The 2027 artist grants were awarded to 321 artists

Next year, the grant will be 2,296 euros per month. No tax is paid on it, but, for example, the statutory earnings-related pension contribution is withheld.

The Agency for Arts and Culture, formerly the Center for the Promotion of the Arts, which grants the grant, spends a total of 15.3 million euros on artist grants.

Working grants are awarded so that artists from different fields could focus on creating new art during the grant period and would not have to do, for example, a side job.

The state art commissions and regional art commissions decided on the distribution of grants for the last time. In the future, the grants will be decided by the new Art and Culture Council, whose first chairman will be Sam Forsblom.

Most grants are awarded to practitioners of visual arts (77), music (48) and literature (43).

Visual arts and literature in particular are, according to the Finnish Agency for Arts and Culture, art fields where work often depends on receiving a grant. Quantitatively, fewer working grants are received in this application from arts such as design (19), architecture (4) and dance art (17).

193 of the grants were awarded to artists living in Helsinki. 16 of them went to Tampere, 13 to Turku and 11 to Espoo. Grants came to other localities less than 10 times each.

The vast majority of applications, 45 percent, were also addressed to the Uusimaa art committee.

One one of the recipients of the working grant is a writer Johanna Sinisalowho applied for support in a situation where he was almost ready to retire.

“If it worked out, I would continue my career. If not, I would have considered that this was it,” says Sinisalo.

Sinisalo, who turned 68 in June, had started to feel that he could no longer support himself with his work as a writer. It’s as if he put the last lottery ticket to draw with a stick.

“I would have retired in peace without anything else.”

The pension was postponed even further. In a recent application, Sinisalo received a three-year working grant. So he will continue his career for at least another three years.

Sinisalo will write three works in three years, which he has not yet revealed in detail.

His profession however, he is happy to talk about the situation.

Writers’ traditional sources of income, book sales and loan compensation, no longer feed in the same way as when Sinisalo started his career.

“The importance of grants has grown bigger and bigger.”

Sinisalo estimates that the income stream from the loan reimbursements he received has been depleted by a third. Lending allowances are paid to authors twice a year, depending on how many of their works have been borrowed from libraries.

The state has its own allocation for loan reimbursements, which is distributed annually. The lump sum, around 17 million euros, will be divided among all authors and translators according to the number of quotes.

Sinisalo criticizes the fact that although the number of people receiving loan reimbursements has increased recently, the allocations have not been increased at the same pace. According to him, this is especially the case when you take into account the constant rise in the cost of living.

“It seems silly that grants should be used to compensate even more for the decreasing loan compensation. It’s something that should be fixed politically: that the loan compensation should rise, for example, index-linked.”

Internationally in his successful career, Sinisalo has won the Finlandia prize in 2000 for his work You can’t before sunset. His most recent work was published in 2025 Swan song. He received the Pro Finlandia medal in 2022.

Other working grants recipients are, for example, musicians Jonna Tervomaa (five-year-old) and Vesta Burma (one year), film director Katja Gauriloff (three-year), and Kykytaiteilijat Cloud Takala (five-year-old) and Oil Today (three years old).

Addendum 3.7. at 9:45 am: Information added to the article that, for example, the statutory occupational pension payment is withheld from the grants.