The creative fulcrum : Where, how and why the creative workforce is growing

Contrary to the view that the creative workforce is shrinking, a decade of detailed research by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation (CCI) shows that the number of workers in creative occupations is growing strongly, and that these workers are spread right across the whole economy. Furthermore, these occupations can be thought of as a ‘creative fulcrum’ for innovations that leverage competitiveness in all sectors, and create positive job spirals that stimulate opportunities for many other occupation categories.

Transition: Exchange establishing a visual arts practice based on personal pedagogy

There is a perceived tension in the relationship between the roles of art teacher and artist that led to the question: can an art teacher use their professional training and experience to establish an authentic artistic identity? This self-study tracked and analysed how the process of making her own art enabled an art teacher to also identify as an artist. Drawing on Lamina, the public exhibition of her multimedia artworks, the final exegesis proposes five conditions for art teachers in developing their own art practice: developing an identity as artist, using time and space mindfully, tolerating uncertainty, mentoring, and privileging the process.

Key change: The role of the creative industries in climate change action

The role of the creative industries – arts and artists – in helping to drive the changes in laws and behaviours that are necessary to tackle climate change, while not superficially obvious, is a deep one. Arts and artists of all kinds, as cultural practitioners, have been closely entwined with social change and social control since time immemorial, in large part because they help shape our understanding of the world, framing ideas, prefiguring change, and opening hearts and minds to new ways of thinking. They have played a major role in campaigns for law reform on many issues, and climate change should be no exception. Indeed, with climate change increasingly being seen as a deeply cultural issue, and its solutions as cultural ones to do with changing the way we understand our world and our place in it, the role of cultural practitioners in helping to address it should also increasingly be seen as central. It is curious, then, how comparatively little artistic engagement with climate change has taken place, how little engagement with the arts the climate movement has attempted, and how little theoretical and critical analysis has been undertaken on the role of the creative arts in climate change action. Through a literature review and a series of interviews with individuals working in relevant fields in Australia, this study examines and evaluates the role of the creative industries in climate change action and places it in a historical and theoretical context. It covers examples of the kind of artistic and activist collaborations that have been undertaken, the different roles in communication, campaigning for law reform, and deep culture change that arts and artists can play, and the risks and dangers inherent in the involvement of artists, both to climate change action and to the artist. It concludes that, despite the risks, a deeper and more thoughtful engagement of and by the creative industries in climate action would not only be useful but is perhaps vital to the success of the endeavours.

Empowering PNG Women through Building Media Arts Production Capacity as Cultural Drivers: Showreel

The creative work comprises six short digital screen stories and emerges from a collaboration between the Discipline of Film Screen and Animation at Queensland University of Technology and the Centre for Social and Creative Media at University of Goroka, funded via the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade's Australia Awards Fellowship. Six fellows traveled from Papua New Guinea to Brisbane for a two-week intensive course to learn the advanced skills necessary in order to create media that will empower women and girls to make more of their own economies in Papua New Guinea, and increase the representation of women and their well-being through leadership and decision-making. The resulting creative work is evidence of innovative media teaching-making methods designed to build human and cultural assets in PNG and address the increasing demand for media materials driven by the influx of mobile phones and internet services. The creative work provides a platform to directly address and positively impact gender issues in PNG and builds on the success of the Pawa Meri project, which trained six female directors to tell stories of women in leadership roles in PNG. One of the directors was a producer of this creative work. The creative work frames but problematises the complex issues influencing gender equity through the selection of content and narrative structures in ways which address the dynamics of male/female relationships and power in PNG society and will include strategies to illustrate transformed male and female behaviours. The creative work adopts a scaffolded approach, incorporating the findings of the Train the Trainer approach developed by UoG and QUT for the Life Drama research project. The creative work takes into account current developmental themes and approaches in the production of rich media products, and skills the key participants so that they are able to in turn train others in the wider community. The creative work was presented to partners and key stakeholders on 3 July 2015 at the Glasshouse, QUT Creative Industries Precinct and at the Dean’s Research Seminar Poster Exhibition 15 July 2015 at Room 212-213, Level 2, J Block, Gardens Point QUT and subsequent eBook. It has since returned to PNG to be showcased and distributed, and the skills and strategies disseminated.

Writing the Digital Futures Report 2014-2105 Arts Queensland

The Writing the Digital Futures project brings together international knowledge and expertise in digital writing to cement Queensland as a centre of innovation in writing and publishing within Australia. The purpose of the digital futures project is to change community and professional perceptions of storytelling and publishing in a digital age, with particular emphasis on transmedia/multi-platform storytelling.

