Interview with Nacho Cárcaba on the needs of today's artists

Many artists are expected to balance creative work with producing, fundraising, communication, teaching, or administration. How do you navigate these multiple roles without losing focus on your artistic practice?

For me, balancing the different roles of an artist is not about separating creative work from everything else, but about finding ways for these roles to support and nourish my artistic practice.

As an independent choreographer and artist, I have had to develop skills in production, fundraising, communication, teaching and administration alongside my creative work. At times, this can be challenging, especially when administrative tasks become demanding or when financial uncertainty takes up too much mental space. I try to deal with this by organising my time in clear phases, protecting specific periods for research, creation and physical practice, and treating them as non-negotiable parts of my work.

Teaching is also an important part of my practice. It allows me to reflect on movement, improvisation and composition, and many of the questions that emerge in the studio with students feed back into my own artistic research.

I also try to keep a clear distinction between what is urgent and what is genuinely important for my artistic development. Not every opportunity needs to be pursued. Maintaining a strong personal artistic direction helps me decide where to invest my time and energy.

Ultimately, I see these multiple roles as part of being an independent artist today. The challenge is to make sure that the practical side of sustaining a career does not replace the reason for doing the work in the first place: continuing to research, create, experiment and develop my own artistic language.

In your experience, what are the biggest challenges that independent artists face today—not only creatively, but also professionally and personally?

In my experience, one of the biggest challenges for independent artists today is the constant need to combine artistic ambition with professional survival. We are not only expected to create; we also have to produce, apply for funding, communicate our work, teach, manage projects, build networks and constantly look for new opportunities.

Another major challenge is uncertainty. Projects are often short-term, funding is competitive, and there is rarely a clear sense of what the next few months—or even the next year—will look like. This makes it difficult to plan a sustainable artistic career and can force artists to make decisions based on economic necessity rather than artistic needs.

I also think there is a personal dimension that is sometimes overlooked. Being an independent artist requires a lot of resilience and self-motivation. You have to keep believing in your work even when there is little external recognition or when applications and projects are unsuccessful.

The constant movement between different cities, projects and professional contexts can also make it difficult to establish stability, community and a sense of belonging.

Creatively, one of the biggest challenges is protecting the time and space needed to experiment. When most of your energy goes into maintaining a career, it becomes harder to take risks, fail, explore and develop a long-term artistic language.

For me, therefore, the challenge is not simply finding more work. It is finding ways to build a sustainable life around artistic practice—one that allows enough economic, professional and personal stability.

What kinds of support or training for professional artists do you think are still missing from formal arts education?

I think formal arts education often prepares artists for the creative and technical aspects of their discipline, but much less for what comes afterwards: how to actually build and sustain a professional career.

There is a real need for more practical training in areas such as project management, fundraising, writing applications, producing, contracts, budgeting, communication and self-promotion. These are skills that independent artists are often expected to learn by trial and error.

I would also like to see more education around the different professional realities of being an artist. How do you build a sustainable career when you are working freelance? How do you develop long-term relationships with institutions, programmers and other artists?

Another important area is learning how to manage the personal side of an artistic career: uncertainty, rejection, changing professional environments. Resilience is important, but artists should not simply be expected to become resilient to precarious conditions. We also need structures that provide stability and support.

Finally, I think there should be more spaces where artists from different disciplines can exchange experiences and knowledge. Some of the most valuable things I have learned have come through collaboration, conversations and sharing experiences with other artists rather than through formal education.

Did iCoDaCo professional development program provide you with tools to manage your roles more effectively?

For me, one of the most valuable things about iCoDaCo was the experience of being part of a heterogeneous group of artists and learning how to create, work and share with people with very different backgrounds, perspectives and ways of approaching artistic practice.

I particularly value the human quality of the collective we created. Working closely with people who had different experiences, skills and ways of thinking taught me a lot about listening, communication, negotiation and trust. It made me understand that the diversity within a group is not an obstacle to creation, but can actually become one of its greatest strengths.

The process also challenged me to move beyond my own habits and ways of working. When you create within a heterogeneous group, you have to learn how to give space to other perspectives, to let go of some of your own ideas and to find common ground without losing individuality.

This experience has influenced the way I approach collaboration in my own artistic practice. I have become more aware of the importance of creating spaces where people can contribute from their own experience and where knowledge can circulate in different directions.

So, although iCoDaCo certainly gave me professional tools, what I value most is the collective learning: the relationships, the exchange of experiences and the understanding that working with a diverse group of people can transform both the creative process and the individual artist.

Looking ahead, what do you think artists will need most in the next decade to continue creating meaningful work while building sustainable careers?

I think that, in the next decade, artists will need more than ever the time, space and conditions to develop meaningful work without constantly having to prioritise survival.

I believe that strong communities and networks will become increasingly important. Being part of a collective, sharing knowledge and creating relationships with people from different backgrounds can provide not only professional opportunities, but also emotional and creative support.

Artists will also need greater flexibility to develop sustainable careers through different roles and activities. Teaching, creating, producing, collaborating or working across different disciplines should not be seen as separate from an artistic practice, but as different ways of sustaining and enriching it.

At the same time, I think we need structures that allow artists to take risks and think long-term. Meaningful artistic work often needs time: time to research, to experiment, to fail and to change direction. If artists are constantly moving from one short-term project to the next, it becomes much harder to develop a deeper and more personal artistic language.

Finally, I think curiosity and the ability to adapt will be essential. The artistic landscape is changing very quickly, particularly with new technologies and new ways of creating and communicating. But I hope that, even with these changes, we don't lose sight of the human dimension of art: connection, collaboration, experience and the need to create something that has meaning for ourselves and for others.