Last week the Visual Artists Association held its annual national meeting for the board and regional representatives.
The theme was sustainable working life. That is why they had invited Aron - Center for sustainable working life, who has run Project GRO, which is about creating sustainable working lives for art and culture workers. Among other things, the project has aimed to develop a dialogue tool that can be used in growth groups to create new practices in working life, so that conversations, reflections and solutions in the group promote the individual's opportunity to have a sustainable working life despite the conditions and framework in the industry.
At the national meeting, the tool was tested on the participants, who had the opportunity to discuss how it can be implemented both in the individual's working life and professional network.
In the autumn, BKF entered into an agreement with AkademikerPension, which makes it possible for members to save for a pension and be insured against illness and in the event of death – even with low and fluctuating incomes. An agreement in which the members have shown great interest. At the national meeting, market and customer manager Kenneth Petersen presented the agreement and the opportunities that lie in it. And at the same time, he was able to reveal that visual artists reach retirement age to a greater extent than other occupational groups, and ultimately also live longer. There is therefore very good reason to give your pension savings some attention.
BKF also has a discount agreement with Teknik & Design Freelancebureau, which helps freelancers with tax, VAT, invoices, insurance and wages. Professional consultant Charlotte Dahm-Johansen from Teknisk Landsforbund presented a number of advantages of leaving administration to Teknik & Design – including pay during illness, pay even if the customer does not pay on time, as well as insurance. You can read more about the agreement here .
As usual, there was also an artist talk on the program of the national meeting. This year it was visual artist Jacob Remin, who talked about his works created with generative AI, which he sees, among other things, as a showdown with standardized production dogmas. He advocated a 'queer computing' that, with programming, hacking and the use of open source, can create a more sustainable use of technology than capitalism's closed and controlling both production-increasing and escapist systems.
The national meeting ended with photography of regional representatives and board members, as you can see above. Photographer: Maria Fonfara.