INTRO
LATHAM
Welcome to Artful Conversations, a podcast about arts and cultural management. I’m Annetta Latham.
INGRAM
And I'm Katrina Ingram. We interview leaders who help shape the world of arts and culture, sharing their stories, insights, and observations.
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INGRAM
Welcome to Artful Conversations, I'm your host Katrina Ingram. Today on the show I'm joined by writer and strategist on the creative economy John Howkins. Before publishing Creative Economies: How People Make Money and Creative Ecology: Where Thinking is a Proper Job, John Howkins had a successful career working for a number of companies in publishing, TV, film, digital media, and streaming. He has dedicated the last 15 years to lecture and debate about the value of a creative economy. Having worked in over 30 countries, John brings a unique international perspective. Welcome John.
HOWKINS
Nice to be here.
INGRAM
For the benefit of our audience, can you explain your concept and definition of creativity?
HOWKINS
I will try. I say that, because it's one of those very simple words we'll use that’s quite hard to pin down the definition. My own definition is using ideas to have new ideas. It's a process of using ideas to have new ideas.
INGRAM
You've stated that you feel that all individuals have creativity. How does creativity become a valuable skill?
HOWKINS
I believe, and it's not just a question of belief, but it's based on quite good research, that all children are born with an aptitude, and imagination, and memory, consciousness. As they develop in the first few months, in the first few years, they get better and better at comparing what they are experiencing with what they might experience. They begin to visualize, partly to make themselves more comfortable physically, partly to make themselves emotionally more content. Then they gradually get control of that process, and out of that they begin to imagine scenarios that could be better for themselves.
INGRAM
Right. It sounds like we start out with this sort of innate ability, and then what happens? What in your opinion is the biggest limitation to this creativity?
HOWKINS
Well something happens to all of us of the age of about four, which is that we go to school, and we go to school for very good reasons. We need to go to school, we need to learn how to socialize with people outside of the family. But the impact of that is to make us behave in ways that we don't really want to behave. To make us sit in rows politely, and to lose that free, wayward, personal, imaginative creativity that up to that moment we have been usually encouraged by our family to give free reign to, that is constrained. It is constrained usually through most of the years that we are at school.
INGRAM
And are there some things that we can do to counteract that or unlearn that training?
HOWKINS
I think it depends on the school. I was lucky, I went to a very open, and free range school. It depends a lot on the family, whether the family encourages it. I think siblings can encourage it as well. So, all is not lost. Certainly, some people can develop their creativity within the school environment, some have to go outside of the school environment. Certainly, schools have a huge responsibility to make sure that as well as teaching the normal curriculum, they do encourage people to understand and use their creativity in their lives.
INGRAM
And let's make that leap from creativity to creative economy. Can you help us to make that leap? What does it mean to have a creative economy?
HOWKINS
That is using your creativity, not only for your private pleasure and enjoyment and interest, but using it in your job or in your work which might become your job. So you create a value. You create an economic value out of it. Some people do that wholeheartedly, and they become artists, and professional artists, and designers, and work in film, and television, and so on and so forth. Some people have other jobs, but they still use a bit of their creativity in their standard job.
INGRAM
You've created an interesting framework around that. You talk about forming elements of a creative economy that have changed, diversity, learning, and adaptation. Could you unpack that framework for us, and give us some concrete examples of how these elements can be applied particularly to an arts organization?
HOWKINS
Yes, this is how I characterize the framework of the creative ecology. And you have to have change, and out of that has to come diversity. The two most important things from the point of view of our conversation I think is learning and adaptation. This is certainly what we do when we are in the first few months and years before we get to school, we learn. We learn very fast, children learn extraordinarily rapidly. They take in all sorts of information, and they change their behavior hopefully continuing through school. I'm sure it does in most cases. Then after you leave school or university, it's really important that the individual does take responsibility for learning, so that they walk around the world, and not only are they not passively being told what to do, but they challenge what is happening. They learn ways of doing whatever it is they want to do better, and they then adapt their attitudes, their behavior.
