Our founder, Ceyda Berk Söderblom, spoke at Art, Culture and a Diverse Finland seminar co-organised by the Ministry of Education and Culture and the Arts Promotion Centre Finland (Taike).

In her speech, Ceyda highlighted labour market discrimination against foreign-born women in Finland and demanded action:

“Sanna Marin’s Government’s Action plan for Gender Equality 2020–23 report states, and I quote here: “The labour market position of women with a foreign background is particularly weak. Even with good education and language skills, even after 15 years of living in Finland, they do not attain the employment rate of women with the native background.”

Just put this into perspective: 45% of women with foreign backgrounds are unemployed in this country—highly educated, competent women.

I demand action…”

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This piece is more about being true to oneself as an art professional, which entails embracing all aspects of one's existence than it is about jazz or diversity.

Sun Ra, a pianist, composer, poet, and mystic - one of the great visionary musical figures of the 20th century- was asked 50 years ago in Helsinki if he had any intended messages/advice in his music. He, in this interview, said: “Yes, there is a message in all of my music. It’s all about people doing something else than what they have done. Because what they have done is possible, and the world the way it is today is the results of the possible that they did. It’s a result of the absolute day. So now, there is something else. There is always something else in a universe as big as this.”

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In one of his articles reading the Covid-19 situation, cultural philosopher Slavoj Žižek says: “But maybe another – and much more beneficial – ideological virus will spread and hopefully infect us: the virus of thinking about an alternate society, a society beyond nation-state, a society that actualizes itself in the forms of global solidarity and cooperation.”

Since the beginning of the coronavirus epidemic in March 2020; arts and cultural organisations of all kinds, individual artists, and cultural professionals have experienced tremendous financial hardships. However, there is substantial evidence that foreign-born art makers have taken the greatest hit. Galleries, performance spaces, and community spaces that champion immigrant creators’ work have indefinitely gone dark due to the inefficiency of the available financial aid structures.

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“Art, Culture and Diverse Finland”, the final report of the Working Group on Cultural Policy, Immigrants and the Promotion of Cultural Diversity was handed over to Ministry of Education and Culture State Secretary Tuomo Puumala on January 20, 2021.

Ceyda Berk-Söderblom, as a member of the working group, was invited to make a personal commentary on the report during the ceremony. In her speech, Berk-Söderblom highlights the existing discriminatory structures holding up the Finnish culture and arts sectors and much more.

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How could Finnish theatre become both multilingual and multicultural? This sort of multilingualism would mean that there would be people working within the theatre whose native language is something other than Finnish, Swedish, or Sámi. Sámi isn’t even currently heard at all in our theatres. Multilingualism and multiplicity would mean that the subject matters would be available in other languages as well. Our Swedish theatres are currently at the frontlines of this linguistic accessibility. They have the capacity to provide audiences with real-time subtitles in Finnish or English – meaning they already view language as either an obstacle or an opportunity.

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“We live longer
but less precisely
and in shorter sentences …”

hese lines are picked from “Tutaj” (Here), a painfully beautiful dialogue between two great souls who are not with us anymore: the Nobel Prize-winning poet Wisława Szymborska (1923–2012) and the extraordinary trumpeter Tomasz Stańko (1942–2018). The stunning trumpet improvisations in response to the poet’s reading makes this live-recorded poetry and jazz combination a treasure and reminds us that at the end of the day what stays in our hearts are the stories we share. What is it that determines who we are, what are our values, our beliefs, and what are the experiences that make up the stories of our lives?

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I invite all Finnish colleagues, as one united WE, to acknowledge that hybrid teams are stronger, and that cultural diversity is an opportunity, not a threat.

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“How well do we really know ourselves? How confident can we be in predicting what we would or would not do in novel situations that we have never encountered? Could we like God’s favorite angel, Lucifer, ever be led into the temptation to do the unthinkable to others?”

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Following the footsteps of humankind and the journey through history is always fascinating. It is a never-ending story of evolution, adaptation and irresistible instinct to find a nest to survive.

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Magicians and illusion have always attracted my attention. I am not talking about the ones pulling a rabbit from an empty hat, but the one

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T. S. Eliot: “The only way of expressing emotion in the form of art is by finding an ‘objective correlative’; in other words, a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of that particular emotion; such that when the external facts, which must terminate in sensory experience, are given, the emotion is immediately evoked”

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The sanctuary instinct of humans goes back to the dark corridors of existence. Not only for the sake of sheltering do humans build, but to reveal the mystery of immortality. Despite our tendency to destroy, we – ironically – also know how to revive deserted spaces. The human race, confronting the spectacular temples that were constructed ages ago, marvels at its own capacity, doesn’t it? As an Izmirian, as somebody living in a 8500-year-old city on the west coast of Anatolia, right in the middle of the heritage of – what we call – civilizations, it is easy to say “yes”.

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With identical façades surrounding the entire city, hundreds of bridges connecting tiny islands and narrow streets – full of melancholy – Venice itself stands for a surreal excursion towards the corridors of history and the human soul. It is irresistibly mysterious and charming for anyone who is interested in arts in one way or the other. Forget about gondolas, romantic dreams, San Marco or Rialto Bridge, in this huge labyrinth city, there is a “must-see” art happening: the International Art Exhibition of Venice Biennale.

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