Writings
A matter of ambition: re-visiting class in 21st century Britain
The rise of the BNP, the loss of the support of the traditional working class voter and an election in the offing. Suddenly, in the UK at least, class is back on the agenda.Eleven years into a Labour Government and it takes an independent "panel of experts" to inform us that social mobility is on the decline, the top professions are increasingly out of the reach of all but the most affluent and informal recruitment systems, such as internships and work placements, are becoming a back-door to top jobs for the well-off and better-connected.
What the present working class needs, it seems, is a good old-fashioned dose of aspiration.
After all, as Simon Carr wrote in the Independent last week: "The middle class has never been more open, more accessible, more permeable.........the only thing you have to do to become middle class is to do what the middle class does......The belief that education matters. The desire to know things. The desire to get on in life. The urge to have your children do better than you have done......."
So straightforward: so uncomplicated. How could today's working class have failed to grasp such a basic tenet? Is it that they simply don't have the ambition, the determination or the drive of some of those 1950s counterparts?
Or is it, as it has always been, more complex than that? In the search for some clues, I re-examine my own childhood in post-war Britain.
The Creative Worker: new perspectives for the arts in Europe
The Creative Worker looks at the practice and employment patterns of artists working in the social economy in six European Countries.Making a Difference: Arts in Higher Education
This paper was presented and developed as part of the ELIA Biennale 2008. It is one of an on-going series of conversations I am having with myself, and others, on the changing role of the arts and artists in the 21st Century.The Grit in the Oyster: re-visiting the concept of the creative industries
This article was first published in Arts Professional Issue 194 http://www.artsprofessional.co.uk
It takes a look at the industrialisation of creativity and calls for a change in the ways in which we think about the position of culture in the economy.