With a lifelong connection to the cultural and creative sectors, Johanna Kouzmine-Karavaïeff brings a perspective shaped by early artistic practice and extensive strategic engagement across Europe’s creative economy. Beginning her journey in theatre at a young age in Stockholm, her career has evolved from hands-on artistic work to leadership at the intersection of culture, innovation, and public policy.
Today, she focuses on cultural strategy, culture in external relations, and the integration of creative sector perspectives into business and innovation systems. With more than two decades of experience spanning artistic practice, policy advisory, and cross-sector collaboration, she has become a recognised voice in discussions on how cultural and creative sectors can contribute to structural transformation across Europe.
As a board member of the Africa Creatives Alliance, she supports continent-wide initiatives to strengthen governance and investment readiness. In parallel, her recent advisory work in the Gulf region — including strategic engagements in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia — focuses on developing enabling frameworks, policy instruments, and institutional approaches for emerging creative economy ecosystems.
For the Materahub website, we had the honour of interviewing her to explore her vision of culture not only as a field of artistic expression, but as a strategic resource for resilience, systems thinking, and sustainable societal development.
Could you start by telling us about your background and what led you to focus on the cultural and creative sectors (CCS)?
I have been connected to the cultural and creative sectors from a very early age. I was born in Stockholm and grew up around a theatre environment, which meant I entered the world of theatre as a child and later continued into early professional practice. Over time, I moved across different roles and perspectives within the cultural and creative sectors — and eventually into the wider creative economy. In many ways, I have spent most of my life working within these ecosystems. What gradually became central to my work was not only artistic practice itself, but how cultural and creative sectors are recognised, valued, and positioned within society. How do we articulate their contribution in ways that resonate with policymakers, economists, and other sectors? Early in my career, we explored how theatre could address youth-related issues and broader societal challenges. That experience deeply shaped my interest in understanding how artistic and creative practices can engage with questions far beyond their immediate cultural context. I have always been curious about learning from fields outside my original expertise. I strongly believe that it is through interaction with other disciplines and professions that we begin to see differently — and ultimately to do things differently. That curiosity has stayed with me throughout my career.
How has the COVID-19 pandemic reshaped the cultural and creative sector across Europe?
I would not describe myself as a pandemic specialist, nor have I conducted a single comprehensive study of COVID’s impact. However, through close observation and work across multiple European contexts, some patterns are very clear. We have seen many cultural and creative entrepreneurs close their businesses, radically redesign them, or launch entirely new ventures. A key question remains: to what extent has the added value of the sector truly been recognised by policymakers, and has that recognition translated into structural change?
Creation-based professions are, by nature, relatively resilient in times of uncertainty. Creative processes inherently involve vulnerability, experimentation, and stepping outside comfort zones. In that sense, disruption is not unfamiliar territory. The real challenge lies in whether national systems are structurally equipped to support cultural and creative sectors with business development, innovation frameworks, and investment tools that enable restructuring and scaling. Emergency funding during COVID was essential. But the more fundamental question is whether public investment has shifted towards long-term strategic approaches, rather than simply compensating for losses. Post-COVID, we are also seeing the politicisation of artists’ working conditions, with new or revised legislation emerging in several countries. At the same time, there has been a notable surge in initiatives linking cultural and creative industries to innovation agendas, green transition strategies, skills development, and research and innovation programmes.
In your view, what are the main needs of the sector in this new post-COVID creative economy era?
The cultural and creative sectors must continue strengthening their resilience and diversifying their business models. Their future success depends on maintaining a delicate but essential balance. First, CCIs need to be embedded within industrial, economic, and innovation policies — not treated as exceptions outside them. Second, culture must be recognised as a foundational element of social life, not justified solely through economic metrics. Third, CCIs must be acknowledged as a powerhouse of skills and mindsets: creativity, systems thinking, adaptability, and human-centred problem-solving.
Innovation agendas should explicitly address arts- and design-based collaboration and cross-innovation. Too often, innovation policy remains narrowly focused on technology or industrial R&D. This raises an important question: are funding programmes and policy frameworks genuinely designed to accommodate cross-sector practices in a structured and scalable way, or are they still treated as peripheral and experimental?
A few countries — most notably Finland, and to some extent the UK — have embedded arts- and design-based collaboration within their national innovation systems. In most European contexts, however, engagement between CCS and innovation policy remains mediated through sector-specific agencies or parallel instruments, rather than being structurally integrated. At the same time, stronger governance frameworks are essential. This includes vertical governance — ensuring inclusive sector representation in policymaking — and horizontal alignment across culture, economy, innovation, education, and social policy. Perhaps we should also reverse the question: what does society need from the cultural and creative sectors in the post-COVID era? The answers include cultural identity, wellbeing, social cohesion, expression, future-oriented skills, and economic diversification. Meeting these needs requires investment not only in projects, but in whole-of-government approaches to the creative economy.
Which other sectors offer the most promising opportunities for collaboration with CCS today?
Education is the first sector I would highlight — although it remains more potential than fully realised transformation. Arts- and design-based practices are not yet systematically integrated into education systems. However, a growing number of business schools and higher education institutions are experimenting with STEAM approaches, project-based learning, and arts-driven leadership development. This is particularly promising because it strengthens the demand side: future managers and leaders gain a deeper understanding of how to collaborate meaningfully with artists and designers. Social innovation is another key opportunity. Arts and culture provide powerful methods for dialogue, community engagement, and ideation. Artistic processes are especially effective in diverging phases of innovation, but also in testing social and market viability. Cultural mediation and participatory formats are areas where CCS can play a pivotal role.
Finally, arts, health, and wellbeing represent one of the most advanced areas of collaboration. Evidence increasingly demonstrates how cultural participation contributes to resilience, mental health, and overall wellbeing in tangible ways.
How can cross-sector collaboration drive innovation, audience engagement, and new business models within CCS?
Cross-sector collaboration opens significant opportunities for diversifying both revenue streams and impact. Arts- and design-based practices can contribute to policymaking, ESG strategies, corporate transformation, social cohesion initiatives, and storytelling across industries. However, creative professionals need support in translating their practices into objectives and processes that other sectors understand. Collaboration with technology is particularly visible in audience development: immersive formats, digital storytelling, and hybrid experiences are reshaping how audiences engage with culture. These collaborations are most effective when technology is used to redesign participation and experience — not simply to distribute content digitally.
What barriers still prevent stronger cross-sector partnerships, and how can they be addressed?
A central barrier remains governance capacity. Many governments are not yet equipped to design and deliver policies that genuinely enable cross-sector collaboration. The creative economy inherently depends on coordination across policy areas, yet administrative silos persist. Weak governance structures often explain why industrial and economic policies fail to translate into meaningful impact for CCIs — or why cultural sectors struggle to evolve into sustainable creative industries. Another critical barrier is the lack of intermediaries. Cross-sector collaboration does not scale on goodwill alone. Intermediaries translate between sectors, design collaboration frameworks, manage expectations, and ensure fair value creation. Without them, many partnerships remain fragile or one-off experiments.
We need both operational projects that demonstrate measurable impact and investment in intermediary infrastructures that make these collaborations repeatable and sustainable. Only then will demand grow across sectors — and only then will policymakers feel confident embedding these approaches more systematically.