The radical in arts education research

Arts education research, as an interdisciplinary field, has developed in the shadows of a number of research traditions. However amid all the methodological innovation, I believe there is one particular, distinctive and radical research strategy which arts educators have created to research the practice of arts education: namely arts-based research. For many, and Elliot Eisner from Stanford University was among the first, arts education needed a research approach which could deal with the complex dynamics of arts education in the classroom. What was needed was ‘an approach to the conduct of educational research that was rooted in the arts and that used aesthetically crafted forms to reveal aspects of practice that mattered educationally’ (Eisner 2006: 11). While arts education researchers were crafting the principles and practices of arts-based research, fellow artist/researchers in the creative arts were addressing similar needs and fashioning their own exacting research strategies. This chapter aligns arts-based research with the complementary research practices established in creative arts studios and identifies the shared and truly radical nature of these moves. Finally, and in a contemporary turn many will find surprising, I will discuss how the radical aspects of these methodologies are now being held up as core elements of what is being called the fourth paradigm of scientific research, known as eScience. Could it be that the radical dynamics of arts-based research pre-figured the needs of eScience researchers who are currently struggling to manage the ‘deluge of Big Data’ which is disrupting their well-established scientific methods?

Reflexivity and self-care for creative facilitators: Stepping outside the circle

Those who work with others to explore new and creative ways of thinking about community and organizational participation, ways of engaging with others, individual well-being and creative solutions to problems, have a significant role in a cohesive society. Creative forms of learning can stimulate reflexive practices of self-care and lead to enhanced relationships and practices both personally and professionally. We argue that those who facilitate such practices for others do not always practice their own self-care, which potentially leads to burnout and disillusionment. This research sought to explore understandings and practices of self-care with such facilitators in order to develop resources or techniques to support more sustainable professional identities. A key finding is that reflexive processes are most effective and transforming when shared as a social practice.

The creative suburb: Building and urban designs for suburban innovators

Influential creative industries and creative place thinkers Richard Florida and Charles Landry agree that creativity is necessary for a prospering liveable and, therefore, sustainable city. Following Florida’s work, the ‘creative class’ has become central to what has turned out to be city-centre-centric growth policies. However, until the Queensland University of Technology’s Australian Research Council sponsored research into “creative suburbia”, few researchers had demonstrated – let alone challenged – the notion that a substantial cohort of creative industries workers might prefer to live and work at home in the suburbs rather than in city centres. The “creative suburb” work builds on the creative suburbia research. In a practice-led and property development industry embedded inquiry, the creative suburb draws on significant primary research with suburban, home-based, creative industries workers, vernacular architecture, and town planning in the Toowoomba region, in the state of Queensland, Australia, as inspiration for a series of new building and urban designs available for innovators operating in new suburban greenfield situations and suburban areas undergoing a refit in Queensland and possibly further afield. This paper focuses on one building design informed by this inquiry, with the intention of its construction as a ’showcasestudy’ ‘homeworkhouse’, suitable for creative industries workers in the Toowoomba region.

The creative suburb: A study in creative reflective practice

As long as population growth continues, policies for urban consolidation closer to city centres fail, and there is land available, Australians will continue to build in new Greenfield suburbs. However, the 50-year legacy of the homogeneous one-size-fits-all approach to suburbia beyond the sticks and sometimes hours away from where one can find a job, is proving unsustainable, the commute alone a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions across the globe. The ‘creative suburb’ was inspired by the possibility to create new, innovative and entrepreneurial suburbs, places which are more self-sufficient and self-contained than the ‘product’ perpetuated down under even today. The ‘creative suburb’ draws on significant primary research with suburban home-based creative industries workers, vernacular architecture, and town planning in the Toowoomba region, in the state of Queensland, Australia, as inspiration for a series of new building and urban designs available for innovators operating in new suburban greenfield situations in Queensland and possibly further a field. This paper considers the role ‘creative reflective practice’ played in the process of developing the building and urban designs presented in a book and showcased in a building as creative outputs of this practice-led and property development industry embedded inquiry.

Participatory media and 'co-creative' storytelling

Distinguishing critical participatory media from other participatory media forms (for example user-generated content and social media) may be increasingly difficult to do, but nonetheless remains an important task if media studies is to remain relevant to the continuing development of inclusive social political and media cultures. This was one of a number of the premises for a national Australian Research Council-funded study that set out to improve the visibility of critical participatory media, and understand its use for facilitating media participation on a population wide basis (Spurgeon et. al. 2015). The term ‘co-creative’ media was adopted to make this distinction and to describe an informal system of critical participatory media practice that is situated between major public, Indigenous and community arts, culture and media sectors. Although the co-creative media system is found to be a site of innovation and engine for social change its value is still not fully understood. For this reason, this system continues to provide media and cultural studies scholars with valuable sites for researching the sociocultural transformations afforded by new media and communication technologies, as well as their limitations.

