Organization

AAAA, or the Aalborg Artist’s Association, is a hybrid non-profit organization and collective artist-run initiative. Founded in 2019, it is located in Aalborg and also operates in the greater Northern Jutland Region of Denmark.

The organization’s goals focus on creating better economic, social, and political circumstances for contemporary and visual artists working in Aalborg. Visual artists are statistically the lowest-paid occupational category in Denmark, and it is even worse in Northern Jutland. Therefore, improving the economic conditions within the local art scene is a key priority. Also, there is a need for more democratic involvement between artists and local institutions – AAAA seeks to create more fair, equitable, and sustainable artistic participation between government, industry, and artists. Further, the visual arts sector in Denmark also faces gender, racial, and ethnic inclusion challenges – AAAA works toward greater equality and diversity within the local arts sector. These aims seek to not only improve the working, living, and social conditions for artists, but will also improve the quality, creativity, and participation between artists and local audiences.

AAAA is a multi-faceted organization that acts as an independent political advisor, arts policy platform, artist collective, project space, and social forum. Its roles range from local political advocacy, to artistic project development, to public outreach through different events, discussions, and workshops. As such, the function of the association varies according to the collective interest of the artists involved in organizing its daily activities. It is not an “association” in a traditional sense – it doesn’t solicit membership – but, it does act like one in that it advocates for better working conditions for artists within the visual arts field locally.

History

AAAA’s establishment was the result of several interrelated events that began in the summer of 2019. Artists Rikke Ehlers Nilsson and Kamilla Mez identified a need for more artistic discourse in Aalborg and began hosting “critical picnics” as an informal way to share a meal while critically discussing art and its role in society. These gatherings were also in response to the city of Aalborg’s invitation to local artists for feedback on the creation of a new municipal cultural policy. The critical picnic group’s participation in a public art project curated by f.eks. of the same name (AAAA) by artists Lukas Heistinger and Bernhard Garnicnig in the autumn of 2019 is where AAAA’s namesake and logo originated. After being invited by f.eks. to a critical picnic and hearing about local artist’s concerns, Heistinger and Garnicnig gifted the name and logo of AAAA to the critical picnic group for their own use. Originally Aalborg Anti-Artwashing Heistinger and Garnicnig’s project sought to rethink art’s relationship to gentrification, city development, and the municipality’s relationship to local arts milieus through artistic rebranding.  Hence, the subsequent renaming of AAAA by the critical picnic group into the Aalborg Artist’s Association was finalized shortly thereafter in October of 2019.