Abstract
This is a timely collection from a wide-ranging group of disciplinary perspectives that questions assumptions about the location of creativity and vibrant cultural lives, and more specifically the set of tropes that have attached themselves to the creative industries and what is required to ensure they flourish. Richard Florida's (2002) proposal that creativity is readily fostered in urban locations because of the presence of particular assemblages of economic, cultural and infrastructural conditions, has had an impact on not only the analysis of creativity in metropolitan areas but also how policy and planning more broadly has readily perpetuated these ideas. Yet the rapid uptake and translation of the creative cities thesis into ‘fast policy’ (Peck, 2002) ignores the ways in which creativity emerges out of the specificities of a range of places, including the diversity of urban cultural life itself. Nonetheless, as the editors, Eduardo de la Fuente and Ariella Van Luyn point out in the ‘Introduction’, this somewhat generic approach to creative economy research has, especially in the Australian context, initiated different and exciting research trajectories; the first, focused on small cities, and a second that considers the cultural economies of regional and remote places.
Along with a nuanced critique of the creative industries and its impacts, de la Fuente and Van Luyn provide an historical and thematic analysis as to why the regions in Australia are significant to the nation's creativity (in the Introduction). This discussion includes an overview of the key scholars and research centres that have contributed to understanding what drives innovation in places beyond major metropolitan areas, and a framework that gives coherence to the variety of topics that draws on a range of theoretical and methodological approaches. The book's structure makes clear that to appreciate the significance of relationships between cultures, economies and creativity in regional locations what is needed is insight into the differing temporal and spatial relations that constitute a place or a community. Each contribution to this collection traces through differing ways these relationships between place and creativity are activated.
The first section, ‘Landscapes, tastescapes and sensescapes: Creativity responding to place’, focuses on the translation of place through the senses. Artistic practices arouse and shape our relationships with and to place, such as in the translation of certain places into ‘landscape’, whether that be filmic representations of place or locations constructed as immersive experiences that, in returning us to ‘nature’, are constructed through a moral underpinning of what is ‘good’ (chapter 3). In similar ways, agriculture and viniculture are redesigned by drawing on heritage and notions of custodianship (chapter 1), such as in the (re)development of the so-called native food industry, which seeks to change how indigenous flora and fauna are valued (chapter 2). Yet, as Adele Wessel points out, we must be mindful that relations with Indigenous people continue within the legacies of colonialism (p. 60). In each of these examples, the authors remind us that there is an economic incentive to these regionally based practices that taps directly into the making and remaking of regional imaginaries.
The chapters that contribute to the ‘Placing knowledge and innovation economies’ section question the promises made by the creative industries framework because of the impact of geography mattering less when a global knowledge economy and digitalisation are privileged. Indeed, as Tara Brabzon argues in chapter 6, assumptions that what works in major cities can work elsewhere is ‘damaging and seductive’ (p. 123). Drawing on Australian and international examples to demonstrate that place matters, these chapters demonstrate the important role regional universities (chapters 6 and 8) and research hubs (chapter 9) play in regional economic development. These chapters will be of particular interest to networks that collaborate across regional government, industry and the tertiary sectors, and seek to build regional economies and capacity through frameworks of creativity and innovation. Even so, as Donna Hancox, Terry Flew, Sasha Mackay and Yi Wang remind us (chapter 8), what also needs careful consideration is how such initiatives are evaluated, because positioning arts and creativity within regional policy has historically been problematic (p. 170).
The final section, ‘Regional creative industries and their potentials’, turns to those engaged in the arts and creative industries, and explores what it means to work in an industry of risk and precarity for both practitioners and communities. Underlying these chapters is the reminder that regional places, even if geographically distant, are embedded within networks beyond their formal borders. This requires attending to how these networks are constituted, as assumptions about defining and measuring network components may not adequately capture how creativity emerges and is then nurtured. Nonetheless, as Emma Coffield's exploration of art practices in Durham demonstrates (chapter 11), place emerges through creativity that is brought ‘into being as part of the seemingly mundane and everyday life-worlds of creative practitioners’ (p. 227). Yet, while individual places may be celebrated in events like festivals, public art and music performances (chapters 12 and 13), the regional context requires artists to think regionally in order to remain working within the creative industries; for example, to consider the logistics of touring between regional towns (chapter 13), to consider the expectations of audiences (chapter 10), and the need to seek financial support through a ‘day job’ (chapter 14). Otherwise, as Andy Bennett, David Cashman and Natalie Lewandowski argue, the lack of financial and social support will result in a ‘strong pull to the cities’ (p. 267).
Australia's regional places and communities face numerous challenges – population shifts, limited employment opportunities, a decrease in the agricultural, mining and resource sectors, increased exposure to global competitive forces – that have been exacerbated by recent major disasters, including the 2019–20 Black Summer bushfires and the Covid-19 pandemic. Creativity and innovation are promoted as the panacea for such challenges, but behind this push what this means and how this is translated into action is often vague. The strength of this book is in its bringing together of diverse responses to the question of what constitutes regional creativity and, more specifically, that place matters. As the authors propose, what is needed to ensure economic, social and cultural viability in regional places is that we ‘bear witness to the special qualities of place’ (p. 7).
This book is of relevance to postgraduate students as well as to academics developing an undergraduate curriculum, particularly in geography, tourism, regional and development studies, as the authors provide detailed case studies grounded in clearly stated conceptual and methodological frameworks. This also means this collection is of relevance to those developing regional strategies and policy. Thus, while we might generalise about those places and communities outside of Australia's major cities as culturally impoverished, Regional cultures, economies and creativity offers researchers and community stakeholders considered insights into the contribution regional cultures and creativity make in developing and strengthening not only regional but also national futures.
