Some time ago, Anna Troberg, president of DIK, the union for the culture, communication and creative sector, wrote in her newsletter that the most radical thing you can do today is to be optimistic and keep faith in your fellow human beings. This is easier said than done. And perhaps that’s why it’s so well-versed and encouraging.
There are many things right now that are difficult, almost insurmountable. Yet it is with great optimism and hope for a more sustainable future – in every way – that the Royal Institute of Art enters 2025. The institute has many exciting areas of development ahead of it, all stemming from the desire to make education and research even stronger and better. We need to do everything and more to prepare our students for an artistic life in an unpredictable future. Despite the global situation, art and research are an indispensable part of society.
At the end of the academic year, our courses at advanced level are presented. The ever topical and in the cultural debate present courses Restoration Art and Rebuilding Culture, led by Professor Lone-Pia Bach, focus on further education in sustainable solutions in construction and urban development. Preservation of old and new buildings and reuse instead of demolition are the courses’ field of study. During the year, the Royal Institute of Art has commissioned an external analysis that shows what we have long known: that these courses are unique in the Swedish educational landscape and more relevant than ever. We can conclude that the courses aimed at architects have many applicants and that the interest out there is so great that the Royal Institute of Art must continue to work purposefully to meet the need.
In the coming years, we will therefore focus on strengthening and expanding the research environment on restoration art and reconstruction culture. We have been helped by a grant from the Knowledge Foundation, which in the fall of 2024 announced anniversary doctorates for 22 target group institutions. The Royal Institute of Art received funding for two doctoral positions that were open for application in late winter.
However, it is not only potential students and doctoral candidates who are interested. There is also engagement from the wide range of organizations – from business to municipalities – that the courses work with. This academic year, for example, the courses are being run in Malmö, where they are working with the municipality of Malmö to focus on urban development and the post-war building stock.
This kind of interaction with actors inside and outside the cultural ecosystem to which we belong is essential. The same applies to being inspired by colleagues and similar environments, such as other universities, colleges, businesses and research environments.
In the natural sciences, for example, research infrastructure is a commonly used concept. For arts programs, which rely heavily on physical spaces for material-based and performative expression, infrastructure in the sense of workshops and presentation spaces is equally relevant. It is this type of infrastructure that is under pressure from the ongoing rent increases. Moving out, moving in, renovation. All this has characterized the year at the Royal Institute of Art, which, like Stockholm’s other art colleges and cultural institutions, has to deal with rent increases financed directly by its core activities. It is a challenge that, at best, concentrates the mission and allows for an appreciation of what you do have. And it is with the support of this fantastic core that the Royal Institute of Art has recently noted many fine successes.
At the end of the year, the Royal Institute of Art gratefully received a large grant from the Jacob Wallenberg Foundation, Special Fund, to develop the Royal Institute of Art’s 3D workshop environments – both spatial and digital practices – and make them a platform for research-based knowledge base for digital techniques in art production. This focus on the workshop as a knowledge platform is linked to the MANUAL project, led by Professors Johanna Gustafsson Fürst and Asier Mendizabal, which reflects on the work of the hand in the artistic process.
While all this is happening, work continues regarding the practice-based research that is the focus of the Centre for Art and the Political Imaginary (CAPIm), Sweden’s first Centre of Excellence in the field of Artistic Research. The centre, supported by the Swedish Research Council, was launched in October 2024 and is now fully operational.
CAPIm is an interdisciplinary collaboration between the Royal Institute of Art and HDK-Valand at the University of Gothenburg, which investigates artistic practice and research in relation to contemporary art and today’s changing political landscape. The centre is led by Professor Natasha Marie Llorens and Associate Professor Axel Andersson in collaboration with Mick Wilson and Jyoti Mystri from the University of Gothenburg. Several other people – including visiting professors/artists and younger artistic researchers – are also involved in the centre, which is an international hub across Sweden. CAPIm is focused on both research and teaching and thus complements the Royal Institute of Art’s teaching in text, art history and practice-based research. This is a welcome and extremely exciting development.
The institutional highlight of the year is, as always, the summer and the graduation exhibitions, which, together with the above-mentioned events, bring the school year to a close. 7 000 people visited the graduation exhibition of our master’s students at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts last year – 1 000 more than the previous year. This annual event, which showcases the artworks and exhibition that represent the culmination of five years of study, therefore attracts a lot of attention. So does our bachelor exhibition, which has been held at Marabouparken in recent years. The graduation exhibition is also closely linked to the awarding of several scholarships that make a huge difference to the students when they take on the task of establishing themselves as independent artists after graduation. The scholarships include the Sverker and Birgitta Lerheden Scholarship Fund, which was established a few years ago, the Fredrik Roos Foundation, whose scholarship has been awarded many times to graduating students from the Royal Institute of Art – last year, alumna Frida Peterson – and the Pontus Bonnier Scholarship.
So yes, it is with great optimism that the Royal Institute of Art is looking forward to the summer and a fantastically well-filled spring semester.
Sanne Kofod Olsen
The indispensable role of art in society
