‘The importance of hearing diverse voices and understanding different perspectives’

Creative England‘s first Be More Bristol event at the Arnolfini on Thursday is a celebration of the city’s fiercely independent spirit and a showcase of the world-class creativity and talent which resides within it.

This beautiful, vibrant city has an incredibly rich and widely renown creative sector, and rightly so. In Bristol and Bath alone there are 5,570 creative businesses, creating jobs for nearly 22,000 people. According to Rough Guides, it’s also the UK’s coolest city to live in.

But at the same time, Bristol is one of the worst places to grow up if you are young and poor.

According to the Social Mobility Commission’s State of the Nation report, it ranks amongst the country’s bottom 10 per cent for youth social mobility.

It’s therefore incumbent on the leaders of our creative industries to make connections for those young people, so they can access the amazing opportunities being created on their doorstep by our vibrant creative sector.

Many in Bristol recognise this. It’s an issue central to the work of our mayor, Marvin Reeves, as well as the city’s most established creative businesses such as the BBC, Plimsoll, Aardman and many more.

Carolyn Hassan and her team at Knowle West Media Centre really understand the importance of creating connections for young people.

Their Jump Studios after-school programme explores filmmaking, technology, gaming, illustration and animation, alongside work experience for 10- to 25-year-olds and programmes such as Maker City – building skills for Bristol’s youth in digital making and inventing.

So while events like Be More Bristol are important and valuable, what really counts is making things happen and making a difference in our city.

It’s about execution, not rhetoric. Because tackling that inequality of opportunity drives me and every single person that works at Creative England.

We were founded on the belief that talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not. We work hard to connect people to the opportunities that will help nurture their talent and build their careers.

Take Shortflix, our joint programme with the National Youth Theatre and Sky Arts, aimed at young people not in full time education, employment or training. Earlier this year, five inspiring short films were broadcast on Sky Arts, giving an invaluable platform to talent that would otherwise have gone unheard.

As Riz Ahmed, our ShortFlix ambassador said recently: “I don’t like to talk about diversity. It sounds like something on the side. For me, it’s about representation, and representation is absolutely fundamental in terms of what we expect from our culture, and from our politics. We all want to feel represented, we want to feel seen and heard and valued.”

What matters immensely to us at Creative England is busting the myth that great talent will naturally out, or that great businesses can spring to global success out of nowhere. Almost all great businesses need help. One way Creative England helps businesses access the resources they need is through our Creative Enterprise programme, which is open now for applications.

Running throughout the autumn and into 2019, Creative Enterprise provides a series of networking events and workshops for small and medium businesses providing mentoring, advice, insight and training for creative content businesses.

We run events like Be More Bristol because making the right connections is crucial to the growth of our sector. And by growing and connecting our creative sector we can ultimately create more opportunities for a rich diversity of voices to be represented in the creative content we produce.

Hearing these diverse voices, and understanding the different perspectives and experiences that exist in this city, is fundamental. It feeds empathy, compassion, understanding, inclusivity, the very things we as a country need so much right now.

Caroline Norbury

Caroline Norbury is the chief executive of Creative England