Speakers
Thomas Olsson
Thomas Olsson is a lecturer, faculty programme director and PhD student at the division of Musicology, department of Cultural Studies, Lund University, Sweden. For more than ten years, he was a board member of the Swedish Jazz Association, and for even longer than that, he was the program director for Jazz i Malmö. Thomas is currently researching public funding of progressive rock, focusing on Swedish prog band Isildurs Bane as a case study.
Outside of the academic world, he is a musical project coordinator, music writer, guitar owner, laid-back record collector and doesn’t own too many effects pedals.
“Money, it’s a gas” or “Danger Money”? Financial support from the Swedish Arts Council, its benefits, restrictions and consequences
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Thomas Olsson
In my research on Swedish prog, questions of cultural politics and financial support from the public sector are essential. Several progressive groups from Sweden have applied for cultural support from the Swedish Arts Council over a period from 1974 until 2019.
My main resources for this research are the application forms and the instructions to the applicants from the Arts Council. These documents inform us on a micro and a macro level about those parts of Swedish musical life that applied for financial support and provide a lot of information.
Over the years several circumstances have come into play that have affected the possibilities of receiving funding from the Arts Council. Questions that can be asked, based on the archival material are for instance:
- How are (Swedish) progressive groups organized? What is their background? How do they describe themselves in the applications to KUR? What do they call their music? How do you describe your music?
- Have changes in the Arts Council's structures - policies, assignments, goals, priorities, possibly reference groups - influenced applicants form the field of progressive rock?
- Are there trends, mechanisms and / or strategies that contribute to establishing and / or maintaining positions and hierarchies among the applications to the Arts Council?
- What makes a group apply for or not apply for support from KUR? How do the groups view The Arts Council's assignments, priorities, goals and how do the groups perceive that the Arts Council works in relation to the needs of the bands? Do the bands adapt when the Arts Council’s priorities change?
- Is it possible to see a connection between a band's position within their music style (scope, degree of establishment, public recognition, etc.) and financial support from the Arts Council? In relation to less established groups?
- What do the groups do with the financial support?
- Can we see hierarchies or canonical structures in the funding system? If so, are there changes over the years?
In my presentation, I will briefly discuss a few of these points and provide examples from applications by Swedish prog bands such as Samla Mammas Manna, Isildurs Bane and Kenny Håkansson.
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