Gatekeeping in the Arts World of Finland : identifying gatekeepers

Abstract

An artist is not an artist before she/he has an audience, and before the artist gets an audience, there are various parties that take part in creating the artist. This study investigates who the parties are, that are involved in the creation of an artist. From an artist's point of view, the people/organisations/institutions who enable or prevent his/her art of becoming known, can be called gatekeepers. A gatekeeper is somebody, who stands at the gates of enabling or preventing something from happening, and therefore has power in deciding about the outcome. This study investigates a phenomenon called gatekeeping, and specifically so in the context of an arts world in Finland.

The study aims to name the specific professions that are involved in the professional world of an artist. The issue is investigated from a point of views of seven different art fields: visual arts, drama, cinema, literature, music, photography and dance. The power aspects of the decision-making bodies are studied also: in other words the issues that are involved in the shaping of the Finnish arts world. Finland's Art Council's procedures of grant-awarding are also under study here, representing the government's involvement in the arts, in addition to individual professions that can all be called arts managers due to the nature of the work they perform for artists.

The study is sociological, and is based on the ideas of Bourdieu, Csikszentmihalyi and Stallabrass, in addition to few other scholars who have investigated creation, art worlds and factors that shape the arts and the people within.