Creative and cultural work without filters: Covid-19 and exposed precarity in the creative economy

ABSTRACT

The precarious nature of creative and cultural work is widely acknowledged in academic literature. However, it has often been invisible in the eyes of policy and policymaking. As soon as the spread of Covid-19 started impacting local and national economies across the globe, many industry and policy bodies rushed into researching the impact of Covid-19 on the creative and cultural industries (CCIs) and the workers in the sector. The paper offers an insight into the key concerns of these organizations through the meta-analysis of the survey and research projects that are currently being undertaken in the context of the UK. The results highlight common concerns in relation to visible and invisible issues that need addressing in the sector. The paper concludes by questioning if Covid-19 represents a moment of crisis for the sector or has simply exposed the unsustainable price of creative and cultural work.

KEYWORDS:

• Creative and cultural work
• Covid-19
• resilience
• creative careers
• creative and cultural industries
• precarity

Acknowledgements

Dr Roberta Comunian would like to thank the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (No. 822314) “Developing inclusive and sustainable creative economies” (DISCE) www.disce.eu. In particular, she would like to thank the DISCE King’s College London research team for their valuable inputs on issues of inclusivity and sustainability in creative and cultural work.

Notes on contributors

Dr. Roberta Comunian is Reader in Creative Economy at the Department for Culture, Media and Creative Industries at King’s College London. She is interested in the relationship between public and private investments in the arts and cultural regeneration projects, cultural and creative work and creative social economies. She has previously researched the role of higher education in the creative economy and has explored in various papers the career opportunities of creative graduates in UK. She has published extensively on the creative and cultural industries in local development and the role of networks and complexity in this area of research. She has recently coordinated an AHRC funded research network on Creative Economies in Africa and is currently involved in the H2020 funded research project DISCE: Developing inclusive and sustainable creative economies.

Dr. Lauren England is a Lecturer in the Department of Culture, Media & Creative Industries at King’s College London. Her PhD, conducted in partnership with Crafts Council UK, investigated higher education and sustainable business development in the UK’s contemporary craft sector. Lauren has published research on the evolution of craft knowledge and skills in post-industrial regions, creative social enterprises, and reports on craft entrepreneurship and higher education policy via the Crafts Council. She is currently researching emerging creative economies and fashion design in Africa, and circular economy opportunities for UK designer-makers.

Notes

1 It is hard to provide a univocal definition of creative and cultural work as so many different and parallel definitions are in place at multiple times. For the purpose of this article we use creative and cultural work and/or creative and cultural workforce (CCW) to identify the workers engaging either in creative occupations (as defined by DCMS, 2016). This includes creative occupations within the creative and cultural industries (a dancer in a dance company) as well as creative occupations in other industries (a designer in a car manufacturing company) or working in in the creative and cultural industries covering other non-creative functions (an accountant working in a film production company). This definition corresponds to the one used by UK policy mapping, defined there as creative economy (DCMS, 2016). It also allows us to include a range of literatures in our reviews as other definitions, including creative labour, cultural work, creative and cultural industries (CCIs), refer to sub-sections of these occupations, which are included in the broader CCW category used here.

2 On March 16th people were officially advised to avoid all non-essential contact with others. On March 20th all bars, pubs, cafes, theatres and social venues were closed. Full lockdown was introduced across the UK from 23^rd March 2020. The first UK government emergency support package (£12bn) was announced 11^th March, followed on March 17^th by government-backed loans and tax cuts and grants for companies under threat of collapse. On March 20^th the government announced the Job Retention Scheme (aka. furlough scheme) and the self-employment package (SEISS) was announced on March 26th. The last scheme to be announced was ‘Bounce Back’ loans for SMEs on May 4th. Additional national support has been announced by the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish governments.

3 This survey closed 16th March, prior to the closure of theatres and announcement of the Job Retention Scheme (20th March).

4 Some variation in support requested could be seen between those surveys focused on individuals or organisations (see table 1)

5 Covid-19 specific support includes a Job Retention Scheme, a Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS), Protection from Eviction for Commercial Tenants, a Business Interruption Loan Scheme, Cash Grants for Retail, Hospitality and Leisure, Small Business Grant Funding; Statutory Sick Pay Rebates; Time to Pay; VAT Deferral and Deferral of Self-Assessment Payments, and Corporate Financing https://www.creativeindustriesfederation.com/news/covid-19-support-government.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by H2020: [grant number 822314].