Creativity

An update and welcome to Culture|Futures 2011

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A  warm welcome to: Culture|Future partners, cultural institutions and cultural actors from around the world

Culture|Futures’ spiral of engagement in 2011 is expanding…

Welcome to the new website and the strategies for Culture|Futures over the next decades.

Please see the

  • information about the events planned for 2011 on the News Page
  • information on Culture|Futures  strategic Vision

If you are new to Culture|Futures you may be interested in its history since 2007

Please feel free to share this resource site and its information to other Cultural Institutions, Cultural actors and practitioners in your area.

You or your organisation may also wish to join and share information about your cultural activities in this area on the Culture|Futures Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and News links below

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Culture|Futures is an international collaboration of organizations and individuals who are concerned with shaping and delivering a proactive cultural agenda to support the necessary transition towards an Ecological Age by 2050.

The Cultural sector that we refer to is an interdisciplinary, inter-sectoral, inter-genre collaboration, which encompasses policy-making, intercultural dialogue/cultural relations, creative cities/cultural planning, creative industries and research and development. It is those decision-makers and practitioners who can reach people in a direct way, through diverse messages and mediums.

Affecting the thinking and behaviour of people and communities is about the dissemination of stories which will profoundly impact cultural values, beliefs and thereby actions. The stories can open people’s eyes to a way of thinking that has not been considered before, challenge a preconceived notion of the past, or a vision of the future that had not been envisioned as possible. As a sector which is viewed as imbued with creativity and cultural values, rather than purely financial motivations, the cultural sector’s stories maintain the trust of people and society.
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‘Healthy Parks, Healthy People’ includes a healthy amount of creativity

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Usually, when I’m at a conference, and everyone is standing in a circle and talking about what inspires them, the participants are barefoot. With dreadlocks. Also, someone is making a giant pot of beans in the next room. This was not that conference. This was the “Healthy Parks, Healthy People” conference. The people in the circle were corporate VPs, non-profit directors, public health officials, and National Park Service Staff. And creative design thinking guided much of the process.

The concept of “Healthy Parks, Healthy People” is directly lifted from Parks Victoria in Australia. The idea is, basically, that nature is scientifically proven to be healthy for us, and so supporting parks is good for everybody. Parks Victoria Director Bill Jackson was in attendance, moving from group to group as we were all shuffled about to exchange ideas and brainstorm. As the chattering and shuffling went on, folks from the Grove Consultancy facilitated and drew giant illustrative doodles of emerging concepts. Like mind-mapping. Like some of us have done at other hardcore eco-conferences.

The doodles were helpful in visualizing commonalities. That’s a wordy way of saying there was a lot of common ground. There were collective calls for more research, pooled resources, branded messaging, and a reach out beyond the obvious perks of parks into the tree-less digital-screen-land most American kids live in.

This whole thing got started when the Institute at the Golden Gate created a “Parks Prescription” document, detailing non-profits across the country who were using park activities to fight obesity and diabetes. They connected with NPS director Jon Jarvis, and put the jumble of parks/health/environment people together at Fort Baker.”We need to create new partnerships,” said Jarvis in his opening remarks.

Done and done? In addition watching health insurance reps work in groups with uniformed Public Health Officers and green retailers, I ended up sitting in a group with an NPS staffer and the American Heart Association’s Ambassador of Play (yes!) discussing the possible benefits of a design competition. At the end of it all, Jarvis announced a Healthy Foods Strategy for parks, analyzing the nutritional value and sustainability of park food and creating requirements for concessionaires.

“How can we bring about a cultural change in which parks are valued not just as scenery, but as the untapped sources of healthy living that they truly are?, ” asked Jarvis at the start of the conference. It remains to be seen whether the gathering will be the catalyst for such a change. It has yet to involve the collaboration of known creatives like Presidio Habitats. But I did see one non-profit director working without her shoes.

The 2nd WORLD CONFERENCE ON ARTS EDUCATION

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It is the 34th session of UNESCOs General Conference in October 2007 that decided the Second World Conference should take place as soon as possible and accepted the invitation of the Korean Government to host this event.

Following the ongoing preparation through numerous initiatives across the world, this conference in Seoul aims to promote and to reinforce the value of quality arts education for all, in developing a capacity for creativity in the 21st century for youth and all generation.

The significance and value of arts education has already been underlined and expressed in the “Road Map for Arts Education”, resulting from the First World Conference on Arts Education held in Lisbon, Portugal, in 2006. It is now the time to focus on encouraging the implementation of the “Road Map”. Furthermore, this new global encounter in Seoul of art education actors will target to highlight the socio-cultural dimensions of arts education and reinforce research and knowledge of practices, ensuing from new conceptual and methodological tools.

