Frank Brümmel: Reflections on the Uniarts Hub

22.6.2026 0 Like 0 kommenttia

In Spring 2026 I participated in the HUB Uniarts course. My attention was awakened after Riitta Huttunen and Jyri Partanen gave an introduction during our Academy’s Dean morning coffee. I must say here that I am in a double role at the Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki. I teach as a lecturer in sculpture, and I also study as a doctoral student. All in all, I am very much interested in how artists and other creative workers can bring artistic thinking into society in ways other than the traditional ones.

During the presentation I felt that there was something I wanted to explore and that this course seemed to offer exactly that. And spoiler alert, my instincts did not fail me.

The course offered a huge variety of lectures and information, from sustainable ventures, strategy, product and service development, sales, pricing, funding, and intellectual property to social entrepreneurship, visibility, self-management, and wellbeing. It also provided mentoring, practical entrepreneurial guidance, and opportunities to test ideas in practice. The course culminated in pitch training and a public Demo Day at the Music Hall, helping participants communicate their projects to audiences beyond their own professional fields.

And yes, at some points I felt way out of my comfort zone. But I thought it was worth it.

Participants in the course came from a wide field of practices: directors, dancers, musicians, designers, and many other disciplines were represented. My view here, however, takes specifically the perspective of fine art, where I come from and why a course like HUB Uniarts is needed. I am convinced that in the fine art system things are changing rapidly and that we need to find other ways to bring art and artistic thinking into society in meaningful ways that also allow artists to make a living.

For me, the current art system is crumbling apart in front of our eyes. The happenings around the Venice Biennale are only the tip of the iceberg of a much longer process. The system was built in modernity, for another time and another world, and increasingly fails to give relevant answers to what is happening now. The world moves faster, and art risks being left behind without answers. Here in Finland, support for culture and grant systems is being systematically cut. We are asked to find other ways and forms through which art can have societal impact.

During the course I developed a method based on artistic research and helps groups of people understand structural organisational dynamics. At the moment I am developing it as a service. The course showed me that artists and cultural workers have the capability to identify gaps and create exciting solutions for society in ways that have not been done before.

The difficulty lies in communicating this knowledge to people outside traditional cultural and artistic circles. It takes support to do that, and the course delivers exactly there. Through the course and through the development of my colleagues’ business ideas, yes, that is how we need to name them when communicating artistic thinking to audiences unfamiliar with it, I realised that the point is often in the packaging.

We know how to communicate our expertise and artistic work within our own art bubbles: artists, curators, gallerists, museum professionals, scholars, and theorists. But if we want to bring artistic knowledge further into society, we need other tools. The course gave exactly the perspectives needed to understand what is possible. It helps artists find other ways to bring artistic thinking into society, supports creative workers in establishing their own paths, and teaches them how to communicate what they do and why it matters.

What became visible throughout the course was that many participants had a genuine desire to combine doing good with creating legitimate sources of income. They wanted to stand on their own feet as entrepreneurs while bringing meaningful ideas into the world. In that respect, HUB Uniarts offers something that is urgently needed.