HAUT and UrpanApa invite you for a two-day seminar to explore sustainability and equity in the Arts.

We are living through times of uncertainty, crisis, and transformation. As the world faces intersecting social, political, and environmental challenges, the arts sector must come together to address these wicked problems. How do we build more equitable, sustainable, and resilient structures for the future? What is the role of artists, institutions, and cultural workers in fostering systemic change?

With this two-day seminar we invite arts professionals from across the Nordic region to engage in urgent and necessary conversations about equity, sustainability, diversity and fair practices in the arts. Through keynotes, panels, and workshops, we will explore strategies for cross-sector solidarity, redistribution of resources, and how to create real, lasting change.

Now is the time to act. Join us in reimagining the future of the arts and building sustainable, intersectional, and anti-racist practices that will shape the Nordic cultural landscape for years to come.

>>PROGRAM DAY 1 – FOUNDATIONS FOR CHANGE <<

09:30–10:00 Registration and coffee/tea/snacks

10:00–10:15 Welcome and opening remarks
by Sonya Lindfors (UrbanApa) and Naja Lee Jensen (HAUT)

10:15–10:50 Navigating times of polycrises – next steps in equity and social sustainability in the arts
Keynote by Kelly Parish (Arts Council England)

In a world shaped by overlapping crises—ecological, economic, political—arts organisations and artists face urgent questions about their role in building more just and sustainable futures. This keynote explores what equity and sustainability mean in practice, with a focus on social sustainability: whose voices are heard, whose labour is valued, and how resources are shared. Why must every cultural organisation engage with these issues—not as add-ons, but as essential conditions for relevance and responsibility in our time?

10:50–11:00 Mini break

11:00–12:30 How to create cross-sector solidarity and fairer working conditions
Panel Discussion and Q&A

This panel explores how solidarity within the arts sector—across institutions of different sizes, independent groups, and individual artists—can contribute to fairer and more sustainable working conditions. What responsibilities do funders, institutions, and artists hold, and how can they act in alignment? And what structural changes are needed to move from statements of intent to real, lasting change?

Panelists: Marie-Lydie Nokouda (Black to Normal), Firat Jacob Tas (Mungo Park), Mary Tesfay (C:NTACT), Annemette Friis (Nordic Culture Fund)
Facilitator: Tess Skadegård Thorsen

12:30–13:30 Lunch break

13:30–14:30 How to change things – practical tools for equity and sustainability in the arts
Roundtable Workshop

This roundtable workshop focuses on sharing and developing concrete tools for redistributing power and resources within the arts. Together, we explore practical approaches to equity and sustainability—what can we change, and how do we start?

Facilitator: Sonya Lindfors

14:30–15:00 Wrap-up for the day

Read our safer space guidelines HERE

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The seminar is organized by HAUT in collaboration with the Helsinki-based UrbanApa, and presented as part of CPH Stage 2025.

This collaboration is part of BRIDGES – project, a Nordic initiative that aims to strengthen long-term and sustainable Nordic collaborations and foster critical discourse around anti-racist and intersectionally feminist practices in the performing arts. The current BRIDGES partners are UrbanApa (FI), MDT (SWE), HAUT (DEN), Reykjavik Dance Festival (IS) and Dansens Hus Oslo (NOR). BRIDGES is supported by Nordic Culture Point and Nordic Culture Fund.

ABOUT URBANAPA
Founded in 2009, UrbanApa is an anti-racist and feminist art community that acts as a platform for art events, new ways of doing, and discourses that centre on art. The community has been managed by the UTT ry association since 2011. UrbanApa organizes events, performances, arts incubators, clubs, music festivals, site specific works and workshops. The community’s goal is to employ artists and to create a platform for new artistic events and meetings.

UrbanApa’s values include communality, intersectional feminism, decolonialism, inclusivity, equality, softness, play and joy. The community strives to look into the future, to re-think the kind of art that could and should be done

The programme for this PERSPECTIVES ON has been curated in collaboration with Sonya Lindfors, Artistic and Managing director of UrbanAPA.

TICKETS
The event is free, but registration is required.

ABOUT PERSPECTIVES ON
PERSPECTIVES ON creates space for thoughts and knowledge that drive the performing arts forward. It is a knowledge-sharing format that focuses on the insights we need right now for the arts, artists, and the field to evolve. By inviting new ideas and discourses into the Danish performing arts landscape, it serves as inspiration, provocation, and a catalyst for artistic development. The format functions as a platform for knowledge exchange, conversation, and learning.