The 2nd WORLD CONFERENCE ON ARTS EDUCATION.

HOW CAN WE ENSURE THAT CULTURE AND CREATIVITY MAKE MAXIMUM IMPACT ON THE UK ECONOMY BEYOND THE RECESSION?

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HOW CAN WE ENSURE THAT CULTURE AND CREATIVITY MAKE MAXIMUM IMPACT ON THE UK ECONOMY BEYOND THE RECESSION ?

- ENSURING MOST RIGOROUS IMPLEMENTATION OF CREATIVE BRITAIN

- CAPITALISING ON THE SUCCESS OF CULTURAL LEADERS

- DELIVERING CREATIVITY AT THE CORE OF REGIONAL AND CITY STRATEGIES

- MAKING BEST USE OF THE INVESTING IN CREATIVE INDUSTRIES? LOCAL GUIDE

Monday 26 October, 2009

– Royal Commonwealth Society, London

Contributors include

Sir John Tusa,Chair, University of the Arts London

· Emily Thomas,Director, Aequitas

· Anne Bonnar, Recently Transition Director, Creative Scotland

· Mark Davy, Director, Futurecity

· Alexandra Jones,Associate Director, The Work Foundation

· Anna Whyatt,Creative Futures Director, ERA

· Jacqui Henderson, Skills Ambassador to the Creative and Cultural Industries

· Chris Garcia, Head of Clusters, South West Regional Development Agency

· Phil Shankland, Managing Director, Inspiral, South Yorkshire

· Brendan McGoran, Creative Industries Officer, Belfast City Council

Issues covered

· How best should we capitalise on the huge contribution of culture and creativity to UK economy and society?

· What should we learn from the vast success of UK cultural leaders unlike those in other sectors?

· How do we ensure creative industries make maximum impact on economic growth throughout the UK?

· What are Government’s agenda and expectations?

· How effectively is the Creative Britain strategy being taken forward?

· What will be the impact of Digital Britain?

· How best can we sustain innovative and sustainable business models for the arts and creative industries?

· How best do we find, inspire, develop and sustain creative entrepreneurs and maximise their contribution?

· How important is cultural branding to regeneration and growth?

· How best to we ensure successful collaboration between artists, architects, public authorities and developers?

· What can we learn from the Ideopolis concept?

· How can culture and innovation make maximum impact to success, sustainability and growth of UK cities?

· How do we ensure creative and cultural industries make maximum contribution and impact on regional growth?

· How best should we use the local government guide Investing in Creative Industries??

· Where can we hope to be in ten years time?

How to Book

To see the full programme, speaker biographies, venue information and booking details Click Here

There are discounts for voluntary and community organisations and for block bookings

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Living Life in Real Time

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slow-london-banner2Today, 4 May, is the final day of Slow Down London – a ten-day festival to get people to slooooow dowwwnnnnn. Personally, I walk fast, talk fast and do stuff fast, but that’s because I love things that are intense – but that is not truly at odds with the premise of Slow Down London, which is a good one:

 “Slow Down London is a new project to inspire Londoners to improve their lives by slowing down to do things well, rather than as fast as possible.”  

The point is to consciously and deliberately appreciate stuff – all stuff. From our bodies, minds, creativity, each other, life itself, the world around us and establish a deeper appreciation of time itself. 

And it got me thinking.  … doing things well requires rigour and thought and that takes time… But political, social and environmental changes happen relatively fast and need practical responses.

So here is a problem that faces me and probably you too: how do we as individuals and a society get a strong balance between this point ‘to slow things down so you can do them well’ and the political point ‘philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways, the point, however, is to change it?’*

The arts need to consider this as much as ever before – perhaps more. How can the soft skills and soft power of the arts be shared more widely and do they have practical application? What do the arts do well? What could the arts do better? For example, should visual art be more democratic and what would cultural democracy look like? 

It’s not a problem if you missed the Slow Down London festival – because it is a campaign that highlights that London is full of brilliant slow things…  

The Slow Down London campaign will hold a festival (24 April – 4 May 2009) offering activities and inspiration, through working with a range of partners. It will give Londoners a chance to explore slow music and arts, to try meditation and yoga, to sample slow food and crafts, to discover ’slow travel’ in our own city, to debate ideas about time and pace, and to find our own ways to challenge the cult of speed and to appreciate the world around us. You can view the full event programme here: slow-down-london-events-programme

 * I heard this Marx quote again yesterday, when my iPod shuffled to an old version of the BBCs In Our Time (2005) featuring Karl Marx as winning the ‘greatest philosopher’ vote, here’s the link.
 

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