Andy at Barcelona-Montreal Creativity Summer School

Andy gave a keynote at the Summer School of Creativity organised by the University of Barcelona Business School, and HEC Montreal on 28th June. Andy’s intervention was in a strand on The future of events and places, and his paper was entitled “Revisiting the role of creatives & artists”. The paper argued that the Covid-19 situation had exposed what had often been hidden about the creative labour market, namely the institutional and social structure of the market that creates resilience in the short term. However, the lack of possibility of support institutions and networks to survive over the 18 months so far not only is a crisis of the sector now, but will hinder both the re-start and the future ‘getting back to normal’. Andy suggested the need for strategic investment in these institutions that create the capacity of labour makers to operate, and noted their particular facility in the cultural sector.