SUSTAINABLE PROSPERITY AND THE CULTURAL INDUSTRIES

Joint CUSP/CEEDR/ADRI Seminar with Graeme Evans and Jonathan Ward
Wednesday, 22nd March 2017

This joint seminar brings together Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity (CUSP) researcher Jonathan Ward and Graeme Evans from the Art & Design Research Institute (ADRI), Middlesex University to discuss the role of the cultural industries in creating sustainable prosperity.

In his presentation entitled “I’m from Stoke I can’t be in the creative arts”: absences, inequalities and exclusions in the cultural and creative industries, Jonathan Ward explores the challenges of entering, and maintaining a career in, the cultural and creative industries, and questions the basis on which work in the CCIs might allow for a kind sustainable prosperity. Work in the cultural and creative industries (CCIs) has come to be viewed as exemplary of ‘ideal’ post-Fordist employment. This is not only because cultural work is centred on the production of ideas and intellectual property but, simultaneously, because cultural workers are apparently also able to maintain autonomy in their practice, free from the most exploitative elements of capitalist relations. In particular, the CCIs apparently allow for meaningful work – work which allows for fulfilment and self-realisation, and which can play a key role in human flourishing and prosperity. However, his research with Kate Oakley finds there are persistent inequalities based on factors such as class, ethnicity, gender and location. Further, work in the CCIs is characterised by long hours, low pay and insecurity. His presentation explores what this means for policies around CCI and what it means for sustainable prosperity.

Graeme Evans will then present on the role of “Creative Social Enterprises: navigating the local economy and urban regeneration” as a response to the perennial insecurity and exclusion evident in creative working. Specifically, the adoption of community interest companies (CICs) as a social enterprise model and the formation and operation of open networks to encourage new entrants, exchange knowledge and pursue local economic development. This encompasses activism (using arts/creative methods) and engagement with local communities, development agencies and local authorities against a backdrop of gentrification and loss of workspace. In policy terms this contributes to concepts of creative place making and endogenous growth and creative enterprise zones (GLA), as well as socially engaged arts practice.

ABOUT

Jonathan Ward is a post-doctoral researcher for CUSP’s arts and culture theme, based in the School of Media and Communication at the University of Leeds. His research focusses on issues around cultural policy, cultural labour and culture-led urban policy.

Graeme Evans is Professor Urban Cultures & Design and Director of the Art & Design Research Institute. This research is based on projects working in east and north London (Cultural Planning for Sustainable Communities; Hydrocitizenship) as well as recently completed studies for the DCMS (The Contribution of Culture to Place Shaping.)