The mark of the creative artist, in whatever domain or job that they're working, is to in fact be determined to understand something and do it. It's a practical operation, and to do it better. Every artist secretly wants to do work that is better than anybody else. Nobody wants to settle for second rate. They want to do something extraordinary. They want to do something that will be the wonder of the world. And they know they may not manage that, but that is the ambition. They can only do that by learning what every person is doing, and then in some way doing it better.
INGRAM
Learning and adapting, that's the focus of a lot of your work. You talk about the three principles that compose creative ecology. We talked a little bit about the idea that everyone is creative. The other two principles are around the idea that creativity needs freedom, and that freedom needs markets. Can you talk a bit about how you landed on all of those three principles, and perhaps unpack a bit more? The second to that of creativity needs freedom, and this idea of freedom needing markets.
HOWKINS
Yes, the first principle is is the universality of creativity. And the second is this really important point, that we have to feel free. We have to be free to express ourselves, and to put our ideas out into the world in some way or another. We have to be confident that we can do that. We have to be able in practice to do that, and we have to feel that we are surrounded by people who might not like our idea, they may think it's crazy, and ridiculous, but at least they welcome the fact that we are having ideas. So we want to be in a group, and it could be a company, could be a city, could be a whole society, where the act of having a new idea, which is originally different from everything else, and is possibly shocking to some people, that individual act of expressing an idea and managing it, is welcomed in the society. We do get some societies that do indeed welcome new ideas, and we do get some societies that don't welcome new ideas.
Almost every idea that's new and worthwhile is a little bit disturbing. And even a little bit shocking. We want to have a society where that is okay. And that is why, in principle, creativity flourishes in bigger places, where there is a high rate of change and a high level of diversity. I'm not just talking ethnic diversity, but diversity of voice, diversity of style, diversity of appearance, diversity of gender. So there is a high expectation of novelty, and artists need that in order to feel confident that their work will go out, and at least there might be somebody out there who gets it.
INGRAM
Can you think of a concrete example of an idea that is shocking, that meets the standards of what you're talking about? Just to give our audience a bit of an example of what specifically you mean by that.
HOWKINS
I think the most obvious example is the history of art in the 20th century, when the impressionists, to take one example, at really the beginning of this development… because a new kind of paint had been developed, they were able to take their canvases out of the studio and into the fields. That, to many people, was shocking. You should not go away from the studio. They went out into the weather, into the wildness, and they painted, and they brought back canvases of a different kind, with a different treatment of colour, and subject matter. Ordinary life, treated with different colours. Some of them at the beginning were called Fauvists, which is the French word for wild beasts, because people in Paris just thought this was disgusting, and wild, and inappropriate, and impolite, and it was not right. It really wasn't. It wasn't suitable stuff to be in the gallery, and it was rejected by many of the big galleries, and the public galleries, and all the way through.
If you look at Picasso's career from the 1920s through to indeed the last years before he died, his work was considered shocking by many people. That not right at the end of his life, but about three or four years before he died, he did some canvases in a new style that almost everybody thought was childish, and disgusting, and shocking. This is the greatest artist of the 20th century, one of the greats of all time. He was still producing work that people thought was shocking. I'm choosing art as the example, because it is easier to understand. It’s visual, you can look at it in the books, and you can see how people shocked. They continue to shock, there are artists coming out of New York in the last 10-15 years who were felt to be deeply, deeply shocking. And now their work is selling for millions and millions.
INGRAM
It's interesting to think about things that we perhaps take for granted as maybe having that shocking value. Can we talk a bit more about the last point that you made around “freedom needs markets?” This sort of seems to imply some kind of an economic imperative to it. Can you explain a bit more?
