Summary

Helen Johnson reports on the 2024 Everyday Creativity conference, hosted in associated with Creative Lives. All photos in this post are by Mark Forde.

Conference hosted by the AHRC Everyday Creativity Network and Creative Lives, at Cecil Sharp House, London, England on Thursday 26th September 2024

The 2024 Everyday Creativity Conference offered an opportunity to share understandings and ways of working with/for everyday creativity (EC). We were joined by eminent speakers in the field including: Executive Chair of the Arts and Humanities Research Council, Professor Christopher Smith; Chair of Arts Council England, Sir Nicholas Serota; journalist, author and Director of Sir John Soane’s Museum, Wil Gompertz; Professor Jerri Daboo of the University of Exeter; Dr Mark Taylor from the University of Sheffield and Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre; and nominees for the 2024 Creative Lives Awards.

The event sought to connect different sectors, disciplines and contexts, and to forge new paths forwards to support EC theory and practice. The conference was also a celebration of everyday creative practice, showcasing the achievements of groups and projects that provide creative activity for people of all ages and abilities across the UK and Ireland.  Speakers explored everyday creativity through our Network themes of:

  1. The role of EC in enriching creative research methods (Theme lead: Dr Helen Johnson, University of Brighton)
  2. EC, the home and placemaking. including pandemic responses (Theme lead: Prof Owen Evans, Edge Hill University)
  3. EC, health and wellbeing (Theme leads: Prof Louise Mansfield, Brunel University and Prof Norma Daykin, University of the West of England)
  4. Arts, science and technology interfaces in EC (Theme lead: Prof Sonia Contera, University of Oxford)

You can read Nick Ewbank’s blog post about the conference here, and download the full programme, including presenter biographies and session abstracts here.