Creative writing: Literature review and evidence-based research

There is growing evidence, especially in the USA and UK, that creative writing can form an important part of the recovery experience of people affected by severe mental illness. In this chapter, I consider theoretical models that explain how creative writing might contribute to recovery, and discuss the potential for creative writing in psychosocial rehabilitation. It is argued that the rehabilitation benefits of creative writing might be optimized through focus on process and technique in writing, rather than expression or content alone, and that consequently, the involvement of professional writers might be important. I will explore the recent history of theoretical frameworks and explanatory models that link creative writing and recovery, and examine such empirical evidence as is available on the contribution of creative writing to recovery from severe mental illness.

Creative writing: A practice-based account of designing and facilitating life-writing workshops for a group With severe mental illness

This chapter is based on the experience and findings of a pilot project developed to investigate the feasibility of providing a writing workshop for people participating in psychosocial rehabilitation programmes provided by a non-government agency in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It was a qualitative study, making use of observational data, interviews with participants, and informal reports. We did not seek to test theoretical models concerning the link between creative writing and recovery through the pilot project, but rather to evaluate the immediate impact of a writing workshop conducted in the manner outlined in the preceding chapter by Philip Neilsen (chapter 7).

Editorial: Special Issue on Performing Arts

This special issue of the journal Performance Enhancement and Health has been produced to both showcase and further contribute to the growing literature on the unique and specialised field of the performing arts. Over the past two decades, the application of sports-based approaches to performance enhancement and health has grown exponentially in its application to the performing arts sector; however, whilst these two fields share many similarities including individuals working both physically and mentally for many years to be able to perform at their best in their chosen discipline (e.g., dance, music), significant differences exist...

Proceedings of the 2nd Workshop on (Re)Creating Lively Cities Through Ambient Technology in Arts, Culture and Gastronomic Experiences

Digital and interactive technologies are becoming increasingly embedded in everyday lives of people around the world. Application of technologies such as real-time, context-aware, and interactive technologies; augmented and immersive realities; social media; and location-based services has been particularly evident in urban environments where technological and sociocultural infrastructures enable easier deployment and adoption as compared to non-urban areas. There has been growing consumer demand for new forms of experiences and services enabled through these emerging technologies. We call this ambient media, as the media is embedded in the natural human living environment. This workshop focuses on ambient media services, applications, and technologies that promote people’s engagement in creating and recreating liveliness in urban environments, particularly through arts, culture, and gastronomic experiences. The RelCi workshop series is organized in cooperation with the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), in particular the Urban Informatics Lab and the Tampere University of Technology (TUT), in particular the Entertainment and Media Management (EMMi) Lab. The workshop runs under the umbrella of the International Ambient Media Association (AMEA) (http://www.ambientmediaassociation.org), which is hosting the international open access journal entitled “International Journal on Information Systems and Management in Creative eMedia”, and the international open access series “International Series on Information Systems and Management in Creative eMedia” (see http://www.tut.fi/emmi/Journal). The RelCi workshop took place for the first time in 2012 in conjunction with ICME 2012 in Melbourne, Autralia; and this year’s edition took place in conjunction with INTERACT 2013 in Cape Town, South Africa. Besides, the International Ambient Media Association (AMEA) organizes the Semantic Ambient Media (SAME) workshop series, which took place in 2008 in conjunction with ACM Multimedia 2008 in Vancouver, Canada; in 2009 in conjunction with AmI 2009 in Salzburg, Austria; in 2010 in conjunction with AmI 2010 in Malaga, Spain; in 2011 in conjunction with Communities and Technologies 2011 in Brisbane, Australia; in 2012 in conjunction with Pervasive 2012 in Newcastle, UK; and in 2013 in conjunction with C&T 2013 in Munich, Germany.

Paradigmatic considerations for creative practice in Creative Industries research: The case of Australia's Indie 100

This paper begins with the assertion that research grounded in creative practice constitutes a new paradigm. We argue both for and against the idea. We argue against the idea in terms of applying it to the idealised ‘lone artist’ engaged in the production of their art, whose focus of research is a self-reflection upon the art they produce, and whose art is also the findings of the research. Our position is that such an approach cannot be considered as anything other than a form of auto-phenomenography, that such efforts are part of qualitative research, and they are thus trivial in paradigmatic terms. However, we argue in the positive for understanding the artistic event – by which we mean any mass ecology of artistic practice – as being paradigmatically new in terms of research potentials and demands. Our exemplar for that argument is a practice-led, large-scale annual event called Indie 100 which has run for five years and has demonstrated a distinct paradigmatic ‘settling in’ over its duration while clearly pushing paradigmatic boundaries for research into creative practice.