"2017 will be a springboard for Hull’s future growth"
Darren Henley - CEO, Arts Council England
"Robots will be able to do everything better than us"
Elon Musk - Space X, Tesla, Hyperloop
Creative Lives
YOUR MC FOR THE DAY; Meet Adah Parris Futurist who says she is fascinated with people, patterns and stories.
In this age of rapid and advanced technological development, open-source collaboration and ‘always on’ communication, she feels this has never been a more important time to understand and harness the value of personal brand equity. For people to understand and take control of their personal brand stories, to live them rather than just tell them.
The World Economic Forum says we are entering the Fourth Industrial Revolution, in which computers and robots will not only take manual work like car making and driving but also a lot of the skilled knowledge based work like teaching, accountancy and law.
The UK Government has published figures showing that the UK’s Creative Industries are now worth £84.1 billion per year (that’s £10 million an hour) to the UK economy, growing by 8.9 per cent in 2014 - almost double the UK economy as a whole.
So creativity is clearly important in our work and lives. Just this year we've seen the how the power of community and creativity has both rejuvenated the city of Hull as Cultural Capital as well as the dozen of so cities and counties that big for the title in 2021. Coventry wasn't the only winner.
And that's what this 'Creative Lives' Day will look at, the role of creativity, arts and culture to power business and society.
Critical skills like creativity but also collaboration, curiosity, connection and the importance of community.
Wasted youth
Inspired by the book 'Wasted Youth' by Georgia Gould, the Leader of Camden Council who we are working with on this festival, this session will look at creativity and young people.
It's almost exactly 40 years to the day since the Sex Pistols played their first gig at St Martin's Art College, where guitarist Glen Matlock was a student. It's just a few less when they played their last at a children's party in Yorkshire.
So our opening keynote yesterday by Yorkshire teachers, artists an children in Central St Martins is particularly poignant.
We'll confirming speakers for this session soon.
Culture of community
Last year Geoff Mulgan, CEO of Nesta gave a talk at Cardiff University called 'Universities - Useful and Useless' which inspired this STEAM Co. blog.
It talks about an evolving role for all educational institutions and the thinking is easily extended to business and wider society given both the siesmic technological and political change we are seeing.
This session will feature a short keynote and provocations from across education, business and society.
Our first confirmed speaker is star of Channel 4's 'Educating Essex' Vic Goddard, the 'UK's most popular headteacher' whose school values are based on those of the Co-oepraive movement.
WILL A robot tAKE YOUR job?
In their report Creativity .v. Robots, UK innovation foundation and thinktank Nesta say “In the UK, 87% of workers in creative jobs are found to be at low or no risk of automation”. Another Nesta report ‘The Fusion Effect’ looked at the economic returns to businesses of combining arts and science skills.
This session will feature a keynote by one of the UK's leading thinkers and curators in the area of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence, Azeem Azhar, CEO of Exponential View.
His talk will be followed by several short provocations and a discussion with the audience.
OTHER SPEAKERS TO INCLUDE:
EVERYBODY DANCE NOW
One of our favourite filmed talks is one at The Place Dance Centre in Kings Cross by its patron Sir Ken Robinson, where he contests that Dance is as important at Maths.
So we just had to make Dance a key theme of the #ARTCONNECTS Festival.
This session will be chaired by Kenneth Tharp MBE, professional dancer, arts consultant, founder member of the Creative Industries Federation and former CEO of The Place.
He will introduce a keynote speech by Dr Peter Lovatt - 'Dr Dance' at the Dance Psychology Unit at Hertfordshire University who gave this amazing TEDx Observer talk on Dance.
We'll also hear from John Galloway, an ICT/SEN education consultant from Tower Hamlets who will describe how he uses dance to teach coding and computational thinking.
- Susan Coles - Art activist
- Mark Earls - Herdmeister
- Tom Morley - Artist, Inspirator
- Dominic Wilcox - Inventor, Designer, Inspirator
- Bart Yates - Blinkink
More details to follow.
MORE ABOUT THE #ARTCONNECTS FESTIVAL
"Art is what we call it when what we do might connect us"
So what better name and inspiration than #ARTCONNECTS, for a national festival of creativity we're holding with other People4Art in King's Cross, London's freshest Creative Hub and Knowledge Quarter to celebrate and showcase creative schools, work and lives.
Click here to go to the event home page
The links below will take you to pages for each of the main elements of the festival where you can find out more and get tickets.
See the trailer film below and download the flyer here.
FRI DAY :
STEAM Co. DAy
A day of creative activities and short talks staged by local artists/businesses and hosted by Regent High School in Kings Cross for groups of KS2 primary children from across the UK with their teachers and carers.
This is a strictly pre-booked ticketed event for schools and not open to the public.
FRI EVE : SCREENING/DEBATE
Join us at the British Library to see the creative education documentary 'Most Likely to Succeed' featuring High Tech High and Sir Ken Robinson. Join the debate afterwards to share your thoughts with a guest panel.
Proudly hosted in partnership with the grassroots teacher movement #BrewEd.
SAT AM :
'Creative Schools'
Enjoy, be inspired by and engage with a line-up of world-class talks, performances and workshops by local and national artists showcasing the amazing work being done to promote creativity in our school communities and why.
At #ARTCONNECTS HQ in King's Cross.
SAT PM :
'CREATIVE LIVES'
Enjoy, be inspired by and engage with a line-up of world-class talks/ performances/ workshops by local and national artists/carers showcasing creativity in everyday life and how it powers lives, businesses and communities.
Hosted by the futurist Adah Parris aAt #ARTCONNECTS HQ in King's Cross.
SAT EVE : #DANCECONNECTS
We can't have a creativity festival and not have a dance. We'll be led by the amazing Dr Peter Lovatt - 'Dr Dance' at Hertfordshire University in a secret underground ballroom in Kings Cross.
Our DJ line up is TBC but expect to relearn to dance to everything from Disco to Capoeira, Jive to Country and Electro to Northern Soul.
ALL WEEKEND : #ILOVEART PROJECT
We have had approval to be supported as an official campaign of arts activism by the artist and $1m TED prize winner, JR.
He will large format print hundreds of selfies we send him of people/children celebrating their art to be displayed around Kings Cross and other key locations across the UK!
Thanks to our media partners:
And we're grateful to all these organisations:
