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(EN) Verdensrommet is an artist-powered mutual support network by/for immigrant artists based in Norway. We stand for fair immigration policies, better living and working conditions, and encourage new imaginations for the future of artists' work. 

(NO) Verdensrommet er et kunstdrevet og gjensidig støttenettverk av/for utenlandske kunstnere basert i Norge. Vi arbeider for en rettferdig immigrasjonspolitikk, bedre leve- og arbeidsforhold for kunstnere, og oppmuntrer til å tenke nytt rundt fremtidig kunstnerisk arbeid.

About

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News

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In April 2020, Verdensrommet started a petition directed at the Norwegian government, Labour and Social Welfare Department / Arbeids- og sosialdepartementet, the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration / Utlendingsdirektoratet (UDI), Kulturdepartementet (KUD), Utenriksdepartementet (UD), to draw their attention to the working and immigration conditions of non-EU/EEA cultural workers in Norway, especially during the pandemic. We updated the petition in Jan 2021, in parallel to the UDI høring.

Safeguard non-EU/EEA artists & cultural workers based in Norway

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Interkultur in Drammen Municipality and Samspill International Music Network organized a public event to exchange experiences and knowledge, and strengthen the professional environment in the arts. Verdensrommet was part of the discussion, read more about it here.
[video, start time 6:32:45']

Panel discussion | ‘Hvordan skape et best mulig ytringsklima for kulturelt mangfold?’– Kulturytring

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A one-day assembly in public space focusing on interrogating the current retirement policies for Norway’s artists. In particular for non-EU/EEA artists living and working in the country as professionals who lack the right to a 'patchwork economy'—that is the impossibility of having multiple and diverse sources of income beyond the arts’ economies. 


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A one-day assembly in public space focusing on interrogating the current retirement policies for Norway’s artists. In particular for non-EU/EEA artists living and working in the country as professionals who lack the right to a 'patchwork economy'—that is the impossibility of having multiple and diverse sources of income beyond the arts’ economies. 
To read more about the project please visit The Migrant Assembly [website.](https://themigrantassembly.org/assembly-1)

Image: Viviana Cárdenas

**downloadables:**

- [Verdensrommet Manifesto](https://cms.verdensrommet.network/app/public/uploads/Verdensrommet_Manifesto_2021_c4cd1abdea.pdf)
- [Creative Exchange](https://cms.verdensrommet.network/app/public/uploads/CREATIVE_EXCHANGE_Verdensrommet_CR_8_VX_docx_01d4e15eab.pdf)

Participatory Imaginaries for Rest & The Future of Retirement

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On Monday, February 1, Verdensrommet delivered a lecture about the network and insight into the journey of a fictional non-EU artist based in Norway, starting from the time of their KMD application to the current pandemic moment (2021).

Monday Lectures | The Verdensrommet Allegory

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In May 2020, during our residency time in PODIUM, we carried on a series of network-building and resource-sharing events for immigrant artists based in Oslo and artist allies. As the city slightly started to open up again, we were extremely excited to make social encounters as vivid as before and so we hoped for many to show up and to get to know each other, share thoughts and hopes, knowledge and ‘proto-failures’, and some drinks too.

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Verdensrommet in residency at PODIUM

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A post-capitalist desire, an anti-bureaucratic gesture, a new grammar for radical behavior, and a call for progressive immigration reform. This is a mirror of an immigration bureau's grammar, aesthetics, and regulations. A post-capitalist lexicon for immigrant artists is a collaboration with Graziela Kunsch’s project for Oslobiennalen, Public as Mutual.

Post-capitalist lexicon for immigrant artists

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Rodrigo Ghattas-Pérez, co-initiator of Verdensrommet, was invited to be in conversation with Bergen-based artist and curator, Tatiana Lozano, to discuss Kulturrådet’s aspirant scholarship scheme offered as a 100% position of employment directed at non-Norwegian interested in working in cultural institutions.

