Evaluation of the production platform Arts Management Helsinki

15.12.2022

Summary

This evaluation examines the Arts Management Helsinki production platform (AMH) and the effects and significance of the support it receives for the development of AMH’s operations and for the artist members. The evaluation focuses on the measures that AMH uses to improve the working life of freelancers. In 2022, AMH received structural support for a development project, the goal of which was 1) scaling the production platform for a larger number of artists, 2) diversifying the production structure, and 3) establishing the production platform model as part of the free field of art.

According to the assessment, AMH is committed to supporting art and creative work in a high-quality and unique way. It builds the sense of community that freelancers generally long for and strengthens the appreciation of artistic work. As an agile operator, it offers a service quickly and with a low threshold. AMH has reached the goals set for the 2022 structural support. The number of artist members was increased by 25 percent. New services were offered to members, including occupational health services and coaching, i.e. (career) training, and it was possible to do work that complements art work, such as collegial mentoring.

Structural support has further increased the work well-being and satisfaction of the production platform of the artist members. In the evaluation, it was difficult to name things about the activity that should be decisively improved or done differently. The interviewees hoped for better publicity of AMH. The operation could also be expanded, which is only possible by increasing resources. At the same time, it should be ensured that the current high-quality and praised operation does not become rigid.

Subject of evaluation

The subject of this evaluation is the specialist company Arts Management Helsinki (AMH), which acts as a production platform and support structure for the free field of performing arts. The purpose of AMH is to improve the operating conditions of artists, create new types of cooperation models, and strengthen and renew production structures. It is a service provider, partner and work community for performing arts freelancers, independent artists and art communities.
As a company, AMH is a non-profit limited company, and it has been offering freelancers personal service and production assistance since 2012. The majority of the current 50 artist members of the production platform are dance artists. In Finland, the most typical form of earning in the dance industry is freelance work.

AMH’s activities as an enabler of artistic work have been supported by the Finnish Cultural Foundation (SKR), the Arts Promotion Centre Finland (Taike), the Ministry of Education and Culture (OKM) and the City of Helsinki with a corona grant granted for the complementary work of artists. Pandemic lockdowns and movement restrictions caused heavy job and income losses for the performing arts industry, which hit freelancers the hardest.

In 2022, OKM granted 120,000 euros in structural support for the development of Arts Management Helsinki. The purpose of structural support was to strengthen the autonomous agency of both individuals and artist-led groups in the free field of art. Structural support for culture and creative industries is part of Finland’s recovery and recovery plan, which receives its funding from the EU’s one-time recovery instrument (Next Generation EU) programs. Taike has also supported AMH with a discretionary operating grant in 2022. The grants received by AMH made it possible to continue operations and provide employment-promoting subventions in the challenging situation of the art and culture industry.

The Arts Management Helsinki production platform supports freelancers in three areas

The production platform is a new type of operation in the field of performing arts. It is a work community and support structure for freelance artists whose goal is to make working as an artist more meaningful and safer.

At AMH, freelancers are given support for financial and other administration, as well as consulting assistance for various issues related to work and planning. Since the income generation of freelance artists is problematic and often very scarce, AMH supports artists by, for example, paying employer expenses. With their grants, artists can, if they wish, shape the salary paid through AMH, thereby improving the artist’s social security. Support is also offered to artist members’ own associations. AMH concretely supports new types of collaboration when, for example, it pays artists a salary for joint development work and experiments.