HOWKINS
Yes, some people don't like the word markets, and I produced this idea in 2007 just before the 2008 financial crash. Not good timing on my part. Anyway, what I'm saying by that is a market where ideas, and goods, and services, and experiences, are transacted, exchanged, usually for money, not always for money. We have made our stuff. If we want to, we need to be able to put a price tag on it and put it out there in the market. And that's really important. I am talking about the creative economy. I’m not talking about culture, or art, or just the production and supply of stuff. I'm talking about people putting their hands in their pockets, and buying stuff. I'm talking about an economic system, buying and selling. Retail is just as important in this system as the studio, and the production. It's really important. I want to emphasize, again and again, that I'm talking about an economic system. I'm not just talking about production, and I'm not just talking about non-commercial stuff, I'm talking about stuff that has an added value in commercial terms. We need to live off it.
INGRAM
Right, now you mentioned the study earlier, and the role that the City has in fostering creativity, and fostering art. How does the creative ecology play into creating better cities?
HOWKINS
I think we are, at the moment, reinventing the city. Where the main economic force is not mining, agriculture, or manufacturing, it is creativity and innovation. We need to think hard about the city of the future. How do we design it? What sort of buildings should we have, what resources should we have? What I'm trying to help people to work out is how to have a policy for the city, and how to design and build the city. To try and apply the principles of ecosystems and ecology to the future of the city is, I think, a very interesting and practical way of looking at it. I'm particularly interested in the people that are living in the city. And it's again not just the artists, and the people that are making stuff. I use the word “stuff” for products and services. But the people who are buying it and experiencing it, and cities need both. They are places of exchange, whether it's goods and services, whether it's money, whether it's meeting someone in a bar, whether it's falling in love with somebody, whether it's making new friends, whatever it is. It's a high-volume, high-speed, extremely fast place of exchange. So, to look at this in terms of ecosystems and ecologies, I think, help me to understand how artists, and indeed the whole value chain from production through to distribution and pricing, how it works.
INGRAM
That's great. I want to get back to your conversation about cities, and creative cities in particular, but I think we'll take a little bit of a detour and talk a bit about the role of arts managers. I'm wondering about your work in the context of arts management. What do you think are the differences between the role of arts managers versus the role of artists in building a creative ecology?
HOWKINS
They need each other. There are some artists. And using the word as anybody who's creative, who are good at handling their own affairs, and they like to do that. And although artists often are regarded as hopeless at business, the artists I know are extremely good at business. I would put up a film producer or TV producer up against anybody else from any industry to strike a deal. They're very good negotiators. But as as the business gets more complicated, and some artists don't want to spend a lot of time doing that, the need to have managers, agents, business affairs, lawyers, all these people, is increasing. They are critical, absolutely critical, to the functioning of a creative economy.
Again, I'm not just looking at the guys who are making it themselves, being creative, and creating new products and services, I'm looking at how that gets out into the market, how it is priced appropriately, not too high but equally not too low, and how it is marketed and sold to people that want it. The role of the agent, who might be the publisher, or the printer, or the deal maker, or the copyright lawyer, or the trademark lawyer, or the patent lawyer is critical to this. They are, in numerical terms, much more numerous than the people that are having the original idea.
INGRAM
I was wondering about that, just in terms of the ratio of managers to artists, and what that looks like.
HOWKINS
In most industries, the managers way outnumber the hardcore creative people. I think there's a need in colleges and universities to not only educate people to be the practitioners, if you like, the core artists, the core creative people, but to educate people who fulfill that transactional role, that management role. It's a deeply satisfying job. It can make you extremely rich. It's absolutely necessary for the functioning of a creative economy, and access to it is much easier than actually being that hardcore creative person. I mean, the ratios would be north of 9/10. It could be 95 to 5, with the 95 being the management.
INGRAM
Very interesting. I know another huge trend that's impacted pretty much every aspect of our life is digital. I'm curious to know about digital technology being an influence in how people communicate ideas and share resources. How do you see this technology impacting the future of how people and ideas connect?
HOWKINS
I think it’s already having a huge influence, particularly the further down the value chain you go. I think that when you are sitting in front of a blank sheet of paper, or you’re writing code, I mean it could be that, to go back when you're thinking of a character, a narrative, or design, the way you use your brain, and the way you focus, and the way you make your decisions has not changed that much. We shouldn't get too excited. The act of someone learning, and adapting, and creating, and focusing, and putting down on paper hasn't changed too much right at the top of the value chain. The more you get down the value chain, digital has more impact in setting up new relationships between people, and between the artists, and the agents.
