[ecrea] Placing Cultural Work: (New) Intersections of Location, Craft and Creativity

Placing Cultural Work: (New) Intersections of Location, Craft and Creativity

One–day symposium @

The Open University, Hawley Crescent, Camden Campus, London, NW1

Friday November 15, 2013

9.00am-4.30pm

Organisers:  Mark Banks (The Open University) and Susan Luckman 
(University of South Australia)



The awareness of place is central to the creative practice of artistic, 
creative and cultural industry workers, providing a profound practical, 
affective and emotive link between their lives and their work. Thus in 
spite of tendencies towards globalisation and digitalisation, it is 
essential that thinking about cultural work continues to attend  to the 
affordances of place as an important part of the ‘soft infrastructure’ 
enabling creativity to happen for many cultural workers.



Related to place, the durable significance – even renaissance - of craft 
labour and community production remains a prominent feature of cultural 
work and economy.  Debates over craft – as practice, politics and 
industrial sector – have become more vocal in recent years given the 
apparent rise of craft as ‘creative industry’, plus emerging alternative 
and specialist forms of cultural production, DIY and amateur networks, 
and maker communities.  What is the status and meaning of craft 
production at this current moment?



This one-day symposium invites social scientists and industry experts to 
consider the relationships between place, relations of craft, as well as 
small-scale local, community and ‘boutique’ cultural production. It 
asks; how does place facilitate or hinder these kinds of cultural work; 
how do the local and the global come together in the practices of those 
cultural workers physically working from home, but networking and 
distributing online? Finally, what are the hidden, untapped, unvalued 
places and politics of community production and cultural work, and how 
could we   - or even should we - nurture and protect them?



Speakers:



Daniel Allington (The Open University)

‘Lots of rats and broken windows and oil on the floor: bohemian 
nostalgia and the conflicted “regeneration” of Hackney Wick’

Julia Bennett (Crafts Council) & Julie Brown (Leeds University)

What does local mean in the context of craft? Research and policy 
perspectives’

Ruth Bridgstock (Queensland University of Technology)

‘Creative career pathways, places and portfolios:  Tracing the 
experiences of Australian cultural production graduates’

Robert Hollands (Newcastle University)

‘Place, Creativity, and the Arts: A Case Study of the Newcastle-based 
Amber Collective’

Marjana Johansson (Essex University)

‘Experiential co-creation in the context of the ‘boutique’ festival’

Susan Luckman (University of South Australia)

‘Craft Workers Being At Work, At Home:  Representing Labour, Home and 
Family on the Etsy Shopfront’

Nicola Thomas (Exeter University)

'Wandering into the realms of geography and craftsmanship': exploring 
the spatial politics of craft practice, connections and livelihoods’

Stephanie Taylor (The Open University)

‘Connection and avoidance: the creative potentials of place’



Registration:   This is a free event and lunch, tea and coffee are 
provided.  However,  places are limited and you must register to 
attend.  To reserve your place please email Karen Ho at 
(CRESC-OU-events /at/ open.ac.uk)  providing your name and 
organisation/affiliation.  See www.cresc.ac.uk for more details.





:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

associate professor susan luckman

associate head of school: research

school of communication, international studies and languages



university of south australia



Room C2-33A, Magill Campus

Tel: +618 8302 4152

Fax: +618 8302 4745

http://people.unisa.edu.au/Susan.Luckman



CRICOS provider # 00121B



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