Verdensrommet at Radio Tenthaus - EP.20 Aspirant

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fm 99.3 @radiorakel with @re___voe and @verdensrommet.network listening to some divine tunes and talking a bit about the history of this mutual support network for artists and what is being done behind the screens!

Verdensrommet at Danza Bastant - RadiOrakel fm 99.3

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ANORDIC is the first Nordic think tank for knowledge, debate and action in the arts, and has produced a living catalogue as the motor of the knowledge work. The catalogue examines practices in different areas and develops insights. Verdensrommet was featured, explore our signal here.

A/nordi/c, Nordic Culture Point | signal on The Living Catalogue

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As a part of UKS’ 100th-anniversary program 100 YEARS OF CONVIVIALITY and on the day of UKS’ 100th birthday, 28 October 2021, UKS presented the second seminar in the series Artists Organizing Artists, at the new main library in Oslo, Deichman Bjørvika. Verdensrommet’s co-initiator Gabrielle Paré delivered an account on the work of Verdensrommet.

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Read more about the seminar [here](https://www.uks.no/archive/seminar-artists-organizing-artists/).

Verdensrommet at 100 Years of Conviviality, UKS Seminar : Artists Organizing Artists

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Verdensrommet and Open Forum invite you to a virtual bar, an evening of discussions on alternative economies, social housing, immigration and institutions in connection to the economic and social context of non-EU art students and artists living and working in Norway.

The Virtual Bar | Verdensrommet & Open Forum

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During 2018, Art Lab Gnesta initiated together with other nordic art organizations a network for small-scale and self-organized organisations within the field of art, working proactively in relation to current political challenges. Verdensrommet is now a member of AOOO.

Verdensrommet is now part of the Nordic network AOOO (Arts Organizations Out of Office)

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The income requirement for self-employment visas rises in the midst of a pandemic, in spite of the continued economic impact on the cultural sector in Norway. Support Verdensrommet by signing the petition here and getting to know more about the Høring (public hearing).

In solidarity with non-EU artists in Norway

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Verdensrommet presents the launch of its new website developed by Oslo-based studio Blank Blank as part of the network's second-year celebrations! The web project is an inclusive and welcoming digital space providing important information and resources for the network's users—non-EU artists and creative professionals in Norway. 

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Don't miss out on the opening of the *Future Communities* initiative to celebrate Verdensrommet's two-year anniversary. The project's manifestations include a new web project developed by Oslo-based studio Blank Blank, a publication on artists' economies, a series of performative actions, and a concert.

To see the full programme please click on the [link](https://www.facebook.com/events/348455707073868).

Date: April 9, 2022
Time: 16:00-00:00
Address: Christian Krohgs gate 2, 0186 Oslo

No RSVP is needed, we hope to see you there!


*Verdensrommet | Future Communities is supported by KORO, Kulturrådet, BKH - The Relief Fund for Visual Artists, and Balansekunst.

Verdensrommet | Website launch + 2 years Celebration Party

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Welfare

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Podcast labour

This is Verdensrommet's community channel podcast covering various immigration issues through a three-part series on Education–Labour–Solidarity for artists. Episodes feature informative and speculative talks with a group of local and international critical voices around the exclusionary conditions of non-EU/EEA art and cultural workers in Norway. We seek to redefine and create processes to sustain radical livelihoods and artistic practices in reaction to the multiple crises accentuated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

*Co-host by artists Anthony Morton, Prerna Bishnoi, and Rodrigo Ghattas-Pérez.

Podcast | Conversations with Aliens of Extraordinary Ability

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IC is a two-day seminar that brings together artists, trade union representatives, lawyers, and politicians to discuss, for the first time in Norway, the gaps between the immigration regulations (of self-employment in particular) and the working conditions in the cultural and creative sector and its impact on the livelihood of international artists. 


