Creativity in Crisis?

Our Learning and Participation Director Thomas Hardy reflects on the value of creativity and the arts in the current climate.

As Learning and Participation Director, I spend much of my time working to bring people together, either at Saffron Hall, or in schools and community venues across the region. To suddenly find we live in a world where this is not possible has come as a shock to everybody. As with our concert programme, we have had to, almost overnight, reschedule, postpone or rethink every aspect of our schools and community work. It has, of course, been upsetting to have to cancel long planned events – including our Sing BIG! which was due to be attended by over 500 primary school children, our weekly Together in Sound sessions, and schools performances from the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.

Despite these disappointments, it has been inspiring to see how the arts sector has responded optimistically to the challenges of this new situation. Technology of course has played a key role, and online performances, collaborations and resources are becoming commonplace. At Saffron Hall we have been able to continue our work in partnership with Anglia Ruskin University to deliver Together in Sound sessions online to people living with dementia and their companions, and we are exploring ways to continue to work with schools and communities as this lockdown enters its second month.

As we all spend more time in our homes, the intrinsic value of the arts, and its impact on our health and wellbeing has become more important than ever. The idea of coping with lockdown and isolation without music, film and TV or books is hard to contemplate. For me though, living through this experience reinforces my core belief in the importance and value of creativity in our all our lives more widely. There is no template or roadmap through this crisis, and we are learning more every day. The ultimate solutions to the challenge we are facing may not yet exist, but they will only come into existence through human creativity and ingenuity. And on a personal level we are all having to be creative to find our way through these times, whether we are dealing with the challenges of home schooling, new working practices, or empty supermarket shelves.

In the arts sector we have long argued that one of the benefits of arts participation is that it develops skills which benefit us in all areas of life – collaboration, team working, resilience, and above all, creativity. Business and employers reinforce this with data regularly showing that these are the very skills they seek in their employees. Against this background though arts participation in schools is declining, along with time for extra-curricular activity and creative practice. There is no doubt that, after this crisis has passed, we will all be living in a different world. One hope I have is that it will be a world in which the value and impact of creative practice is not forgotten, and that we take the opportunity to reimagine the role the arts, and creativity can play both in schools and in communities more widely.