Why I think the economic argument for creativity is killing creativity.

This feels like an unpopular thing to say but reference to the £££xx amount of billions the creative industries contributes to the UK economy as an argument for creativity and culture is nauseating, particularly when you read things like the new Sutton Trust report, which once again highlights the lack of working class representation in the 'creative industries'. Access doesn't seem to be the answer...a new bottom up system, created by/with multiple stakeholders is urgently required in order to reclaim the ACTUAL meaning of creativity - an innate human capacity that nurtures care, empathy, joy, hope and connection. This isn't meant to be an attack on people working in the creative industries as much as I wouldn't blame teachers for the dire state of Education. It's actually the opposite. I want to draw attention away from individuals and toward the broader systemic and structural problems that create the conditions of oppression and violence, while having a conversation about real alternative journeys of liberation. Creativity is part of the solution, just not the notion of creativity the mainstream seems to uphold. Like Karen Barad says: 'an invitation to live justly is written into the very matter of being.'

Reference to a group of people as 'creatives', by implication suggests that people outside of this group are not creative. This categorisation is symptomatic of the prevailing ideology of Romanticism, which glorified the individual, particularly artists/poets to an almost divine level. By extension, the concept of the 'creative industries' follows the same logic. By co-opting creativity, neoliberal capitalism serves it's own interests by emphasising economic rather than social value - growth, profit and labour exploitation over building alternatives to capitalist systems. Ironically the'creative class' often uphold capitalist forms of creativity, which ultimately reinforce existing social and economic hierarchies.

"Critical art is an art that aims to produce a new perception of the world and therefore to create a commitment to its transformation." Jacques Ranciere

Is it any wonder that the arts have been marginalised, instrumentalised and marketised in education?

Critical arts education holds the potential to challenge and re-write the status quo. It creates a space to question our realities and imagine something better...together!