The operation of the artists’ production platform is divided into three areas, the contents of which are described on AMH’s website https://artsmanagement.fi/platform/ as follows:

1. Personal services:
   • infrastructure for the artist’s work
   • personal, tailored help and support at different stages of the career path
   The production platform acts as a legal structure for the artist, e.g. in co-productions, gig contracts, project financing. The production platform acts as a responsible employer and shapes projects and employment relationships into work for artists. The platform offers personal work life services for artists. Personal services include, for example, counseling, job guidance and annual development discussions, as well as other services that maintain work ability. Occupational health services are also available to artists.
2. Preparatory work for productions:
   • support for artists’ own non-artistic work
   • help with work preparing productions, e.g. production planning, communication, pre-production
   A large part of artists’ work is invisible, non-artistic, unpaid work: enabling working conditions, arranging frameworks, searching for resources, negotiating conditions. The production platform makes this invisible work visible and offers help and support for it.
   Depending on the need, the work preparing the productions is carried out by the company’s own staff, external experts and/or the artists themselves.
3. Community activities:
   a work community and support network for freelance artists
   strengthens the feeling of belonging to the community
   The production platform acts as a work community and companion for the artist members. Community events promote interaction between the artists of the production platform and create opportunities for joint learning. Events include e.g. facilitated discussions, lectures, member breakfasts, reading circles.
   Arts Management Helsinki’s safer space principles are followed in all community events.

All three areas are used by the members who participated in this assessment. Thanks to them, AMH is “a refuge equivalent to a work community for a freelancer, which helps to work alone”, as the dance artist I interviewed summed up AMH’s activities. According to him, the production platform creates a lot of structure for freelancing, where the employee would otherwise not have a job or a work community: “Thanks to AMH, the artist is not so detached and the work is not so fragmented”.

Evaluation process, questions and interviewees

I received from AMH the email addresses of the artist members to whom I sent a request to participate in the evaluation interview. I sent an invitation to 11 members, seven of whom responded to my email, and five of them and I found a suitable interview time for both of us. I interviewed all five members on December 7-9, 2022. Thus, every tenth of AMH’s 50 artist members participated in my interviews. I did the individual interviews by phone and they lasted one to two hours at a time. The discussions were based on the following question frame:

With what job title and in what kind of relationship do you work on the production platform?
When and how did you join, i.e. how did you find out about AMH?
For what need was AMH the primary help and answer, what all does AMH offer you?
Does AMH help you to focus on your own artwork essentially?
Which of the three areas of the production platform (1. personal services for artists, 2. preparatory work for productions, 3. community activities) do you consider to be the most important activity for you?
Or is there another, 4th area that AMH itself does not market as its core activity, but which is the most central and important to you in AMH’s operations? What if AMH didn’t exist?
What are the financial/self-earning implications of AMH? Have e.g. the complementary works of the structural support affected the earnings?
What other effects does AMH have on well-being at work? For example, health services expanded by structural support?
What are the effects of AMH on the development of the entire industry? How is the benefit of AMH already visible or will it be visible in the field?
In what ways should the work done by AMH be continued? What works, what could be improved or done differently?
What else would you like to say?

Some of the artist members I interviewed have several professional roles at the same time, and they themselves represent many art fields at the same time. Some are involved as artists in one field, for example dance artists, which are the vast majority of AMH members. Likewise, the majority of both all members of AMH and the members I interviewed now are women.

I interviewed artists from the following professional fields: dance art, theater directing, art teaching, clowning, music art, (choral) singing and flash mob, sound design, composing, multi-instrumentalism and choreography. A couple of them have been involved in AMH’s operations from the beginning and some have cooperated with AMH’s founder Outi Järvinen even before the production platform started operating in 2012. The most recent member I interviewed started in 2021, and the participation of the other interviewees has lasted a few years. They had received information about the operation and existence of AMH through colleagues or work groups, either on social media or face to face.

Although only 10 percent of AMH’s artist members were selected to be interviewed, their answers repeated the same ideas about the meaning of the production platform for them. I got bored very quickly with the assessment information I received. The respondents who use the production platform for different needs and in different ways and from different fields gave a very consistent picture of AMH’s operations. The picture is clearly positive.

AMH’s activities meet the expectations of freelancers and support the creation of artistic work

All the interviewees were very satisfied with Arts Management Helsinki’s operations. The views and experiences of the artist members were downright laudatory.

