What does cooperation with the media look like according to an artist? Is promotion in the mass media necessary to become well-known on the culture and art markets? Magnus Helgesen of Grandpeople, a Norwegian Design Group, speaks about his experiences.

You are artists/designers – tell us how important for an artist the promotion of his/her artistic activity is?

For Grandpeople, as a young design studio based in the small town of Bergen, self-promotion on a national and international level is crucial. Local commercial business is very reluctant to engage young designers and tend to stick with the safe solutions given by a few large agencies. Still, our main habitus is occupied by a large number of creative clients with a lot of courage and cultural capital.  This network of creative people provides us with a steady stream of challenging and exiting projects, which again creates a valuable promotion as 'word of mouth'. Our experience has been mainly national although this network does provide us with quite a few international clients and publicity, they won't necessarily secure us financially. In order to do this Grandpeople need to use this publicity as an argument when reaching out to the clients we really want.


Is cooperation with the media (the press, the radio, television) important? What is it like in Norway?

Yes, this is not without relevance. From time to time we notify the media of different prizes and nominations we've been involved in. We usually also make a press release to certain publications in the creative industry whenever we have published a new work which we are satisfied with. In Norway these are mainly Kreativt Forum and Snitt. We also try to notify Grafik Magazine in the UK. We find this to be mutually beneficial since we are always interested in press coverage and the editors are depended on contribution. This correspondence has also proved to be good for foreign business relations and synergic as other magazines contact us for similar contributions. This resulted in Greandpeople features from Japan, Hong Kong and Dubai to Switzerland and Poland.
 
Does “presence in the media” help in? one’s career?

I guess. Especially since most design publications are rarely critical. Media coverage on design is a bit like travel journalism. They tend to focus on all the good things and fail to see the negative ones. Personally, I find this a bit troubling. The lack of criticism might be good for a designer, for editors and their investors, but doesn't necessarily help develop design. There's a couple of grotesque examples of this in our local newspaper. Time and again they write about completely moronic design- and architecture projects, yet they fail to expose them because they are trying to establish the corporate notion of Bergen as a centre of design and architecture, which it is not.


Do you agree with the saying: “people don’t speak about you so you don’t exist”? Do you, as artists, care for publicity?

Publicity is good, and it's nice to be recognised as an artist by the work you do. But I don't think it's necessary for everyone. I think many designers manage just fine without publicity, and some could even do better with less, if you ask me.

What is now being promoted in the area of culture by the media in Norway?

Well, there's a big focus on Norwegian music at the moment. Norwegian music labels are really eager to promote artists to an international market. 2006 has also been very influenced by the Ibsen Jubilee. Henrik Ibsen is Norway's most influential dramatist and an important part of our national cultural heritage.
 
Do the media promote mainly national artists or do they notice foreign artists as well?

My impression is that Norwegian media isn't really that concerned with foreign contemporary art. Artists have to exhibit in Norway in order to get national publicity. Also when Norwegian artists are exhibited on stages and biennials abroad, Norwegian press might consider mentioning other non-Norwegian artists who are also exhibited at the same venue. There's very little Norwegian press coverage on contemporary art, and the few columns presented are mostly concerned with the establishment of the national scene. The national television broadcast corporation (NRK) has a 30-min show once a week solely devoted to contemporary art. Other than that, the public are more or less left on their own to find out about contemporary art and artists. We have a couple of web-sites, obscure radio programmes and marginal magazines, but that's basically it.


How do you understand the notion “enterprise in culture”? How does it manifest itself in Norway?

First of all, it's extremely institutionalised. There's a department, a board or an organisation for absolutely every corner in the official culture industry in Norway. I wouldn't consider this to be negative, but many times it seems that those who know their way around the scholarships, applications and bureaucrats win the cultural lottery. The aim, of course, is to secure a wide and democratic range of cultural expressions across the nation, available to all. I salute this notion, and I feel lucky to live in a society that aims to give ordinary working-class kids the opportunity to discover the wonders of art. On the other hand, I sometimes feel that the contemporary art scene is too predictable, and too dependent on national funds. The more subversive parts of the art movement can sometimes be too hard to discover, I feel. Maybe I don’t look hard enough?
 
You run a design company, what is it like formally?

We share a large office facility with nine others: a designer, photographers and architects. Not one of us is above thirty, so it's quite young and relaxed atmosphere. Maybe too relaxed at some points? Well, the three of us in Grandpeople usually divide the workload amongst us according to the mixture of terms. Such as what technique we think is best for the case, or even individual relations to the client sometimes. We often work together all three on some cases, but mostly in pairs of two, with consultancy from the third. We work on several cases at the same time.

Responsibilities are based on a horizontal structure where each have their own individual administrative tasks. Some communicate with the media, another has main responsibility with productions, and another takes care of the archive. We don't have any administrative employees,  which sometimes can be frustrating. We organise the work flow with two to three meetings a week, where all sorts of issues are discussed. Progress, new cases, correspondences and others.
Basically, we try to run a business and still have a good time.

What would you advise Polish artists (e.g. graphic designers) who would like to work in Norway?

Apply to the Flaggfabrikken Artist in Residence Programme in Bergen if you're into contemporary photography. If you're a Polish graphic designer, you should cherish your design heritage, get some of your screen printing equipment and set up a local screen print workshop in one of our three biggest towns. Establish a Norwegian company and bring your friends over to manage the printers. Start a graphic studio and invite other artists to join the company. There's a certain market for hands-on, cheap print production in Norway, facilities are cheap, and the public crave for the authentic touch of the screen printed ink.