Latest thinking

Creativity: the stuff of freedom

Blog

08 Jan 2014

Adam Lent, head of the Action & Research Centre here at the RSA, recently wrote about the crucial role of creativity for the 21st century. Of his four arguments, I want to elaborate on the first—on creativity as the realisation of freedom. Paraphrasing John Stuart Mill, Adam wrote that “taking the great historical gift of freedom in order to remain passive, ineffectual and conventional” is “horribly wasteful.”

The Big Idea: turning the spaces above us into art

Blog

02 Dec 2013

Catherine Shovlin FRSA has launched a crowdfunding campaign to develop a creative arts space working with the local community.

"Cracking good job, Gromit!"

Blog

11 Nov 2013

Kate Monkhouse

Bristol, and indeed the west region, was taken over by Gromit fever over the summer.  Eighty different 5ft high giant Gromits  were painted and situated all over the city, creating an art trail and the opportunity for people to explore Bristol whilst searching for the Gromits.

What might work? Making the case for a Cultural Endowment Foundation

Blog

05 Nov 2013

Joe Hallgarten

Today the RSA and Arts Council England will launch Towards Plan A: A New Political Economy for Arts and Culture. This series of four papers which examine how the arts sector might play a full role in the UK’s economic and social renewal.  In the papers:

What’s the secret to learner engagement?

Blog

04 Oct 2013

Georgina Chatfield

At the RSA Family of Academies we are working with four schools in the West Midlands who are about to embark on an arts audit. By reviewing what activities are already taking place across their schools they will be able to examine the ways that the arts and arts experiences could be woven through the curriculum and the school day.

The RSA Whole Person Recovery, Co-Design Learning Journeys, June / July 2013 – Some reflections…

Blog

09 Sep 2013

As Lead Recovery Community Organiser within the WPR programme, one of my responsibilities is to ensure there is a quick and responsive capacity on the part of my team, to meet the emergent requirements of the community of c.600 service users within the west Kent region that we work in.  Earlier this summer in June, I had a seemingly random conversation with one of my colleagues from our principle partner organisation CRI - www.cri.org.uk about the prospect of somehow transforming the rather standard and corporate ‘social care facility’ non-aesthetic (that is a space designed and decorated, without any real design-sensibility informing the look, feel and function of the space) at the Tonbridge hub.

An interview with Hilary Durman FRSA: Triple BAFTA winning producer

Blog

31 Jul 2013

Earlier this year I went to the Fastnet Short Film Festival in Schull, West Cork.  Of its many charms, my favourite is that it is (as far as I know) the only film festival held in a town without a cinema.  So for four days this salty, sleepy sailing town is transformed with screens rigged up in venues from old mills and back rooms of cafes and pubs to upstairs at a book shop and (my favourite) someone's living room, showing short films from across the world.  Even the rare Irish sun made an appearance.

A few notes on Fellowship 2010-13 - and thanks

Blog

31 Jul 2013

As I am closing out my tenure with the RSA as a member of staff (and rejoining the Fellowship in full, so to speak) I thought I'd take a brief moment to take stock of what’s been achieved over the last three years.

An interview with Rosemary Squire FRSA: Britain's16th most powerful woman

Blog

21 Mar 2013

We love a celebratory list in the UK.  From the Sunday Times Rich List and the Courvoisier 500 to Nesta's New Radicals, every year brings a new hierarchy of brilliant, bright or affluent people for us to admire, envy or challenge.