Creativity in 'Peripheral' Places: Special issue of Australian Geographer edited by Chris Gibson

CREATIVITY IN ‘PERIPHERAL’ PLACES: REDEFINING THE CREATIVE INDUSTRIES

Special issue of Australian Geographer, v41, n1

Edited by Chris Gibson, University of Wollongong

Much has been written about the geography of creative industries (such as film, music, design and fashion), focusing on agglomerations or clusters of activity in districts of major western cities and emerging coverage recently of suburban, rural and small city settings. Creativity is said to be the salient feature of contemporary post-industrial capitalism, fueling innovation and investment and therefore responsible for urban economic fortunes, as well as being a somewhat intangible quality in places said to generate lifestyle-led in-migration. In the bulk of the literature on creativity, cities and creative industries, a special priority is placed on local cultural activity and face-to-face interactions. As Leadbeater and Oakley (1999: 14) argued,

"Cultural industries are people intensive rather than capital intensive… Cultural entrepreneurs within a city or region tend to be densely interconnected. Cultural entrepreneurs, who often work within networks of collaborators within cities, are a good example of the economics of proximity. They thrive on easy access to local, tacit know-how – a style, a look, a sound – which is not accessible globally."

With this focus on proximity in urban milieu, what challenges does remoteness generate for creative producers – the fact of being a long way from ‘happening’ places and scenes (in Melbourne, New York, or Milan) - of being in places with 'image problems', assumed to 'lack' creativity? This special issue answers this question through discussion of creativity (in diverse forms) in places that are physically and/or metaphorically remote, are small in population terms, or which because of socio-economic status or inherited industrial legacies are assumed by others to be ‘hick’, unsophisticated, or marginal in an imaginary geography of creativity.

In a parallel to the position of Australia in wider global markets, remote places run the risk of perennial peripherality and of losing talented up-and-comers in the creative industries to larger centres – as do small places, cities with working-class legacies of heavy industry, and country towns normally associated with broadacre farming. And yet, Leadbeater and Oakley’s argument is that with local know-how and skill, places can negotiate their marginal position in relation to global cultural and economic flows, and ‘sell into much larger markets but rely upon a distinctive and defensible local base.’ Perhaps remoteness can be woven into claims about distinctiveness and quirkiness (said to be a product of isolation) as cultural products are marketed globally. But is this universally the case? Is the means to negotiate marginality so simple?

Through case studies as diverse as Aboriginal hip-hop in the Torres Strait, the Wangaratta Jazz Festival, landscape art in Broken Hill, dance companies in Darwin and postcard design in remote Ravensthorpe, WA, the special issue addresses questions that include:

How do people living and working in remote/rural/industrial places manage and contest their geographical position or perceived marginality on a daily basis?

* Is remoteness a physical geographical – or imaginary – condition?
o In what ways to new telecommunications technologies and cheap flights counteract difficulties of being remote from key creative centres?
o Or is remoteness more an internal function of creative industries – not so much physical distance but a problem of failure to access key gatekeepers in specific sectors?
* Is the flip-side of remoteness a local cultural distinctiveness – a proximity rather than isolation, when viewed from ‘inside’ such places?
* What kinds of creativity exist within industrial and rural places assumed by others to be ‘uncreative’ because of histories of farming or manufacturing? How do rural and working-class creative practices emerge, and what challenges do they face connecting to wider markets?
* Is distance disavowed? Are alternative opportunities sought?
* How are the constraints of isolation tested, and its pleasures realised?

The special issue is edited by the CAMRA project's Chris Gibson, and includes articles by fellow CAMRA researchers Lisa Andersen (UTS) and Andrew Warren (UOW), and other contributors including Susan Luckman (UniSA), Chris Brennan-Horley (UOW), John Connell (Sydney Univ), Barbara Rugendyke (UNE), Dawn Bennett (Curtin), Emma Felton and Christy Collis (QUT), and Robyn Mayes (Curtin).

The issue is available online at http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~db=all~content=g919360351