I hate the word consumer, because that's only one role that we have. We are increasingly fans. Apple doesn't so much have consumers, it has fans. Musicians have always had fans, and they now realize that whereas the music labels used to have consumers for their products, physical units, CDs, the musician now streams and has fans. The musicians that are successful at streaming, putting stuff out in the market, not once a year but continuously, have fans. We might be costumers, we might be consumers, but we are increasingly fans, whether it's hardware or music and that's that's through digital.
INGRAM
And how do you develop fans? How do you develop groups of people that are willing to take a risk with your art, with your organization? How does that occur?
HOWKINS
You put something in front of them that they get excited by. As they want to know what you're doing, you give them more and more, and you treat them in special ways. Lady Gaga was a pioneer of this, and her manager, who was called Troy, was outstanding in his ability to create this pool of fans. He treated them genuinely, differently from people who were first time listeners. It's a very skilled business, and whereas the managers were first to do it, now the artists, the musicians themselves are doing it. They use streaming, they use live performance. They build up a group of fans. What I'm saying, is that the model of establishing a direct relationship, and keeping your profile highly visible, almost continually, through digital media, is the way that started in music and is now getting to be prevalent in almost every sector.
INGRAM
We touched a bit on the concept of pricing, and I'm wondering if you can speak to the concept of pricing as it kind of intersects with digital, perhaps even using the streaming music as an example of where you see the value from a pricing perspective? How do you know what’s too much, too little, in terms of setting price?
HOWKINS
It's hard. Streaming music, in a way, is the obvious part, because it requires very little bandwidth, so you can get it out, you first have to get it out there. Video took much longer. So in a way, it's a pioneer. You get it out there as quickly, and as often, and continually as you can. And then you also have a lot of performers to back that up. But I wouldn't like to think that the musicians have stumbled upon a model that is easily applicable to other sectors. When you get down to the level of production cost pricing distribution, you tend if you're competitive to get very industry-specific. The film industry, which I work in, and the TV industry, which I work in a bit, has completely different pricing models, and I think that will continue for some time. If you look at brand owners, whether it's like Ferrari, or a clothing label, or a celebrity who has a brand that he or she puts on a range of different items, the pricing models are very different industry by industry. But the brand owners are becoming more and more important, and they could come from anywhere, they could come from manufacturing, they could come from design, they could come from hardware, or software, they could come from garments, they could come from sport. The interplay of sport, TV, music, fashion is increasingly intimate. It’s not always a good thing.
INGRAM
It sounds very all-encompassing. I'm wondering what you see as some of the future challenges for managers in the arts, or other creative industries, given all of this change that's happening around us.
HOWKINS
It's an extremely tough and competitive business, and the good managers are worth a lot of money. In a way, it makes it harder to get into the business, because the guys who are already there and you're competing with are very skillful at what they do. They can call in favours, and they know the deals that should be done. You have to do your own deals in terms that you know to be good for you. Most people don't know that before they start finding out. The temptation is to go to an agent or a distributor. That could be a TV platform, or it could be a music label, could be a design house, and to accept their terms. In a way, that’s the old model. If you don't know the terms that you should, you tend to accept the deal on their terms, and that's usually a bad thing. But in the past, one didn't have an option. Now one has an option. It is much harder. But one is increasingly seeing, it is possible to go your own way if you can use digital media to get your name, your brand, your art, out there to the public.
INGRAM
Let's go back and talk about creative cities. You've talked about the topic of placemaking and urban generation in past interviews. There is a growing understanding that arts and culture plays a huge role in generating, regenerating, and building of creative cities. How does having a creative economy help revitalize the other industries within a city, and do you have specific examples that you could share?
