Anticipating Creative Futures
European Creative Hubs Network - Vienna, 11-13 Oct 2023
Boom Studios was delighted to join our European peers in Vienna in October for Creative Skills Week.
The first-ever CREATIVE SKILLS WEEK gathered strategic thinkers, policymakers, cultural workers and networks, creative and artistic practitioners together to co-create plans addressing urgent and future skills needs.
The meet-up in Vienna consisted of 3 different elements to make the week.
Starting with a meet-up of the European Hubs. This session started with re-affirming that creative hubs are spaces that embrace individuality and experimentation, whilst promoting social and economic values. Inspiring as always to hear from the network leader and to hear about different things happening and supporting different hubs. The blended finance in Manchester was one model that caught our attention. These meet-ups and the network informs us where are sitting in the landscape of creative hubs
We re-visited the support available for the creatives using the hubs across Europe. The Creatives Unite project is a one stop shop provide a source of information and tools for creative and cultural workers… even better is that is still accessible to us in the UK.
On a more local level we identified the differences in funding at a local level in Northern Ireland. even though two organisations are 20 miles apart, there is a difference of £10k available from local government to support the work.
We identified that a collective voice could be valuable in understanding what is being re-invested back into the local creative and cultural community
This year there is an opportunity to extend the conference and the learning and host an event locally.
We use this opportunity to do one of the things that we have talked about many times, but not actually done!
As Veronica D’Souza stated in her key-note “ Force yourself - the benefit is after the effort not before.”
We invited or creative organisations and local government departments together with the aim to start a conversation.
Inspired by the Cyantopyes method of an Open Space format, we identified the overlapping challenges, shared information on current work and common themes in our work.
At Boom we hope that working together at a strategic level could help to mitigate cuts to funding and services in the creative industries and by collaborating we can create maximum benefit for this industry, from our individual programmes.
The creative industries are identified as one of the leading growth sectors in the UK, and in a region that is striving for regeneration and innovation, it is vital that all organisations with a crossover into these growth industries are push forward in an effective way.
Failure to do so risks duplication of effort and funds, and opens the industry up to gaps in skills and key development opportunities.