Cultural work and creative biographies
A one day symposium

Wednesday April 1st 2009
The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA
Michael Young Rooms: 1, 2, 3 & 4

Organisers

Rosalind Gill, Centre for Citizenship Identities and Governance (CCIG), The 
Open University
Mark Banks, Department of Sociology/CRESC, The Open University
Stephanie Taylor, Department of Psychology/CCIG, The Open University

The last decade has seen a huge growth of interest in cultural labour, 
coinciding with increased attention to the media and other fields as 'creative 
industries', and underscored by technological changes that have brought into 
being new occupations such as web design, digital animation, electronic arts, 
etc. Suddenly there seems to be an acknowledgement that media and culture 
involve work! Following on from our successful workshop in 2008 on "The 
creative industries: 10 years after", in this symposium we bring together a 
series of invited speakers to explore the nature of cultural work today.  
Research in this field points both to the passionate attachments cultural 
workers have to their work, and to the costs this involves in terms of 
precariousness, poor pay and 'bulimic' stop-go patterns of working.  How do 
workers in fields as diverse as fashion, television, film, web design or fine art 
negotiate and manage working lives that are characterised by insecurity, 
informality, and in which ‘you are only as good as your last job’?

A series of invited key speakers will address the following themes: 
*Are cultural workers the poster boys and girls for work in the 'new economy'?
*How different is 'cultural labour' from other forms of work? Are we all cultural 
workers now?
*Is the notion of 'creative industries' useful?
*How do Romantic conceptions of artists and artistic work hold up in an age 
of individualisation and insecurity?
*Is the notion of 'creative biographies' useful for understanding cultural 
workers lives as lived and experienced in conditions of precarity?
*To what extent are creative biographies inflected by inequalities relating to 
class, gender, 'race', age and disability?

Speakers include: Lisa Adkins (Goldsmiths), Melissa Gregg Sydney) Helen 
Kennedy (Leeds),Kate Oakley (City University and independent consultant), 
Stephanie Taylor (Open) and Andreas Wittel (Nottingham) attendance is free 
for Open University and CRESC students and staff, with a nominal charge of 
£25 for external attendees (coffee and lunch provided). Please contact 
[log in to unmask] if you wish to register for this event.