Between March 2020 - March 2021, Creative Lives ran more than 150 discussions involving over 1,500 people from across the UK and Ireland

Creative Network enables people to share with others, develop ideas and projects, and find sustainable ways forward in changing circumstances. 

To mark the anniversary of our first Creative Network session, we hosted a special discussion about the growth of interest in everyday creativity - from the Warwick Commission report (2015) calling for 'the opportunity to live a creative life' to Arts Council England's 10-year strategy Let's Create (2020) setting out a vision that 'by 2030, we want England to be a country in which the creativity of each of us is valued and given the chance to flourish'.

Our panel of special guests for this discussion included:

• Vikki Heywood (Chair of the Warwick Commission)
• Geoffrey Crossick (Director of the AHRC Cultural Value Project)
• Stephen James-Yeoman (BBC Arts)
• Dr Franco Bianchini (Associate Director of the Centre for Cultural Value)
• Professor Eleonora Belfiore (Former member of the team leading the AHRC research project Understanding Everyday Participation – Articulating Cultural Values)
• Nick Ewbank (Currently leading a Discovery Process into the underpinnings of the relationship between everyday creativity and health)
• Lewis Hou (Fun Palaces Scotland Ambassador)
• Catherine Mugonyi (Creative Programmer at The Harris and Trustee of Creative Lives)
• Dr Dave O'Brien (Chancellor’s Fellow in Cultural and Creative Industries at the University of Edinburgh)

You can read the transcript of the session below, or download it here (.pdf).