A person with a cloth amidst smoke illuminated by blue lights.

A new national culture bank online service for cultural creators and subscribers is also coming to Kymenlaakso

Vitality Culture and events

Kulttuuripankki is a new free online service that brings together art and culture professionals in one place – and makes their expertise easily accessible. Through the service, creators can publish their own profiles and offer subscription services, such as performances and workshops. Subscribers, in turn, can find creators from a wide area with a single search. Kulttuuripankki will also be available to Kymenlaakso residents at the turn of October-November.

It's great that we can showcase the region's art and culture creators in a completely new way through the Kymenlaakso Culture Bank - this way Kymenlaakso is also visible to the outside world as a cultural region. We will launch the operation in stages, including online information/training for platform users.

Tomi Purovaara, Cultural Director of Kotka

Cultural creators from Kymenlaakso register for the service at the Kymenlaakso Culture Bank, and the same service also operates in almost all regions throughout Finland. The Culture Bank promotes employment, equality and accessibility. The Culture Bank highlights creators from different artistic fields equally and offers municipalities, companies and communities an easy way to utilize the potential of the creative sector, art and cultural services.

Cultural workers are guided through training on how to use the Culture Bank. Registration and further information:

Culture Bank distance learning – registration form

The online service is expected to:

  • about 6000 author profiles
  • over 4000 services to order
  • about 1000 registered subscribers

Regional moderators review the creators' information according to mutually agreed criteria. If the creator meets the criteria, their profile will be published in the Culture Bank and the creator will be able to add services.

Culture has been a major focus from the perspective of both vitality and well-being when drawing up the new four-year strategy, i.e. the regional programme. It is great that the Kymenlaakso Regional Council can contribute to concretely promoting these regional goals by supporting the Culture Bank experiment. We hope that both cultural actors from all over the world and clients, i.e. public and private organisations and people, will find each other better in the future.

Petra Kortelainen, Regional Development Manager, Kymenlaakso Region

The Kymenlaakso Cultural Bank service is funded by the Kymenlaakso Region together with the cities of Kotka, Kouvola and Hamina. The Kymenlaakso Cultural Bank is coordinated by the cultural and event services of the city of Kotka and by the cultural and educational services of Kouvola. Also, actors from Hamina, Pyhtää, Virolahti and Meikkälä can use the services of the Kymenlaakso Cultural Bank.

The innovation was originally developed by the City of Tampere as a collaboration in the Pirkanmaa region, from which the popular service will expand to cover almost the entire country of Finland during the autumn. The international visibility of art and culture creators is supported by Swedish and English versions.

The expanding Culture Bank is coordinated by the City of Tampere, and the technical implementation is carried out by Red & Blue Oy. The visual identity has been created in collaboration with Kaski Agency. Funding for the expansion of the Culture Bank has come from the Ministry of Education and Culture through the EU's Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), as part of the Next Generation EU programme.

Culture cultural bank