**To watch the seminar recording in full, please click [here](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDSWOHb8weePsyVTsII9S0Hn8pxGY2U26)**



**Day 1:** 28 April 2022, Kulturhuset, Oslo. 
10:00-15:30
Boksen at Kulturhuset, Youngs gate 6, 0181 Oslo, Norway

Open to the public. If you are attending in-person [RSVP](mailto:info@verdensrommet.network) or 
[REGISTER HERE](https://NTNU.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_BqibBPPQQB6f84jNbhIGfw) for online version 


**Day 2:** 29 April, 2022, closed working session 

[PROGRAMME](#programme)


Developed out of a collective ongoing practice of mutual support for non-EU/EEA artists and creative professionals based in Norway, Verdensrommet is thrilled to present Immigration Clinic for Creative Professionals (IC). The seminar is inspired by a similar format launched in 2020 by the Centre for Art Law in New York, USA. 

IC is a two-day seminar that brings together artists, trade union representatives, lawyers, and politicians to discuss, for the first time in Norway, the gaps between the immigration regulations (of self-employment in particular) and the working conditions in the cultural and creative sector and its impact on the livelihood of international artists. 

Many surveys and studies on the artist economy in Norway have shown that the working conditions in the cultural and creative sector can be characterised by: 
- a mix of multiple sources of income with income from artistic work forming only a small component
- a mixed income where artists work as self-employed and as employees 
- a patchwork economy where artists earn income from work in and beyond the cultural sector
- fluctuating income based on the cycles of artistic production.
 
For non-EU/EEA artists, the immigration regulations determine their labour conditions which are often at odds with the prevalent working conditions described above. For example, artists on a self-employment visa can either be employed or self-employed and must earn a 100% of their income from their artistic work. Moreover, the financial threshold for renewing the visa is currently 265998 NOK, almost 100% more than what local and EU artists earn from their artistic work. 

The seminar’s core purpose is to identify and contextualise the different systemic relations that give rise to migrant artists’ common struggles. It also aims to guide artists and creative professionals through the process of obtaining a visa to Norway. Furthermore, this discussion will lay the foundations for developing a strategic plan for proposing concrete policy changes that have the potential to create more sustainable socio-economic conditions for self-employed artists. 

This seminar is particularly important in light of the UNESCO Convention on Cultural Diversity signed by Norway in 2005. The agreement obliges member states to give artists and cultural workers priority in visa applications and to recognize artists to be human and cultural rights defenders. Thus, the Immigration Clinic for Creative Professionals will examine, through critical artistic and legal frameworks, the immigration, cultural, and economic restrictions by which some dominant structures regulate, catalyse, and perpetuate systems of oppression and othering. These systems restrict minority groups and cultural workers' access to the country’s fullest cultural and economic life.

The seminar's two main commitments are:

i) To help non-EU/EEA creative professionals in the process of obtaining a visa to/in Norway through sharing knowledge and experiences of the immigration regulations, social rights of the self-employed and labour rights of artists.

ii) To create a public dialogue between the three key governing concerns – immigration, labour and welfare – that shape the living and working conditions of non-EU/EEA creative professionals. By doing so, the seminar hopes to ensure a fertile ground for sustainable creative practices. 

At a time when culture has been recognised by the Norwegian government and EU Parliament alike as an irreplaceable pillar in the making of a climate and socially just society, a seminar with a focus on finding ways to safeguard the invaluable contributions of international creative professionals to society is our humble way of saying: all hands on deck!  .

