The Federation of Icelandic Artists, BÍL, was founded in 1928 in Reykjavík, at a time when artists in Iceland did not have any organization or union to protect their rights or secure them due payment for their work.
Today BÍL is a co-operative federation of thirteen organizations and unions in various fields of arts, and is run partly by the ministry of culture and education and partly by membership fee. We have a small office and meeting place now, as the authorities most generously gave the federation a local in the center of Reykjavík, two years ago. Before that, BÍL was dependent on the goodwill of others, - for all its activities. The overhead is sill minimal, no staff, only a spokesman or a president who is elected by the annual general ensemble meeting, one every two years.
The president is responsible for the interactive communication and communication to the authorities, - and press. The board meets once every three or four weeks and there artists from different art fields can exchange ideas and design and implement cultural policies in accordance with priorities and plans decided upon by the annual general ensemble. Between annual meetings, all decisions are made at board meetings. The board consists of the secretaries central of all the individual member organizations.
The main task of the federation is to encourage the authorities to increase their role in the cultural and artistic development of the society and emphasize the essential contribution of artists to promoting cultural identity and cultural development of the society. The board of BíL has a formal meeting with the minister of culture and education and his staff once a year. We also have appointed members in different committees, both on governmental and municipal levels. We operate in many ways as an arts council, but all our work is more or less based on the right to speak out and keep up a dialog rather than decision making.
It was on account of a joint effort by artists in Iceland that legislation on systematic support for working artists was passed by the government in Iceland, 1991. "Lög um listamannalaun". It guarantied 900 monthly wages for individual creators in the field of literature, visual art and composition, and 300 monthly wages for performers, decided on by committees appointed by the artistic organizations involved. This was a huge step at the time and changed the situation dramatically.
Now, ten years later we have taken up the discussion again, as the situation has changed, largely by increased number of professional artists and more active art life in general. We have been pushing the matter forward, and have now reached the point where our cultural ministry is waiting for our joint conclusion and suggestion on how to change the legislation and has appointed a committee within the ministry that will prepare the bill. We will have one out of three members of that committee.
The federation was responsible for some artistic activity in its earlier years. BÍL launched the first Arts Festival in Iceland in 1950 which was set in the newly opened National Theater and consisted of artistic activity and discussion all a round the city of Reykjavík. An art festival which was the inspiration for the authorities to launch an official arts festival which has been held biannually now since 1970.
The federation has been responsible for declarations and implementations made to the authorities on behalf of the art life in general, and on behalf of specific art field, when it has been commonly agreed upon by the board. In such manner our voice has made a difference in support for the film industry in Iceland and last year we launched a declaration on the importance of non institutional theater and dance groups, which is proofing effective.
This year we have raised our voice to emphasize the importance of arts education and cooperation between the school society and working artists. We initiated a big conference on the issue in the beginning of this month in cooperation to the ministry of culture and the teachers union. A conference with two foreign speakers, professor Anthony Everitt from England and Einar Solbu, director of Rikskonsertene in Norway, along wit ten Icelandic artists, thinkers and speakers. We belief this conference has put a light on a very important issue. We believe a thriving art life is impossible without enthusiastic audiences, and if young people are not introduced to the arts at early age, if they are not encouraged to think creatively from the start, they are not likely to evaluate arts later in life.
"Tónlistarhús" - the idea of building a concert hall in Reykjavik, tax legislation, copyright, and working conditions for creators, public service TV and radio and the low rate of Icelandic production, are but a few of the issues we have on our agenda ...
On behalf of BÍL
Tinna Gunnlaugsdóttir
president