The main message was that you can get high-quality expert help from AMH quickly, with a low threshold and for any question. You can talk about everything and think about solutions to mind-boggling problems, both one-on-one and in different groups. The questions and solutions can be either very concrete and administrative, admin-level advice, or abstract visions related to the status of art and the improvement of support structures for creative work.

CEO Outi Järvinen’s own background as an artist is valued. It contributes to the strengthening of the position of freelancers, creative thinking and the emergence of strong art-political views, as well as the defense of social issues that are right for freelancers. AMH’s producer Ulrika Vilke also received only praiseworthy feedback. As one interviewee said: “I appreciate Outi and Ulrika. While they are creative artistic thinkers, they are also meticulous about expenses, invoicing, laws and percentages. They are both artistically and functionally competent and move with good self-esteem. You always get clear answers from them and quickly enough, and you don’t have to wait, for example, days for e-mail replies. This is also because there are so few of us members.” Here, the mode of operation in supporting freelancers differs from trade unions, where already a large number of members has social significance. Large unions are better prepared to negotiate collective agreements and thus improve the position of freelancers in the labor market.

In particular, the respondents thanked the fact that at AMH, art is specifically appreciated, i.e. artwork and its creators are supported. AMH supports and cares for its members both as individuals and as part of the national and international art field. By influencing the ability of individuals to work, the entire industry is affected, and this way well-being at work spreads more widely. Taking care of the individual artist brings multiple effects to the entire industry, because continuity and guaranteeing a sense of security frees up strength and creativity for the actual making of art. Thanks to AMH, creativity increases.

Many artists become self-employed in Finland out of necessity, because, for example, there are not many jobs for circus and dance artists. Starting a business is not necessarily a voluntary choice for them. One interviewee even said: “Entrepreneurship doesn’t excite me because I’m not interested in financial risk-taking, I’m only interested in artistic risk-taking.” AMH helps freelancers avoid forced entrepreneurship. The lack of structure or shaky structures of free art work are strengthened thanks to AMH’s activities.
The sense of community that freelancers otherwise lack comes from individual small moments, such as the morning coffees organized by AMH once a month or by chance hanging out at the office at the same time. Personal meetings and individual encounters, even without an official theme, are an important support for freelancers, which increases well-being at work. Since there aren’t even any jobs, a production platform that works and connects people is a crucial support for doing work, a stable bedrock.

The thanks and development wishes expressed by the artist members are strongly related to the fact that AMH is a local, small and intimate operator. They are very grateful and satisfied with the personal and fast help they received. On the other hand, they often face questions from the environment about what the Arts Management Helsinki production platform really is and how to make it work for other art fields and throughout the country.

It is difficult to compare a new type of operator with another support structure. The same is true of expanding a small, individual and fast service operator to be accessible to everyone. The respondents were extremely grateful that it was they who had found AMH and had come within the scope of such an expert and unique service. In the words of one respondent, “Being in AMH’s stable is meaningful. An increase in operations could weaken interest and reduce contacts with the team.” If the operation is expanded, resources must also be increased. AMH’s high-quality and agile service is sized well for the current 50 members.

The artists thanked the strong professionalism and vision of AMH’s management. Even the company’s stylish website gives a competent first impression. A well-thought-out image strengthens the impression of expertise and reliability. As one respondent said, it is an excellent thing that by googling you can find him specifically through AMH’s pages, and this way he can get new, even big, customers. Also, AMH’s physical cowork space, located in a central and prestigious location, Iso Roobertinkatu, is a place where it is attractive and a pleasure to go to work. There is an opportunity to meet other artists who are, for example, from different fields, but in a similar labor market situation or, on the other hand, in a completely different situation. However, everyone is united by a strong appreciation of artistic work and working together, even if, for example, there are differences in aesthetic values. At AMH, there is a free and safe space to be quite your own person. According to one respondent, there is: “Now the feeling that I am good and enough!”
The members did not differentiate whether the new actions made possible by the 2022 funding were due to separate structural support or to AMH’s basic functions: mentoring, coaching and health services seamlessly integrated into AMH’s previous activities and the support of freelancer work. Although not all respondents had used the new functions, the awareness of their existence already created security and strengthened confidence that AMH’s support freelancers in various twists and turns of working life and threatening impasses.