**Confirmed participants include**:
- Vidar Hegge, Senior advisor/ Department coordinator, Skilled Worker visa permits, the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration (UDI)
- Ruben Steinum, Chair of Board, Norske Billedkunstnere (NBK)
- Christine Thomassen, Vice President, Creo
- Kristine Karåla Øren, Union Leader, Norske Dansekunstnere 
- Lisa Digernes, lawyer, senior partner, Bull & Co
- Hans Marius Graasvold, lawyer, partner Advokatene Graasvold & Stenvaag & board member OCA
- Steffen Handlykken, Chair of Board, Unge Kunstneres Smafund (UKS)
- Kjetil Larsen, Professor of Law, University of Oslo
- Diego Praino, Associate Professor of Public Law, Oslo MET
- Jonas Ekeberg, Senior Advisor, Kulturåddet 
- Christoffer Pederssen, former political adviser in the Ministry of Justice and Public, FRP
- (TBD), youth politician, Sosialistisk Venstreparti
- Nora Milch, research assistant, Department of Law, University of Oslo
- Øystein Flø Baste, research assistant, Department of Law, University of Oslo

Seminar


**Hospitality signal**:
- Coffee and tea will be served during the event. 
- The language of the presentations and discussion will be in English and a few contributions in Norwegian. Translations back and forth will be possible.
- The entrance of Kulturhuset is wheelchair friendly. Please contact us at info@verdensrommet.network if you require any other special attention.


We look forward to welcoming you into this space at the intersection of art and law. Remember that your support makes Verdensrommet’s efforts to improve working and living conditions for artists possible. 

The event attendance is free of charge, however, you are welcome to encourage our work by making a voluntary entrance fee contribution at the seminar venue upon your arrival.

*Immigration Clinic for Creative Professionals is supported by KORO - Public Art Norway, Eckbos Legat and Norske Dansekunstnere *

**DAY 1: 28. April 2022 | Kulturhuset (open to the public)**

**Co-Chairs:**

• Kjetil Larsen, Professor of Law, University of Oslo

• Diego Praino, Associate Professor of Public Law, Oslo MET

**Notetakers:**

• Nora Milch, research assistant, Department of Law,
University of Oslo

• Øystein Flø Baste, research assistant, Department of Law,
University of Oslo

**10:00–10:20** Reception, registration and coffee/tea

**10.20-10.50** Introduction by Verdensrommet Working Group
(Sarah Kazmi & Prerna Bishnoi)

**10:50-11:20** Immigration Regulations for Skilled Worker Visa with
Company in Norway (Self-employment permit) by
Vidar Hegge (UDI)

**11:20-11:50** 5’ chair response + 30’ Q&A with Vidar Hegge (UDI)

**11:50-12:20** Working Conditions of Creative Professionals by
Ruben Steinum (NBK)

**12:20 - 12:35** 5’ chair response + Q&A with Ruben Steinum

**12:35 - 13:05** Lunch break

**13:05–13:40** Social Rights of Self-Employed, Freelancers and
Employees by Espen Andreas Eldøy (Creo)
(pre-recorded)

**13:40–13:50** 5’ chair response + 5’ Q&A

**13:50–14:00** Break

**14:00–14:15** Summary by Verdensrommet

**14:15–15:30** Panel discussion

Participants:

•Ruben Steinum, Chairman of board, Norske
Billedkunstnere

•Steffen Håndlykken, Chairman of board, Unge
Kunstneres Samfund

•Christine Thomassen, Vice President, CREO

•Kristine Karåla Øren, Union Leader, Norske
Dansekunstnere

•Lisa Digernes, lawyer, senior partner, Bull & Co.

•Hans Marius Graasvold, lawyer, partner Advokatene
Graasvold & Stenvaag

•Christoffer Pederssen, member FRP, former political
adviser in the Ministry of Justice and Public Security and
Progress Party’s Parliamentary Group

*Moderated by: Kjetil Larsen & Diego Praino


Programme


**DAY 2: 29. April 2022 | Christian Kroghs gate 2 (closed working session)**

PARTICIPANTS: Verdensrommet working group, Kjetil Larsen, Diego Praino, Ruben Steinum, Steffen Håndlykken, Christine Thomassen, Lisa Digernes, Mah-Noor Baig, Nora Milch, and Øystein Flø Baste 
 
**10:30** - Roundtable discussion begins

**11:30** -  What are the possible political strategies to deploy towards a policy change? Who are the actors involved in these next few steps and what role can they play? Drawing a timeline and working plan of the next steps

**1300** - Lunch and drinks
Conclude the day

Immigration Clinic for Creative Professionals

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Verdensrommet Retirement Rave was a performative moment at Klub Elsker, as a response to an invitation made by the First Supper Symposium team about the issue of Ageism. We proposed a dancy and political techno-choir—a colorful and Almodovar-like remix of our manifesto and beats of retirement policies for intergenerational groups of artists.

