000 artists.

What could be learned from the operation of the Smart network for the Finnish performing arts field? Is it necessary to connect Finland to this European network, should we have our own SmartFI organization? Or in what way could the European Smart model be an example for a joint production house of freelancers in Finland?

Arts Management Helsinki set out to find out these questions in a preliminary survey that mapped the possibilities of the Smart production house from August 1, 2019 to March 31, 2020, the implementation of which was supported by the Ministry of Education and Culture with an experiment and development grant.

During the pre-examination work, it became clear that adapting the common European Smart model to Finland would not currently bring the necessary solutions for artists. It would be more interesting to create a unique, need-oriented and joint production platform serving performing arts freelancers. In the preliminary study, the key development needs in the art work were tackled and experiments were carried out on the means by which these needs can be met. Through the experiments, an operating model was created, which was refined through stakeholder interviews and which was worked on together with the artists.

The final result of the preliminary study is a model for a common production platform for freelancers. The operation of such a production platform will be started during 2020, as Arts Management Helsinki applied for and received an operating grant from the Arts Promotion Centre Finland for the operation of the production platform during this pre-examination process. In addition, the Finnish Cultural Fund granted a grant to start the production platform.