HOWKINS
There's an organization called the World Cities Cultural Forum, which looks at the culture being offered and existing within cities. Right at the start of that project, which was launched about seven or eight years ago, it was discovered that the determining factor in cities that we regard as world cities was their culture. It was not the fact that they were a capital city, it was not their size, it was the culture. We regard a big city with no culture as not interesting, not a world city. It does imply it is rather cut off from the rest of the world. It has no culture. So, if you look at the creativity and culture in the city, then if it doesn't exist, it's not a world city. If it's flourishing, and wonderful, then it's likely to be a world city. We then looked at a number of different levels of a world city’s culture, and we look all the way from the big libraries and the big concert halls and the big museums, all the way down or sideways to a wide range of other activities that went from the number of bookshops, the number of bars. Bars a very important. Cities with no bars are hopeless, you need bars, you need restaurants. The number of nightclubs, the opportunities for people to stay out late. To have food and drink after 10 p.m. To live, not necessarily 24 hours, but outside the the 9 to 5. Where you work the 9-5, then go out, you maybe have a meal, then you go home, you're tucked away in bed. I like to be tucked in bed early, but when I was young, I wanted to stay out late. You need to have places where people can stay out late.
INGRAM
So are these the typical cities that we might think of, New York, London? Are those the world class cultural hubs that you speak of? Is that what you mean?
HOWKINS
There's a hard core of not that many, let's say six or eight world cities that are all the ones you've mentioned. Tokyo is there as well. Shanghai's there as well, Sydney is there. But there are a lot of other cities that are scoring high, Johannesburg scores high, Helsinki scores high. Actually, there's another interesting division that we found, which is that there’s creative cities and livable cities. If you rate for creativity, you end up with one ranking, and if you rate for livability, you end up with a different ranking. There's a lot of interest in livability, which tend to be smaller places where the pace of life is slightly easier. Where the air is likely to be slightly better, as opposed to the famous creative cities that are increasingly congested and noisy, and very competitive, totally exhausting. Very high housing and property prices. Yes, they have an extraordinary and diverse collection of people doing extraordinary things. But it's tough to get a foothold in the cities.
INGRAM
This distinction between livability and creativity is really interesting. I have to wonder in terms of choosing one path or the other, are these mutually exclusive concepts? Is there an intersection where the two connect. In the pursuit of creative cities, does that mean decrease to livability?
HOWKINS
Some people would argue that was the case. London is my home city, I liked to live in London, even though it is incredibly congested, and noisy, and all that, but I do know people who regard it as altogether too noisy and competitive. If you look around Europe, a lot of the new design ideas, product design in particular, are not coming out of London. They're coming out of Zurich. Switzerland has a very high ranking. They’re coming out of the cities in the Netherlands, and Belgium, they're coming out of Nordic cities as well. Copenhagen's another place which people rate very high quality of life. It’s the right size, you can get around it easily. Not too expensive, but it has an extremely active population, which rates very highly on design and on the quality of life. London for many people does not have a good quality of life. Tokyo has an appalling quality of life. It produces extraordinary, wonderful stuff for most people, particularly young people. Life is really tough.
INGRAM
Let's go a little closer to home and talk a bit about Canada. We are a large country with a very small population. We don't even really have that many big cities in Canada. I'm just wondering what challenges this presents in terms of building a stronger national creative ecology.
HOWKINS
I've been in Canada three days, so anything I say about Canada should be taken with a pinch of salt. I know from my work in TV and film that Toronto in particular, but also Vancouver are regarded as highly attractive places with good studios and good locations. So in that area at least, Canada is scoring very high. I think in other areas, I'm just not familiar with it, and I can't make a judgment on it. I was saying the visual arts, there are people in this city that are doing extraordinary work. But I think you're not well known outside of the artists who are doing that work. And it is extraordinary, and not well known outside of Canada, and that's a shame. I met some people today who have been knocking on the doors of museums and art galleries in Europe to get shows, and they're finding it really hard. And that's because Canada is not known as a place where good art is being produced, so it's hard to get an exhibition outside of Canada.
INGRAM
What can be done to change that dynamic? Is there a role for government to play in that, or are there other things that need to be brought to bear to change that?