Structural support expanded the operation of the production platform

The structural support for the development of production platform operations has made it possible for the production platform to continue and has promoted the employment of artists. The goal of the development project financed with structural support was to expand AMH’s production platform operations. More specific items made possible by the funding were 1. scaling the production platform for a larger number of artists, 2. diversifying the production structure and 3. establishing the production platform model as part of the free field of art. (https://artsmanagement.fi/en/portfolio/development-project-of-the-production-platform/)

The first goal, i.e. to expand AMH’s production platform by scaling it to a larger number of artists, was successful: The number of members increased by 25 percent, i.e. from 40 to 50 members. According to the interviewed artists, this is just the right amount with the current employee resources to guarantee high-quality services for everyone. A larger number of members could take too much of the strength of two employees.

The second goal was to diversify the operational structure. Broader health services, coaching and mentoring were significant additions to the activities according to the members. Even if you didn’t need health services yourself, the awareness that there are other opportunities to maintain your health than the overcrowded public health services in the city increases well-being at work. One interviewee even said: “Wonderfully great thing for a freelancer! In practice, it is really difficult for a freelancer, at least in Helsinki, to get public health services. It would be good if occupational health could continue in the future. It would be an important activity in terms of the equality of freelancers.”

The coaching service also received a lot of praise. One interviewee recalled that: “In creative fields, the feeling of inadequacy can be great. If not already at the top, there can be a lot of feelings of insignificance. Inadequacy and unworthiness plague the mind. Then getting a realistic picture is very important! Teppo Virtanen’s coaching strengthens self-belief, courage and seeing possibilities. This has also made it possible to find partnerships.”

With the help of structural support, AMH has also been able to increase the paid work for artists it has created from various small gigs and fragmented commissions. With structured support, AMH has been able to pay the appropriate salaries and holiday allowances to artists even when the gig billing for, for example, a dance artist would be in danger of being very small.

Complementary works, which have been financed with structural support, have also met the big need. They mean paid work that is other than one’s own artistic work. Supplementary work has promoted the employment of artists in a challenging operating environment, in other words during the pandemic. AMH previously received a corona subsidy from the city of Helsinki. It was received for 340 hours for the supplementary work of the artists. The experience of the supplementary works was so positive that they were further increased with OKM’s 2022 structural support. Twenty artists have done supplementary work through AMH for more than 600 working hours. The artists have acted as mentors and advisors to their colleagues, for example.

The salary for additional work was appreciated and it was reminded that mentoring colleagues often slips into charity without financial compensation. Now, about mentoring, it was said that it is: “without a doubt, it’s a great thing! It is important on both sides, that is, to be mentored and to be mentored. This should continue. You could further expand your skills by mentoring outside of your own circles.” Another interviewee said: “Collegial mentoring has been really important. They have employed myself and my colleague, because during them I have realized that I myself have a lot of knowledge and that I can give help to my colleague. And he still got paid for it. Mentoring is both work and formalization of the structure.”

And still another interviewee said: “Mentoring was important! It really matters, because then you can hit one with another. In mentoring, you can also develop your own side. When I can now do mentoring at AMH, I can also market it, even on social media.” And as another artist assured: “Mentoring must continue. In it, you can do and share what you have received. Through mentoring, Outi can also spread his good news. With his own work, he has made us his successors. He and mentoring create more collegial discussion and structure. This shows how experience can really move you and how we have a lot of experiences to share when, as colleagues, we can help others find their own thing. It helps, just like training together, and at the same time, with larger or smaller divisions, you can be together as a freelancer. This structure could continue.”

The third goal of the structural support was to establish the production platform model as part of the free field of art. The members did not question this goal either, but thanked AMH’s solid support for the art field and free, creative art work, as well as AMH’s cultural political influence work and reports for Taike, for example. By supporting individual artists and artist groups, the entire art field is influenced. In addition to this, AMH’s active social media presence and the republishing of members’ own social media updates on AMH’s channels were praised.

