A SUITCASE FULL OR ART

Abstract

This article examines the intra-European mobility of contemporary artists by scrutinizing the experiences of visual artists from Finland who have been living in Berlin for at least one year. Based on data that were gathered via ethnographic fieldwork including interviews with 15 artists, the paper sheds light on the role that economic and career factors, images and dreams, social networks, and the prospect of working in an inspirational urban context play in influencing the decisions of Finnish artists to move to Berlin. Further, and more significantly, this study illuminates the reasons that encourage Berlin-based Finnish artists to maintain a transnational lifestyle through which they produce a “transnational flow of creativity.”