The 2024 Everyday Creativity Conference: Celebrating Practice, Exploring Legacies, and Forging New Paths Forwards

Hosted by The AHRC Everyday Creativity Research Network and Creative Lives

 

Thursday 26th September 2024

Cecil Sharp House, London

 

The 2024 Everyday Creativity Conference is an opportunity to share understandings and ways of working with/for everyday creativity (EC). Our confirmed speakers include Dr Mark Taylor (University of Sheffield and Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre) speaking on inequalities in arts, culture and heritage audiences, and nominees for the 2024 Creative Lives Awards.

The event connects different sectors, disciplines and contexts, forging new paths forwards to support EC theory and practice. The 2024 conference is 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. It is aimed at: academics and postgraduate researchers from the social sciences, arts, humanities and beyond; creative practitioners (including craftspeople, creative writers, musicians comedians, entrepreneurs and others); healthcare professionals; and members of community/third sector organisations.  We welcome proposals from all of these groups.

 

About Everyday Creativity

EC is characterised by quotidian actions that are often understood in terms of little and mini ‘c’ creativity; the former focusing on observable creative actions/products and the latter on more fleeting interpretive and transformative aspects of thought.  It incorporates a diverse range of immersive creative activities that millions of people engage in every day. Such activities are often removed from established hierarchies, economic models and notions of excellence, and enable participants to explore their creative potential, maintain their health and wellbeing, connect to others and to nature, learn and develop, and add meaning and purpose to their lives.

The conference explores these ideas under four themes:

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

 

Session Submissions

Sessions can take the form of performances, workshops, presentations, discussions, debates, network events, panel discussions, or other knowledge/skill exchange activities.  We are particularly keen to encourage innovative and creative forms of presentation, which break out of the ‘chalk-and-talk’ mode that typically dominates conferences, and to encourage submissions from groups who are under-represented at academic conferences.  Contributions can be 20 or 40 minutes long, with longer slots reserved for more innovative and interactive formats. We aim to produce an edited book on everyday creativity following the event, and would welcome submissions for this from all conference presenters.

 

Session proposals should cover the following information:

  • The session title
  • Which of the four conference themes you are responding to
  • Your name/s, affiliation/s (if relevant) and a contact email address
  • The format/style of your presentation
  • The preferred length of your session (20 or 40 minutes)

 

In addition, please include one of the following to convey the content of your session and how it is relevant to the conference themes/focus:

  • A brief abstract (maximum 300 words)
  • A video or audio file (maximum 2 minutes)
  • 1-3 images, plus captions/explanatory text of up to 100 words
  • A piece of creative prose or poetry (maximum 300 words)

 

Please submit your proposal by 17:00 on Wednesday 3rd July 2024, to: h.f.johnson@brighton.ac.uk

 

All submissions will be reviewed by the conference committee.  We aim to have decisions back to all applicants by Wednesday 24th July 2024. Please note that the conference fee of £50 is payable by all participants attending the conference, including those presenting.  This includes lunch, refreshments and entry to all conference events. We are particularly keen to encourage submissions from local creative groups and grassroots community organisations.  Bursaries are available for reduced fees, to support low income participants without support from a professional institution to present. To apply for this please email Helen Johnson at the address above detailing the reason you are applying for this.