"Due to ageism, there is today a considerable range of artistic quality that has been made invisible" - FSS.

Verdensrommet Retirement Rave was a performative moment at Klub Elsker, as a response to an invitation made by the First Supper Symposium team on the issue of Ageism in the arts. We proposed a dancy and political techno-choir—a colorful and Almodovar-like remix of our manifesto and beats of retirement policies for intergenerational groups of artists.

"Due to ageism, there is today a considerable range of artistic quality that has been made invisible" - FSS.

contributors: Stacey de Voe, Rodrigo Ghattas-Pérez, Sarah Kazmi

[learn more about the symposium](http://www.thefirstsuppersymposium.org/index.php/en/age-ism)

[watch full video](https://youtu.be/FS8guLczdhQ)


Retirement Rave at FSS

Earlier this year (2022), Verdensrommet was invited to participate in the panel discussion “Why don’t you marry an Icelander?” organized by AIVAG (Icelandic Artist Visa Group) at Norræna húsið The Nordic House. “Why don’t you marry an Icelander?” has become a pervasive response when non-EU citizens recount their troubles navigating the immigration system during studies, post-graduation or when working in Iceland...



Why don't you marry an Icelander?

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Verdensrommet is part of a united national front to push back Norway's Minister of Education's new proposal to introduce tuition fees in higher education for Non-EU/EEA nationals. Together with the artist Tansiyu Chen, we have produced six protest banners you can download and print for free. The protest will take place in different cities across Norway (Oslo, Trondheim, Stavanger, Bergen, and more). 

**The fight to safeguard the right to free education for everyone is not Norway’s affair only, but a planetary fight for it to be a truly universal human right!**

Protest Kit | Free Printable Protest Banners

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The workshop is a gathering of collective intelligence, a dialogical exchange to engage in a reconsideration of the economic relations we form and maintain as artists. This is experiential research that focuses on reflection, fiction, and a shared policy to dive deeper into the labor relations and conditions in the field of art. From a grassroots point of view, we ask artists and creative professionals what kind of new economic arrangements, cooperative and atypical relations we want in the future, and how it could be different from today.

What is not but could be if

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Verdensrommet was invited by Prague-based tranzit.cz to respond to the question Are Artists Precarized in Norway Too? through a series of texts exploring the topic. The series seeks to answer these and other questions through interviews and essays by authors associated with the platform Verdensrommet, who in our work and activities thematize, explore, and question the existence of borders.

The invitation comes as one of the outcomes of tranzit.cz curator František Fekete's curatorial research into the Oslo art scene and is part of the programming of the Biennale Matter of Art.

Somewhere in Between: On the Challenges of Artworld in Norway

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With this award, the board of Oslo Open wishes to honor, recognize and draw attention to the important work that the volunteer network Verdensrommet does to make it possible for artists from all over the world to work in Norway.


Space is incredibly old, at least 13.7 billion years, and we have been here on this plant close to 2 million years, yet we still manage to create boundaries between us.

Verdensrommet is considerably younger, started in 2020, and is a network that will break down these borders by strengthening cooperation and information between artists with citizenship outside the EU/EEA based in Norway.

Everyday life in the studio can be both lonely and heavy, it is not necessarily easy to be an artist in Norway, but it is considerably easier than in several other countries. After all, freedom of expression is firmly established in Norwegian society and thanks to the struggle and smart strategic and political work of individual artists and professional organizations for several decades, we have good opportunities for financial support, several strong exhibition spaces and free art education.

