Creating cities by reinventing them – ‘Creating Cities’ reviewed

‘At first glance Marcus Westbury’s ‘Creating Cities’ book looks small, but it’s far bigger than it looks. The book is about re-energising cities by reinventing them but it’s starting point is a deep appreciation of the particular regional city of Newcastle. The revival of Newcastle is a reflection of the more general trend towards the revival of regional centres in Australia. Cities are crucial to the innovation and creativity that interaction and partnerships based on physical proximity can produce – whether major capital cities or regional cities. The efforts at revival all reflected the critical importance of cities. Each in its own way draws upon creativity and innovation and the cultural diversity which underpins it to create places which are pleasant and interesting to live in and to drive economic prosperity’.

At first glance Marcus Westbury’s ‘Creating Cities’ book looks small, but it’s far bigger than it looks. Perhaps it’s like Doctor Who’s cosmic transportation, the TARDIS – coming from a universe of it’s own, in this case the world of Newcastle, and larger inside than outside. There’s a great deal packed into it’s tiny frame – and the compressed ideas it will generate are even bigger in reach and relevance.

It’s hard to imagine a more timely moment for a book such as this to appear. A new Prime Minister has underlined the importance of cities for Australia’s well-being and prosperity and there is a renewed focus on innovation. What this means in practice and whether it will last will be fascinating to watch.

Cargo ship leaving Newcastle Harbour, 2005

There have been moments in the past where government has been interested in cities. During the production of the still recent National Cultural Policy, the Department of Infrastructure, under various names, had a focus on cities, and there have been other attempts to address the importance of this issue. Perhaps we will see a resurgence of Australian Government interest.

The book is about re-energising cities by reinventing them but it’s starting point is a deep appreciation of the particular regional city of Newcastle. In a strange way understanding the particular story of Newcastle helps us better grasp the huge general lessons about cities nation-wide – and indeed world-wide.

The clever business of creativity: the experience of supporting Australia's industries of the future

‘The swan song of the Creative Industries Innovation Centre, ‘Creative Business in Australia’, outlines the experience of five years supporting Australia’s creative industries. Case studies and wide-ranging analysis explain the critical importance of these industries to Australia’s future. The knowledge economy of the future, with its core of creative industries and its links to our cultural landscape is both clever and clean. Where the creative industries differ completely from other knowledge economy sectors is that, because they are based on content, they draw on, intersect with and contribute to Australia’s national and local culture'.

Art critic and cultural writer, John Berger, in one of his less well-known articles, tells a story about the French-Russian sculptor Zadkine. At the very beginning of his career Zadkine was trying to establish himself as an artist in England but was not known and spoke little English. An old craftsman to whom he was briefly apprenticed to learn wood carving suggested he carve a wooden rose – but such a beautiful rose that whenever he showed it to prospective but sceptical employers they would always understand what he was capable of and give him the job. Zadkine took the advice and it laid the basis for his later success as an artist.

I thought of this old story about an old artist when I was reading the newly released publication Creative Business in Australia, the swansong of the recently departed and much missed Creative Industries Innovation Centre. In the same way as Zadkine’s rose, the example of the Centre is something that can be held in your hand and pointed at to show what is possible. It demonstrates some important ways that we can support our newly emerging creative industries – if only we have the imagination and foresight to understand their potential and their unique and distinctive place in the broader knowledge economy. Those associated with the Centre in its all-too-brief but productive life can point to the publication and say ‘This is what we did in such a short time. This is what is possible.’ It is proof of concept writ smaller than it needed to be.

'Creative Business in Australia' - getting serious, but not serious enough about one of the values of creativity

I use the old-fashioned example of an artist deliberately because while the creative industries are first and foremost about running businesses, they are businesses of a very particular kind.

Increasingly the new industries in the knowledge economy of the future, with its core of creative industries and its links to our cultural landscape are both clever and clean. They are mainly service industries that make up the knowledge economy, based on intellectual enquiry and research and exhibiting both innovative services or products and also often new and innovative ways of doing business (though to what degree is a matter this publication considers closely).

Notes from a steadily shrinking universe

‘Following the Big Bang the universe may have been steadily expanding but in the world of Australian Government arts and culture the universe has definitely been heading the other way. In the end does government of any shade really think at heart that Australian arts and culture is important? Why should it when it’s a vexed question for our society as a whole and we are ambivalent about its worth? Yet this part of the Australian Government’s public service is incredibly important. To have a real impact though, it needs to be refocused and reinvigorated to operate once again across the broader government landscape’

Following the Big Bang the universe may have been steadily expanding but in the world of Australian Government arts and culture the universe has definitely been heading the other way.

In fact over the last five years the unit with overall responsibility for the Australian Government’s arts and culture support, small by public service standards, has been shrinking faster than light vanishes into a black hole. It started with drastic reductions in the process of moving from the Department of the Environment to the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet from late 2010 onwards and seems to have just kept on, like a bad habit, through the Department of Regional and then Attorney-General’s.

The arts and culture unit circles the public service universe moving from department to department after each election or change in government. It’s like a comet wandering off into the cold distant reaches of space and then reappearing in the same location centuries later, once again unsettling the local inhabitants. When they run out of departments to host Arts the comet reappears. Now it has reappeared above the Department of Communications, which it was with for so long and which it left after the election of the Rudd Government in 2007.

The Commonwealth's arts and culture division - even as its numbers continued to shrink, its title kept on growing

Only a minor increase due to the transfer of a few positions from the Australia Council to the Ministry as part of the establishment of the new National Program(me) for Excellence in the Arts seems to have slowed the downwards trend. Hopefully the process will now have stabilised and we won’t see yet more reductions as part of the move back to Communications.

Oddly the initial contraction happened just as the unit was starting the long haul to finally produce the much awaited National Cultural Policy, back on track after a few false starts.

In the process, the unit has gone through various names, including the Office for the Arts and now, the Ministry for the Arts. Ironically, even as its numbers continued to shrink, its title kept on growing.