One interviewee recalled how AMH “continually moves the industry forward.” In addition to grievances, it has highlighted suggestions and solutions. Compared to the number of members, the importance of AMH radiates to a much wider group, because the multiplier effects are created through people and contacts. AMH has also discussed issues that it cannot directly influence, but the discussion has been opened, for example, about the enormously expensive prices of rehearsal and performance spaces in Helsinki.”

Even though AMH is an active actor in art circles, we hoped for even more visibility and information, with which AMH could make itself even better known. According to the interviews, there is a common misconception among outsiders that AMH is either a cooperative or a job broker, manager or agent that sells gigs. Extensive information and making it known would of course require more resources, which could cause growth pressure. The expansion could change AMH’s current agile way of working to a more rigid one.

“AMH understands the position of a freelancer and responds to the chaos”

The approaches, models and actions used in AMH are perfectly suited to their purpose, i.e. improving the working life of freelancers. As my interviewee emphasized: “Freelancers are skilled, a freelancer is really skilled in handling the artist’s profession, i.e. life. He has to take care of all the schedules, planning and other such work himself. The operational leadership of Metatyö is always present at the freelancer. I am happy that I have really learned the art of tolerating and managing uncertainty in my life. AMH’s structure embodies the appreciation of freelancers and freelancing and the understanding of the profession. It’s nice to be part of a platform where the pursuit of valuable work and its skills are seen. AMH responds to chaos. They know what freelance work is and know how to appreciate it! From all this, I got a development idea: freelancers could tell how everything is managed. We could start holding ‘Talented freelancers’ presentations. We could teach the master skills of freelancing to others too!”

Both the good aspects of the operation that emerged in the evaluation and the areas for development are largely due to the size of AMH. It is a small and intimate operator that can provide expert assistance in an agile manner, but only to a small number of artists. Increasing awareness and expanding operations to new art and geographical areas, which has been the subject of muted criticism, would change the current service. Would the expanded operation still be AMH, which as such deserves so much praise from artists? If AMH’s activities were expanded to wider areas and larger numbers of artists, its current resources would not be sufficient for the same high-quality, fast and individual service.

Currently, the operation relies heavily on the shoulders of only two people: AMH’s founder, CEO Outi Järvinen, and producer Ulrika Vilke. The interviewees speculated how the entire AMH would be if the two decided to stop working at AMH. Would all know-how and knowledge be transferred to potential new operators? Would it be possible, for example, to pass on this much knowledge with the help of mentoring? One respondent said directly: “AMH is one that cannot really be replaced by other activities, for example mentoring cannot be replaced by other work. Outi’s job is to be a platform. The meaning of out is to be for us. Without AMH and Outi, I would be alone.”

In conclusion and continuation

It is generally estimated that a development project has achieved its goal if it generates new activities or new types of services for customers. If the customers of new types of services are satisfied with them, the result of the main goal is also high-quality. Based on the interviews I conducted, customer satisfaction was the best possible. With the help of the development project, i.e. structural support, AMH has succeeded in creating not only new but also high-quality activities. At the same time, AMH has maintained its basic functions of high quality.

Through its activities, AMH shows the appreciation of freelance work and increases the work well-being of freelancers, which we hope will continue. For a freelancer, like any other professional, a tangible proof of appreciation is a decent salary and decent working conditions. Supporting well-being at work helps freelancers cope and do their work in a way that brings joy to others as well. The public’s cultural well-being increases and the artist can participate in increasing the common tax revenue fund with his paid work.

The members hoped that AMH would become a more well-known operator than it is today, but would continue to function as before: supporting freelancers’ workday and autonomy while enabling community. It is hoped that the opportunity for community experiences, collegial mentoring and occupational health services will continue. It’s easy to agree with this: hopefully AMH’s resources will be secured so that the members’ needs will continue to be met.