If you want to study or work as an artist in Norway and come from a country outside the EU/EEA, everything becomes considerably more complicated, complicated and unclear. It is this network that Verdensrommet tackles and illuminates, also in relation to the art field, through its work to help each other with the challenges they face in Norway. This is unifying, awareness-raising and so damn important!

This year the prize was created by Magdalena Kotkowska, who is one of the artists in Atelier Kunstforbundet, last year's winner.
The board congratulates Verdensrommet on the award!

Trond Hugo Haugen (chairman of the board)
Katinka Maraz
Olaf Tønnesland Hodne
Ida Lykken Ghosh
Tord Karstein Rønning Krogtoft

Text borrowed and translated from Oslo Open's website. 



Oslo Open Honorary Award

Verdensrommet  receives Oslo Opens Honorary award for 2023

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The Aliens Network has been established by Verdensrommet to make the diversity of collaborative efforts to support non-EU/EEA artists and cultural workers visible and to create an exchange of knowledge and competency between grassroots organizations working on these concerns in the Nordics. One of the network’s core aims is to reflect on concrete answers to crucial challenges related to sustainability, financial stability, and immigration awareness for non-EU/EEA artists who are self-employed.



Artists from outside EU living/ working in Norway, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, and Iceland are more than ever in need of mutual support infrastructures that help them move through the ever-increasingly regulated immigration policies and economic austerity. We are in high need of resources and collaboration that better equip and empower us to deal with the gaps between the immigration regulations and the working conditions in the creative sector. We hope to equip
member organizations of our network with resources to strengthen mutual support, build confidence towards advocacy and increase public policy literacy. Our network will have a direct effect on at least 1500 cultural workers across the region with
whom we hope to explore/ discuss and explore different movements of social and cultural transformation.

AN was initiated by Verdensrommet. The first concrete step we took was by hosting Immigration Clinic for Creative Professional in 2022, a 2-day seminar that brought together artists, trade union representatives, lawyers, and politicians to discuss, for the first time in Norway, the gaps between the immigration regulations (for self-employment, in particular) and the working conditions in the cultural and creative sector and its impact on the livelihood of international artists. Taking this further into AI, a series of Adaptive Action Labs will be organized in collaboration with all our partners to share resources and exchange experiences about advocacy for non-EU/EEA art and cultural agents.

In November 2023, Verdensrommet is hosting the first General Assembly for the whole of the network. All the other organizations will join us and for a expand of 5 days we will lay, both in terms of admin and project vision, the foundation for the future work of the network. In the following months, the network will create tools and strategies that will be cross-disciplinary: across law, activism, digital and financial literacy, together with creativity and imagination. These resources will be a collaborative effort and are meant to assist each organization with the advocacy efforts they carry in their own contexts.

For our first general assembly meeting (closed session), we are very pleased to have one representative each from grassroots organizations working in the Nordics (Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Iceland) and one guest organization from Italy, participating with us in a two-day gathering. The invited participants are: 

// Wiola Ujazdowska & Bilge Hasdemir from Artist in Iceland Visa Action Group (AIVAG), Corinne Mazzoli and Simona Barb era from Art Workers Italia (AWI), Felis Dos from Organisation for Kunstnere, Kuratorer og Kunstformidlere (UKK), Helle Holm Thomsen from International migration (IMMArt), Hanna Una Holmquist from (UNICORN), Alexandr Foy from (Globe Art Point), Sarah Kazmi, Patricia Carolina, and Prerna Bishnoi (Verdensrommet)

This two-day gathering will end with a public [event](https://oca.no/programme/aliens-network-an-open-conversation-at-oca) at OCA (Office for Contemporary Art). 


Aliens Network

news⭠ Back to home

Safeguard non-EU/EEA artists & cultural workers based in Norway