Strategy 2026-31

OCA is committed to long-term thinking in seeking to expand international opportunities for contemporary art from Norway. This strategic plan acknowledges the national and global circumstances that will inform our activity and outlook over the period 2025–31; sets out the organisational values that determine OCA’s operations, interactions, and structure; and defines the three key pillars of activity – Grants & Residences, Programme & Publishing, and Visitors & Networks – through which we will achieve and measure our impact.

To fulfil the objectives, we will combine a farsighted approach with the ability to continuously evaluate projects, and for the organisation to learn, evolve, and seize opportunities when they happen. With this in mind, we will publish an annual activity plan to accompany this strategic plan, articulating how we will further our objectives in the next 12-month period with concrete measures and reflecting on the plan from the previous year.

We are conscious that the impact of our objectives and decisions unfurls over time as artists’ careers develop and their opportunities, their focus, and their work evolve – and we seek to include and take into account the long-term artistic development and deferred value that is created when measuring our impact and planning for the long term.

The future is not a singular path – it is a shifting terrain of possibilities, contradictions, and unexpected convergences. As we continue OCA’s journey, we embrace this multiplicity with a both-and way of thinking – welcoming complexity and paradoxes while keeping our focus on how we can strengthen art’s position in society, expand opportunities internationally, and contribute to shaping the future.

Since the foundation of OCA in 2001, the cultural landscape of Norway has transformed significantly. The construction of several new major arts institutions, such as the National Museum in Oslo, accompanied by the emergence of new private museums and foundations, has raised the domestic profile of the visual arts and brought significant international attention to the country’s artistic and cultural production. The distribution of long-term public funding for artists has stimulated

the emergence of strong artistic communities across the country and has provided many artists with the circumstances in which to develop their distinctive and strong artistic practices. Simultaneously, the ongoing digital and technological transformations will continue to affect society at large as well as the art sector in ways that might be surprising and unforeseen - we will lean into this future with speculative curiosity as well as criticality, providing space for both the discursive and everyday use of new technologies.

For artists and arts professionals in Norway, there is consequently more potential for international connectivity than ever before. In these contexts, we endeavour to maintain in close and structured contact with participants in the visual arts fields across Norway, seeking to be attuned to and to understand their evolving priorities and needs. This includes a constant focus on improving our accessibility as an organisation. Working from an artist-centered approach, we also recognise how strengthening curators, galleries, art publishers and other art professionals based in Norway will contribute to the development of long-term relationships and opportunities.

At the heart of our strategy lies an insistence on artistic freedom – not as an abstract ideal but as a lived, evolving condition. The ability to express, to challenge, and to imagine beyond the present is vital for both artists and society at large. We are conscious that our own freedom of action enables us to centre artistic voices, including those who speak courageously about social, political or geopolitical injustices or failings. We actively seek to expand opportunities for artistic expression, and to maintain and develop the conditions in which they can do so.

As a global-facing organisation, we are mindful of the many real and urgent concerns about the planet’s sustainability. In this regard, we seek to be accountable for all our activities in Norway and beyond, prioritising opportunities to minimise our own impact and support or collaborate on initiatives to introduce more sustainable working practices and systems. We are committed to measuring and reporting our environmental impact and communicating our efforts to improve and promote sustainability.

During the period encompassed by this strategic plan, OCA plans to relocate its offices to Kunstnernes Hus (Artists’ House) in Oslo, an institution established and governed by artists based across Norway, with a prominent exhibition and events programme. The move will bring OCA into greater proximity with its artist constituents, increasing our accessibility to professionals in the field of visual arts, both throughout Norway and for visitors to the country. Ultimately, OCA’s new premises will be a physical expression of what the organisation makes possible – in shaping the infrastructure that will continue to ensure a central role for art in society.

We believe that these values and principles are affirmed only through our actions and decision-making. The values will guide our behaviour as individuals and as an organisation. They will inform how we deliver all our core activities, our internal and external communications, and our organisational systems and processes.