Creativity, health and arts advocacy

Abstract

Creativity is popularly related to innovation and new ideas. This invention‐cognition view of creativity is too narrow a concept for artistic creativity. Artistic creation is also about reproducing traditions and emotional (“affective”) processes. Widespread use of the popular invention‐cognition view of creativity in arts advocacy obscures wider dimensions of artistic creativity. This article focuses attention on the affective dimension of artistic creation. It surveys “arts therapy” literature and investigates how lessons of this literature can be used to improve the persuasiveness of arts advocacy arguments that appeal to the concept of creativity.

Keywords:

• creativity
• arts advocacy
• cultural policy
• art therapy

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful for the comments and advice of Merijn Rengers, Marian Liebmann, Diane Randall, Michael Wales and two anonymous referees. The usual caveats apply. The authors thank Creative New Zealand for supporting background work on this article. The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Creative New Zealand, or of the International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies.

Notes

There is a contradiction in calling for evidence‐based cultural advocacy while simultaneously bemoaning, as we do, the tarnishing of the cultural research agenda by the advocacy agenda. That such a tarnishing has occurred in arts policy has been noted elsewhere (Nielson 1999). How best to insulate the scientific research agenda from the political agenda cannot be investigated here.

The notion that advocacy is only suasion is an extreme position adopted for illustrative purposes. Lobbying and advocacy theory suggests that advocacy involves two main elements: suasion and information exchange. The relative importance of these two elements, and other subtleties in the advocacy game, cannot be fully discussed here. That being said, information exchange can be characterised loosely as suasion, as its aim is to bring the advocatee out from under the shadow of ignorance.

The term “invention” will be used here as it is theoretically more rigorous to the more popular “innovation”. In the standard Schumpeterian distinction, an “invention” is new, whereas an “innovation” is both new and useful. The distinction brings invaluable analytical insights. Initially, creativity should be defined as invention rather than innovation, as a crucial aspect of creativity is the eschewing of rules and preconceptions, including ex ante expectations over what might be considered useful. A more detailed discussion is in Madden and Bloom (2001).

As Schelling (1966) notes, “a nation has limited resources, so to speak, in the things it can get exceptionally concerned about”.

It must be noted that the art‐health nexus does feature in some advocacy materials (such as in Canadian Conference of the Arts 2002). The main contention here is that arts advocacy that appeals to creativity does not highlight the creativity‐health nexus. Even if the reader deems this an overly sensitive play on semantics, this article is still of relevance, as the evidence used by advocates such as the Canadian Conference of the Arts is conspicuously underwhelming in light of the art therapy evidence we present later in this article. This article is therefore still useful in providing material that can strengthen existing art‐health advocacy arguments.

A history of art therapy is in Hogan (2001).

Liebmann (1990, p. 16), comparing arts activity and arts therapy, suggests that: “As a general ‘rule of thumb’, arts activities have as their main aim an external product (mural, concert, play, etc.), whereas arts therapies look more explicitly at the personal processes involved.”

The term “shamanic” is from Gilroy and Skaife (1997, p. 58).

The term “mechanistic” is not used pejoratively.

Gilroy and Skaife (1997) suggest that the distinction is particularly North American.

This article will not discuss those direct physical benefits of arts therapy that result simply from the engaging of individuals in physical activity and movement. These physical benefits are well recognised and documented in occupational therapy as well as in leisure research (Driver et al. 1991; Canadian Parks/Recreation Association 1997). The benefits are not, however, unique to arts therapies; they can be acquired from any activity that promotes focused movement. Such benefits provide an advocacy case for physical therapy in general, but not arts therapy in particular. The issue of uniqueness is expanded on in the section on market failure and strategy.

Interestingly, the advocacy evidence commonly used in “leisure research” displays a similar preoccupation with unhealthy populations (see Driver et al. 1991; Canadian Parks/Recreation Association 1997).

Categories of benefit were pre‐determined. There were, unfortunately, no categories for invention‐cognition creativity specifically (such as “to generate new ideas/meanings” or “to challenge existing ideas and practices”).

All data taken from Ministry of Health (1999).

Although Autry (1999) contends that advocating the costs of art to the public might prove a successful strategy: “Bringing back censorship would help rekindle fading public interest, and the possibility of making art illegal is worth considering.[!]”

Governments should in theory account for public costs as well as public benefits in their allocation decisions. However, advocacy arguments are a primary means for governments to obtain relevant information without having to undertake their own costly research and analysis (Dewatripont & Tirole 1999). Governments are, therefore, unlikely to counter advocacy arguments by alluding to costs, unless a competing advocate supplies them with the ammunition.

Any health economics textbook inevitably discusses the issues, although treatments can vary considerably. Some examples are: Donaldson & Gerard (1993); Culyer (1991); Menzel (1983); Rapoport et al. (1982); Aaron (1981). This list is by no means definitive.

See, e.g., “Petnet”, the Australian pet lobby's homepage (www.petnet.com.au/ statistics.html), which employs as evidence Anderson and Heady (1995), Anderson (1995) and Anderson et al. (1992).