Coming from a background of fine art, architecture and working in a creative industry of fine jewellery design and childrens' fashion, the Arts have always had a special place in my heart. The grey areas of copyrights, 'inspirational' research and its overall equation to economic value seems always a contestable debate between my peers and even my husband who sees the world from the other side.
Whatever happened to creativity?
The concept of creativity from the visual and performing arts implies and act of imaginative practice intended to express original ideas. But the notion of creativity has been overused to become almost meaningless. Type 'creativity' or 'creative' into your search engine and you come up with, for example, cruise ship holidays, business leadership programs, bar mitzvahs, management systems, - everything in other words. And if everything is creative then nothing is. As 'creative' become synonymous with any new product in the marketplace, what is disappearing is any special claim that artists might reasonable make about what they do and how they go about it. The concept of idiosyncratic, distinctive creativity has been refashioned or 'hollowed out' to suit the management of commerce and industry. It is hollowed out because this versio of creativity ignores the possibility that creative activity might exist unhampered by the rational calculation of end-use. Creativity as a set of 'imaginative practices' with their own intrinsic value has lost its specific tie to culture in general and the arts in particular.
Why does it matter?
