Artistic careers and crises. How did the pandemic affect Norwegian artists?

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we ask how the corona pandemic affected a cohort of former art school students. We have compared our findings with other studies of the consequences of the pandemic for Nordic artists. Most of our informants appeared less negatively affected by the pandemic than predicted by previous studies. None of those who responded said that they had left or considered leaving their professions, and none had experienced a disastrous loss of income because of the pandemic. Nevertheless, the pandemic affected the work and income situation of freelance actors and musicians who normally perform for live audiences. All the informants also responded that their workdays had changed substantially, and that the pandemic had negatively affected their well-being. Our qualitative study might contribute in detecting some nuances that were less easily detectable through quantitative surveys, e.g. that the pandemic did not substantially affect freelance actors in film and media.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID
• artistic careers
• musicians
• visual artists
• performing artists

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 All names in this article are pseudonyms.

2 An annual median income of Norwegians, before taxes, was about 550,000 NOK in 2021 (i.e. almost 57,000 Euros).

3 The median total income of a Norwegian visual artist was 334,000 NOK (34,000 Euros) in 2019 (Kleppe & Askvik, 2022, p. 50).

4 Almost 57,000 Euros in 2021.

5 We ignore whether her autumn concerts were cancelled in December 2021 because of new corona restrictions.

6 According to information on the Internet from the Academy of Music in November 2021. The information did not specify when she became employed, or whether she was permanently or temporarily employed.

7 Around 35,000 Euros.