HOWKINS
I think government has a role in it. It can't do everything. I don't know what its current performance is, but certainly in the U.K., and in most of Europe, and in many other countries, the government does have a major support program to support the distribution of the arts and culture of the country. Not only in a non-profit way for cultural purposes, but it helps people to do business overseas in the arts and culture. So it helps people to export creative goods and services, and I think maybe the Canadian government could do more. I hate to say that, really, because I don't know what they're doing at the moment. I'm sure they're doing lots of good stuff. All I would say is that they are not known for doing lots of stuff in my hometown.
INGRAM
Well, let's talk about the U.K., because I know there have been a number of policy changes that took place over the last 15 or 20 years that have really changed the mindset of how government thinks about investing in the arts. Can you talk a bit more about that?
HOWKINS
Yes, the Labor government that got into power in 1997 launched this program on the creative economy, which was first of all a message to government to say, “you may not be aware of this, but if you add up all the creative industries, it's a significant part of the economy.” This was in 1997. It is now likely to become the biggest sector next year or the year after in the whole economy. Prime Minister Tony Blair was very clear. He said that this is the future of the world economy. He said to his government colleagues, “we have to take this really seriously, and we have to take it seriously economically, and we have to look at all our policies to make sure they support the development of the creative economy.” That gave a bit of a kick to government. It reassured the industries that they were indeed loved by government. Some of them appreciate that, some didn’t. It sends a message to the country, that if your son or daughter were wanting to work in these industries, far from it being a soft option, which up to that moment, many parents probably did think it was not a serious job. Unlikely to pay anything, risky, not a good thing. “Why don’t you become a doctor, or a lawyer, or something.” It sends a message to the parents that being in the creative economy was the most simple thing you could do. That message, which was taken on board very quickly throughout the country through endless lobbying by Tony Blair, and in particular a minister called Chris Smith. That sunk home.
The mood in the country was that the creative industry is far from being marginal, and risky, and and not proper work, and a bit of a soft option, which by god, they're not. They were seen as the secret to the future of the British economy, and that was really exciting. That was the major impact
INGRAM
That’s a huge impact, just to legitimize that choice.
HOWKINS
It needed someone right at the top, it needed a new young prime minister who believed it to make that statement. And it needed the minister, Chris Smith, to make on average two or three speeches a day, just saying again and again, and talking to people in film, and television, and digital media, and design, games as well – games are really important – to say “come on, we really want to help you, what can we do?” The way we make policy in the U.K. is, the government doesn't really make policy. The government is far too busy doing stuff. What it does, is it wants industry to make proposals. It wants industry to do the research, to come up with a proposal for legislation. Government's job is to look at that proposal, and say “well, we don't like this because it'll have an impact you haven't thought about on another area of the economy, or another area of society, or it conflicts with some basic principles that we've agreed to, go way and have another think.” Industry has another think, does more research, and says “how about this?” And the government says, “well we quite like it, yeah, we'll put that up for consultation.” It throws the onus on policymaking to industry, who will then work with academics, and think tanks, and so on.
Government itself, the economy is too complicated. Government can’t itself hunker down and work out whether we can come up with a policy. Modern societies are too complicated for that. So the hallmark, or the way we ran our policies on the creative economy, were to say to industry “what do you want?” If there is a net economic gain, and you've got to prove that, and our treasury and minister of finance will check every figure in your plan. We’ll do economic impact analysis, and are going to be very detailed about this. If it passes those tests, we will approve your plan, and put it through.
INGRAM
It sounds like there are some interesting lessons that we can learn from that experience. We are coming up to the end of our time, I just have a couple of questions for you as we conclude. In addition to your own books and work, are there other resources you might recommend for people who want to better understand the topics we've covered today?
HOWKINS
Gosh, talk to people. The best way to find out what's happening is to go talk to someone who is trying to do it. If you want to understand the art market, go to the curators. Go to the artist, yes, but the artist will be very particular about what they do, and they won't really want to talk to you. The curators, it's almost a new profession that's come up in the last 15 years, and it's a very skilled job. When I was talking about that ratio between the creative artists and the managers, the people working at a big art museum outnumber the artists, and they’re absolutely critical.
