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The New Spirit of Creativity
Work, Compromise, and the Art and Design University
Saara Liinamaa (Author)
9781487502805
Hardback, published 14 July 2022
256 pages, 11 b&w figures, 1 b&w table
23.1 x 15.7 x 2.5 cm, 0.5 kg
The New Spirit of Creativity examines creativity as an embedded institutional value and priority within public art institutions and higher education. The book unpacks the everyday work, organization, and administration of artistic creativity and its clashes with a "new spirit" of creativity that has widely taken hold. Based on fieldwork conducted at three art and design universities in Canada, Saara Liinamaa tackles the fraught landscape of contemporary higher education, the uncertainties of cultural work, and ongoing concerns around austerity in Canada. This book traces how creativity is not simply practiced within the art school, but also inequitably recognized and rewarded. Liinamaa identifies the many compromises required between artistic creativity and the new spirit, while demonstrating how not all compromises are created equally; compromise can support or erode creative diversity. Drawing on a range of original sources – including interviews, participant observation, policy and planning, and media – this work makes a compelling case as to why art and design schools are worthy of sustained attention. By connecting shared interests across sociology, education, cultural studies, art history, and cultural theory, The New Spirit of Creativity makes a novel and agenda-setting contribution to our understanding of artistic creativity, compromise, and cultural work.
Introduction: The New Spirit of Creativity Section I: Creativity, Critique, and the Art School 1. Our New Spirit and the Dilemmas of Artistic Critique 2. What Could Be More Creative Than an Art School?: Canada’s Art and Design Universities Section II: Everyday Work at Imagination University 3. Welcome to the Department of Non-Applied Creativity: Strategic Planning and Talk of Research 4. Creative Excellence, Ambiguity, and Audit Culture 5. Performing at the "Shit Show": The Conscripted Performers of Institutional Identity 6. Navigating the Permanent-temporary Divide: Insecurity, Flexibility, and Nostalgia 7. Rocks and Bubbles: Metaphors of Institutional Duress Conclusion Notes
Positioning the New Spirit of Creativity
Fond Memories of Rebellion
Art and Design Higher Education in Canada
The Art School, the Art College, the Art University
New Challenges, Familiar Stories
Meet the Faculty
The Dilemmas of Research at the Art and Design University
Talk of Research
The Rise of Niche Bureaucracy
Designating and Measuring Creative Value
Judging Others and the Boundaries of Creative Practices
The Openness and Uncertainty of Interpretation
The Cultural and Economic Performativity of Work
Creative Identities at Work
The Institution and the Abject
The Cost of Remedy
Academic Work and Labour in Transition
Redeeming Insecurity: Distancing Strategies and Associations
Exiting the Institution
Describing Institutional Landscapes in Times of Uncertainty
Between a Rock and a Hard Place
The Fragility of Creative Past and Future
Same Difference
The Terms of Compromise
Methodological Appendix
Bibliography
Index