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    Creativity: Why It Matters
    Creativity: Why It Matters
    Creativity: Why It Matters
    Ebook84 pages45 minutes

    Creativity: Why It Matters

    By Darren Henley

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    About this ebook

    Creativity is a powerful force in shaping and defining all of our futures.

    Creativity enables us to fulfil our human potential and to make positive changes to the world around us.

    Creativity drives innovation across the arts, technology, science and engineering.

    Creativity boosts our economy, empowers our communities, enhances our education system and enriches our everyday lives.

    Creativity is the catalyst that will enable the next generation to invent tomorrow.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherIndependent Publishers Group
    Release dateJun 28, 2018
    ISBN9781783963874
    Creativity: Why It Matters
    Author

    Darren Henley

    Darren Henley OBE is chief executive of Arts Council England. His two independent government reviews into music and cultural education resulted in England's first National Plan for Music Education, new networks of Music Education Hubs, Cultural Education Partnerships and Heritage Schools, the Museums and Schools programme, the BFI Film Academy and the National Youth Dance Company. Before joining the Arts Council, he led Classic FM for fifteen years. He holds degrees in politics from the University of Hull, in management from the University of South Wales and in history of art from the University of Buckingham. A recipient of the British Academy President's Medal for his contributions to music education, music research and the arts, his books include The Virtuous Circle: Why Creativity and Cultural Education Count and The Arts Dividend: Why Investment in Culture Pays

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      Book preview

      Creativity - Darren Henley

      You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.

      – MAYA ANGELOU

      CONTENTS

      A WORD ABOUT THIS BOOK

      INTRODUCTION

      1:   CREATIVITY AND THE ECONOMY

      2:   CREATIVITY IN OUR COMMUNITIES

      3:   CREATIVITY IN OUR LIVES

      4:   CREATIVITY AND EDUCATION

      NOTES

      FURTHER READING

      ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

      INDEX

      ABOUT THE AUTHOR

      A WORD ABOUT

      THIS BOOK

      Imagine a world without creativity.

      Nothing new would happen; there would be no original ideas; no new inventions or advances in science and medicine; no new products or services; no new books, shows, music or art; no solutions to new problems.

      We would be frozen in a hellish form of suspended animation where our only reference points were what had happened in the past and what was happening right now in the present. There would be no hope of any difference or change in the future.

      It is shocking, then, that we so often take creativity for granted, consistently undervaluing the positive impact that it can have on our lives – both as individuals and as a society. This book is my attempt to explain why creativity matters to our economy, our communities and our everyday lives, and why it should be given much more emphasis in our education system.

      It is not an official Arts Council England publication; these are my personal opinions, but it is inevitable that my views are constantly shaped by my experiences at the Arts Council. I see the power of creativity every day; it’s the catalytic ingredient that helps us to effect positive change in the world around us. We should do more to understand it, to talk about it, and to cherish the conditions that enable it to flourish. This is my case for creativity.

      INTRODUCTION

      Before dawn on a July morning in 2016, 3,200 people of all shapes and sizes assembled in the ancient port of Hull, stripped naked, painted themselves blue and paraded through the deserted city, sometimes lying down in the street like beached whales, sometimes posing in lines like frozen waves, and sometimes filling the city’s squares like an incoming flood. A man stood on a stepladder shouting at them and taking photographs. They were clearly having a good – if chilly – time; but there was a prevailing air of serious intent, and the whole thing had some kind of underlying plan.

      What on earth were they doing? And what is the relationship between this weird, woad-coloured event and our hopes for a better and brighter future?

      It was of course a work of art. One of those extravagances that serve no obvious purpose yet can be mesmerising to watch, leave a lasting mark on participants and set in train a series of far-reaching consequences.

      This work of art was Sea of Hull, created by Spencer Tunick for the Ferens Art Gallery in the lead-up to Hull’s year as UK City of Culture in 2017. Using people like water, he marked the old hidden waterways of the port, recalling its past. The work had the liberating feeling of a tide released, and an urgent sense of a world that might yet come to pass should the sea ever reclaim Hull. But above all it was human; it had poignancy, defiance and hope.

      Those who took part came from all walks of life and most had not had much to do with art of any kind before, never mind taken part in anything quite so extraordinary. Many have since talked about the sense of significance the project gave them. How powerful it felt to overcome their reservations, to share their vulnerability and their humanity and to be collectively part of something. To do something different; something absurd, beautiful, passionate and historic.

      In a city that had spent decades not always getting the luckiest breaks, and where people were fed up of being told what to do and what to consume, those cold blue humans had begun to feel the revivifying power of creativity.

      As I write, it’s still early days in Hull’s resurgence, but I can say with some certainty that Sea of Hull was the curtain-raiser to a hugely beneficial twelve months. To my mind, Hull’s year as UK City of Culture was an unmitigated, rip-roaring, awe-inspiring, life-enhancing success. It’s a city that I know and love, having lived there for three years as a student in the early 1990s.

      Hull has changed for the better and it’s a real living, breathing case study of why creativity matters. Its year in the spotlight has managed to change perceptions about the city – locally, nationally and internationally. It has boosted the economy, attracting visitors, investment and jobs. It has broken down barriers between the city’s communities. And it has had a direct impact on individual citizens – with more than 95 per cent of Hull residents seeing or participating in one of the many events that took place during the year.¹

      Like Sea of Hull, creativity flowed into people’s lives and changed them.

      WHAT DO WE MEAN BY CREATIVITY?

      Creativity isn’t an easy concept

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