Written by Alex Kollerová
10.10. 2025
Between January and May 2025, Globe Art Point (GAP) produced a series of webinars addressing the livelihoods of visual artists in today’s rapidly changing creative environments affected by technological developments and AI. The webinars were part of a three-year-long project titled KUVATA: Expanded Field of Visual Artists’ Income and Work.
This project, organised by three main partners and led by Tampere University of Applied Sciences, is funded by the European Social Fund Plus (ESF+). The University of Lapland’s Faculty of Art and Design provides training in areas such as sustainability, responsibility, and anti-racism in the visual arts, while Globe Art Point, the responsible partner for communication supplies educational content on topics such as equality, diversity, and ethics in the field of art. Importantly, the role of GAP has been to ensure that the produced material is accessible to all artists residing in Finland and therefore, a large part of our work has involved translating the contents of the webinars into English.
Winter/Spring Webinars 2025
Among the first speakers, we were honoured to feature artists such as street artist Plan B, whose presentation explored the transformative power of street art as a tool for advocacy, information, and connection. Soil activist Nina Rantala talked about restoring connection to the land and, together with Maria Huhmarniemi, we dipped our toes into post-humanism and pondered the role of art in relation to sustainable development and empathy.
Hands-on tools for visual arts professionals were introduced by sustainability experts, among whom Saara Korpela presented a carbon and material footprint calculator that is free and easy to use for anyone interested in lowering their carbon footprint in their art practice. Visual artist Veronika Vegesent listed concrete steps towards more sustainable artmaking, and an open-source library of sustainable materials was presented by the founder of the Koyne programme, Saskia Signori.
One of the questions brought up during the spring webinars was how we can bring art and culture into sparsely populated areas. How can we be resilient with limited access to funding and create community-run projects that bring people together, especially during moments of crisis and insecurity? “Direct connection and cooperation with local associations are needed in order to gain the trust of people living in rural areas,” commented Valentina Gelain and Bekim Hasaj, an artist duo active in the northern region of Ostrobothnia. And if you are willing to open your doors and invite strangers into your home, as the Finnish artist Pia Sirén does in Loviisa, the process of building trust with people happens much faster.
Realising the need for art and self-expression in our everyday lives, the Kuvata webinars also explored the effects of art on cultural well-being in Finland. With data provided by Olli Ruokolainen, a Senior Researcher at the Centre for Cultural Policy Research (CUPORE), his presentation summarised research outcomes and recommendations concerning the integration of cultural well-being into social and health care structures. The research emphasised the intersection of arts, health, and social care, highlighting both opportunities and systemic challenges in embedding cultural work within welfare services.
Katja Arapova, a psychologist and art therapist, spoke about the transformative power of art therapy in fostering emotional balance, self-expression, and personal growth. She highlighted how creative processes enable individuals to access and articulate emotions that may be difficult to express verbally, promoting healing and psychological resilience. Arapova shared examples of how art therapy supports well-being across different populations, emphasising its value not only as a therapeutic tool but also as a way to strengthen connection, empathy, and self-awareness.
In May, the focus of the Kuvata webinars shifted more towards technological advancements and AI. In the webinar New Copyright Questions in the Visual Arts Field, we examined emerging copyright issues and explored how artists can safeguard their work in the digital realm. Expert on blockchain Ali Abaday and Executive Director of Kuvasto (a copyright society for visual artists) Tommi Nilsson discussed key topics and provided tools for protecting digital artworks.
In the final webinar of the season, we inquired how digital art can be effectively curated and presented in virtual spaces. International guest speaker based in Amsterdam, Annett Dekker, opened the discussion by examining the history and challenges of curating digital art online, including the lack of dedicated archival projects for web-based exhibitions and the increasing commercialisation of the web. She reflected on the tension between artistic experimentation and platform constraints, as well as the evolving concept of time in computational and artistic contexts.
Anna Laamanen from the National Gallery shared her experience with digital exhibition design and audience engagement, emphasising how museums are rethinking their approaches after the pandemic. She discussed the purpose and target audiences for digital exhibitions and how institutions must adapt their storytelling and curatorial strategies to online environments. The webinar closed with a presentation by Ville Laaksonen, who talked about Art House Turku (Taiteen talo) and explained how individual artists could get directly involved and organise their own artistic productions within the digital realms of the project.
Final Remarks
It would not be an exaggeration to say that Globe Art Point’s webinar series running throughout the first half of the year offered more knowledge and inspiration than one could easily absorb. That said, each of the webinars, whether focused on green art or political art, brought a unique perspective on how to keep up with the times and produce art that is fresh, innovative, and meaningful to our society. From the organiser’s perspective, this series was merely a sneak peek into the realm of contemporary artmaking and, with the fast-changing technical and political environments, new themes for webinars are constantly emerging, requiring us to rethink our next moves.
With the above-mentioned webinars still accessible online, you have the chance to dive into the content and learn something new. But be quick! Some of these recordings will be removed from 1 January 2026, so to ensure you haven’t missed anything, we recommend acting fast. Stay tuned for more exciting webinar topics and follow our Kuvata website for the most up-to-date content.