This is a bit of a long-winded answer to your question, but the reason that the British creative economy is flourishing to the extent it is, and this is the same for the American creative economy, is that we treat really seriously those management jobs of managing the production, the distribution, the marketing, the promotion, the retailing, pricing all of our creative stuff. Those people, we think are really important. We train them well, we reward them well, we pay them well, we regard them as critical to the whole enterprise.
INGRAM
That's great. And is there anything that you wish to add to the conversation that we haven't covered today?
HOWKINS
I would say two things. Be really ambitious, be more ambitious perhaps than you are at the moment, be really ambitious. And good luck.
INGRAM
Well John, on behalf of MacEwan University, I'd like to say thank you so much for joining me today on this podcast. It was a pleasure speaking with you.
HOWKINS
Thank you very much, it’s been fun.
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INGRAM
Katrina and Annetta here, John Howkins. I'm so glad I wasn't aware of how much of a rockstar John is, because I think I might have been more nervous interviewing him.
LATHAM
He is definitely a bit of a rock star. Absolutely.
INGRAM
One of the things that struck me when he was talking about our levels of creativity, is that we all essentially have the ability to be creative. Some of us developed that professionally, others of us perhaps don’t. I thought that was an interesting point.
LATHAM
Yeah, I think it's really clever the way he mentioned that he believed that… you know, we're all born with that in us, and that there’s opportunity and excitement out there. I think it's what we do with it that is important, really, as we develop and grow. Some of us are artists, and some of us aren't, but some of us can manage artists.
INGRAM
We sure can. And it seems like there are lots of opportunities on that front in terms of job opportunities, and prospects to be an arts manager, which is really exciting for students in this program. To know that there is just a lot of potential out there for them.
LATHAM
I think one of the interesting things about John is, his thinking is with a group of people who think very similar to him around the creative city stuff, and how important that creative city stuff is, and how important it is that you have creatives in your city. Because by doing that, you affect change your city. But I think it's important what you were saying, that when we’re talking about this, it doesn't mean those cities are easy places to live.
INGRAM
Yeah, that really hit home with me when he was talking about the fact that there are super creative cities. He mentioned Tokyo, and London, and the kinds of places that you think of as world-class, and there's high amounts of creativity in these cities, but the quality of life isn't necessarily there from a livability standpoint. I think there's this tension that happens as we pursue creative city models, and we want our cities to be more creative. There’s this tension between creativity and quality of life that we want to strike a balance with. So I think that was really interesting to note as we look at creative economies, and how to move forward with that model in our city.
LATHAM
I think it's really important, and as John said, he talks from a U.K. base. He's not Canadian, and doesn't talk from a Canadian base. But I think as we move forward, we can learn from the people who have done it. It doesn't matter where in the world they are. But if we broaden horizons, we can take the learnings on, and in some ways not make the same mistakes. For me, the take home is don't make the assumption that by doing creative in your city, it's going to make your city suddenly an easy place to live.
INGRAM
Absolutely. A great assumption. Now, this wasn't on the audio, but I have it on good authority that John had a great time here in Edmonton. So in terms of world-class entertainment, we really wowed him.
LATHAM
That's wonderful, that's really great. It was a great interview.
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This show was created by:
Executive Producer - Annetta Latham
Producer - Katrina Ingram
Technical Producer - Paul Johnston
Research Assistant - Rael Lockwood
Theme Music - Emily Darfur
Cover Art - Constanza Pacher
Latham, A. (Executive Producer). Regan-Ingram, K (Host). (2018, April 30). Artful Conversations [Season 1: Episode 5]. John Howkins. Podcast retrieved from https://www.artfulconversations.com/transcriptions/2019/1/4/ep-5-john-howkins
Artful Conversations is a production of Annetta Latham in partnership with MacEwan University. All rights reserved.