This interview took place in June 2025 following an invitation from Formkraft.
Interviewer Marie Markman (IMM): Thank you for agreeing to this interview with Formkraft, Marie. It took you quite a while to respond to our request — more than a month passed before you got back to us. Was there a particular reason for that?
Marie Markman (MM): To be honest, I’m in the process of developing new skills in EU sustainability reporting (CSRD), so that I’m no longer financially dependent on the art world. Amidst everything, I simply missed the email.
After spending ten years working to create opportunities for other artists — primarily visual artists — I decided in the summer of 2023 that it was time to earn my income elsewhere.
I had grown increasingly dissatisfied with the financial conditions and the lack of prioritisation of artists in the systems I was working within. As a result, I’m currently creating some distance and striving for financial independence, so I can better reflect on how I want to contribute to strengthening art and artistic knowledge at all levels of society moving forward.
A Narrow Perspective
IMM: That’s something I’d like to return to later, but I want to start somewhere else. In an interview published on 19 January 2023 by Art Matter, which addressed the Danish Arts Foundation’s appointment of art consultants to its advisory body for art in state buildings, you questioned whether the appointments were sufficiently diverse in terms of professional background. In the article, you said: “I find it a narrow perspective that we, as professional groups, are expected to fight for a seat at a table that only stands to gain from all of us being there.”
Could you elaborate on what you meant — who is fighting for a seat, and who do you believe should be at the table?
MM: Visual artists have for many years served as advisors in relation to the Circular on Artistic Decoration of State Buildings. In the 2023 appointments by the Danish Arts Foundation, only two out of the ten selected were practising artists — the rest had primarily curatorial backgrounds.
I believe that diversity in art arises when a range of professional perspectives are represented at the decision-making table — where the real power lies.
What I find narrow is the tendency to promote methods and perspectives that reflect our own, rather than exploring how our different approaches might strengthen both one another and the art itself.
There Is Potential in Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration
IMM: But which professional groups should be strengthening each other — and how?
MM: Across the different art forms, we need to lift each other up. What matters, I believe, is that we stand together in the arts and fight for better conditions — more funding and greater influence.
When it comes to discussions about equality between art forms, I don’t think we should accept the idea that the solution is to cut an already small cake into even smaller pieces. Instead, we should be fighting for a bigger cake — so more can be invited to the table.
We need to move beyond the idea that equality between art forms comes from taking away from one another. Instead, we should fight to ensure that those who currently lack resources or influence also gain access. As long as we’re competing over the same limited funds and feel that we’re taking from each other, it will, in my view, prevent us from seeing the beauty and the potential in working together across disciplines.
Solidarity and a Bigger Cake
IMM: You use the word “fight” quite often, and when you talk about not wanting to broaden access to the existing opportunities within the Danish Arts Foundation and local visual arts committees, isn’t that simply because visual artists currently have the upper hand?
MM: I increasingly believe that as practising artists — regardless of our specific disciplines — we need to think more in terms of solidarity, not only with colleagues in our own field, but across all artistic disciplines.
I think solidarity should come through uplifting one another and fighting politically for the arts to occupy a more central role in society. It is incredibly valuable that craftspeople, designers, and artists from other fields are included too — and I believe that can only happen if we expand the overall funding frameworks.
That also means having the difficult conversations about how different art forms are represented — in our own time, and in what we pass on to the next generation.
Art Must Be Taken as Seriously as Knowledge from the Humanities and Natural Sciences
IMM: It sounds a bit like you’re advocating for artists to do what the labour movement did when it was founded back in the 19th century. That sounds a bit old-fashioned, Marie?
MM: You’re right, it does sound old-fashioned… But right now, I think we’re standing in our own way — and standing in the way of the influence we as artists could have, and that art could have in our society — because we’re not fighting together for better conditions.
To put it bluntly, I’d say that in the fight for our own survival and the influence of our respective art forms, we’re holding back from taking a cross-cutting stand for art as a whole — a stance that, in the long run, would create better conditions for all of us, across architecture, visual arts, film, literature, crafts and design, music, and performing arts.
I don’t believe art and artistic knowledge will play a greater role in our society until we change our perspective. That shift means, among other things, that the knowledge embedded in art must be taken just as seriously as knowledge from the humanities and natural sciences — and invested in accordingly.
Artists from the various disciplines must have a seat at the table when society establishes think tanks. There must be public funding allocated so that artists can conduct research.
Regarding the labour movement — the solidarity that led to better conditions also came at a cost to the individual.
That is probably something we in the art world must come to terms with: if we want to change “power, systems, and money in the arts” over the long term, that may have uncomfortable consequences in the short term, because we have to say no to the current terms and conditions for art as they are today.
I believe we have to be ready to accept “none” rather than “a little” funding, to stage strikes where we close down the country’s museums to get the political system’s attention, and to forge a viable path forward for art.
Art Is Always There
IMM: This brings me back to where we started the interview — you’re now working with the EU’s sustainability reporting (CSRD). Have you become disillusioned and given up on art?
MM: Art is with me all the time in my professional life. Over the past twenty years, my artistic practice has been about moving across different fields. At the moment, I contribute perspectives on sustainability in a private company while also learning about a Denmark I don’t know very well as an artist.
My current work also provides me with knowledge that will benefit my work in arts policy. … But I’m still making art, including a collaboration with the Glass Museum on my work “A Clearing in the Forest”, which is about glass production in Denmark and will be realised in 2025/2026. I’m also working on a small publication of drawings titled “Fantastic Insects”, scheduled for release in 2025. Meanwhile, I’m reflecting on where to place my arts policy engagement going forward.
IMM: Thank you for your time, Marie. It’s been fascinating talking with you.
MM: Thank you too. May I ask one final question, even though you’re the interviewer?
IMM: Of course.
MM: I’m really curious about what made you ask for my perspective on power, systems, and money in the arts. I don’t know you at the Formkraft editorial team, and I’m surprised — and quite honoured — that you reached out to me.
IMM: It was partly because of your political engagement and your experience with Aarhus Municipality.
MM: Thanks, I’m glad you said that. I think many of us who are engaged in arts policy feel like we’re shouting within our own networks, unable to spark the broader conversation we want. What I’m taking from this interview is that I myself need to initiate a wider conversation if I’m going to prepare the ground for the solidarity I’m dreaming of.
Bio
Marie Markman is the founder and owner of the research laboratory Farmen, where she develops new approaches and methods to promote sustainability and address the biodiversity and climate crises, grounded in aesthetics.
With its three hectares of land, Farmen serves as the physical development site for Marie Markman’s interdisciplinary research projects, as well as for her advisory work with government agencies, municipalities, and private companies on building- and landscape-integrated art and climate adaptation. Currently, Marie combines her work as an artist and researcher with her role as ESG Manager (according to the EU’s sustainability reporting framework: Environment, Social, and Governance) at a private company, where she is responsible for the company’s sustainability reporting and leads an ambitious ESG implementation process across all departments.
Marie Markman, A Clearing in the Forest, Glas – The Museum of Glass Art.
Theme: The Corridors of Power
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