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Cubitt is an artist run cooperative based in Islington, London. Founded by a group of artists in 1991, Cubitt consists of a non-profit gallery, education programme and 32 artist studios.

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Cubitt is an artist run cooperative based in Islington, London. Founded by a group of artists in 1991, Cubitt consists of a non-profit gallery, education programme and 32 artist studios.

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The third film we'll be screening tomorrow night is Ghosts by Ella Frost Ghosts is a short naturalism film depicting the filmmaker's existence in winter lockdown in London. With words from Monique Todd, the film lightly explores boredom, isolation and nature. The film was shot and edited on an iPhone SE. Ella Frost's work is informed by the urge to tell the truth and warp the truth simultaneously. Landscapes, intimate moments with friends and family members, their body and the co...

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The third film we'll be screening tomorrow night is Ghosts by Ella Frost Ghosts is a short naturalism film depicting the filmmaker's existence in winter lockdown in London. With words from Monique Todd, the film lightly explores boredom, isolation and nature. The film was shot and edited on an iPhone SE.

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RARA's rapidly developing making facilities include a full wood workshop, ceramics studio and soon a more fab lab style maker space

With 24/7 access to all our facilities RARA's co-working space is a great place to work (its not just architects)

In what has to be the greatest secret santa ever, this Christmas RARA was gifted a 100w laser cutter! As we're currently refurbishing some of our spaces downstairs its not yet up and running for people to use but will be very soon alongside some new 3d printers in a new fab lab/maker space next to our main workshop.

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RARA's rapidly developing making facilities include a full wood workshop, ceramics studio and soon a more fab lab style maker space With 24/7 access to all our facilities RARA's co-working space is a great place to work (its not just architects) In what has to be the greatest secret santa ever, this Christmas RARA was gifted a 100w laser cutter!

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The mission of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation is to inspire action and change to solve UK poverty. At the moment, they do a mix of traditional think tank work, supporting cultural and third sector initiatives, co-designing policies with people with lived experience of poverty, online campaigning, supporting grassroots organisations, and working in coalition with other charities and foundations.

We collaborated with them to explore what roles they might play within this movement ecosystem. Our goal was to find new ways to surface their work online, through a research and rapid prototyping. These prototypes explored how to directly link research and policy recommendations to campaigning and building power in communities affected by poverty.

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The mission of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation is to inspire action and change to solve UK poverty. At the moment, they do a mix of traditional think tank work, supporting cultural and third sector initiatives, co-designing policies with people with lived experience of poverty, online campaigning, supporting grassroots organisations, and working in coalition with other charities and foundations.

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Overall and throughout this R&D week I feel I have learnt to develop my knowledge of the creative industry, which I can start to think about within my work at Uni and use after I graduate. From Creative Conscience's inspiring ethos, LS:N's forward thinking and Chris Lacy's alternative work structures, I can see how to not only improve my work as a creative but how to improve my collaborative skills and how to work within the creative industry.

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Chris is a graphic designer, lecturer and student. He talked about the structure of the work place and why we adopt these particular structures. He described the typical structure of a studio as shown in this hierarchical triangle, with Interns usually at the bottom of the pile. He states that the reason behind this is money, with the people at the top earning the most. After graduation, unpaid internships are illegal yet 86% of arts internships are unpaid. This creates an unfair dynamic within the arts sector, where people from a more wealthy background are more able to take on these unpaid internships and get a foot in to the industry whilst many others are forced to work in retail or untrained jobs alongside their creative career. The sector is particularly good at masking this unjust hierarchy as it tends to be all about aesthetics and performance. They use language like collaborative (one big family), progressive/liberal, designer-led and diverse to sugar coat the reality.

Another work structure is self employed/freelance. Around 1 in 4 creative sector workers are self-employed, they often work from home or in public spaces like café's or hot desks. This is different to a typical office as the workers are isolated and fragmented. Work life and home life becomes less balanced, everyones space they are able to work in is different depending on your circumstances, the amount of work varies and is unpredictable, you lack protection like pensions and sick pay, and your overall income is never guaranteed or set at a particular amount. However self employment allows more freedom, flexibility, more free time and more control over your wage.

Both of these work structures can also be combined, often with it serving a political function relating to profit.

An alternative to these structures is Co-ops. There are over 7,000 co-ops in the UK and they contribute almost £40billion to the UK economy. Co-ops create more of a democratic and equal environment, which in turn makes it more truly collaborative. This removes the hierarchy, creates more resilient working structures, equal pay, control over work, member support and incentive to train and maintain staff. The members of a Co-op can decide where the profit goes and what that profit is for. There is a set of principles that Co-operative practices follow, shown in this screenshot here.

Since the majority of enterprises in the cultural sector are micro businesses, meaning that they employ fewer than ten people, creating a Co-operative working environment is possible. A Co-op can be a design studio, and workshop, a library, a gallery. Not just a studio.

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Sarah is an architect, film maker, actor & theatre maker, and activist in and around architecture. She founded the XXAOC project which stands for female Architects of Colour, which she has based her work around. She originally trained to be an architect and began work in conventional commercial practice, she found that she spent a lot of time drawing up plans rather than creating which she said felt distant to what she felt interested in. She felt quite isolated as it was late and long unsociable hours, and she was the only black female architect in the office. Following this she went back to her interests that pre-dated her career as an architect where she went back to photography and theatre set design. From this she fell into film making particularly around theatre, where she makes political and social commentaries. This route of activism then led her to more recently create the XXAOC as previously mentioned, where she uses film as a tool of research and activism in architecture to comment on wider issues.

The result of all of this is that her practice is very non-linear and creates a network, she says don't start a studio start a network of people and join a community that align with what you want to do and achieve.

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The 'Don't Start A Studio, Start A ___' presentation contained three talks by three different creatives Sarah Akibogun, Olya Troitskaya and Chris Lacy. They all talked through their careers and how that linked back to the session title, Don't Start A Studio. Each three had unconventional paths to success and where they are today. I will summarise the two presentations I found most engaging and what I took from each one.

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After hearing these presentations, it helped me realise that it is important to create an enjoyable and fair work environment since you spend 30% of your life working. You don't always have to follow a typical linear career path as shown by Sarah Akibogun, and this can be combined with a different and progressive work environment. Chris Lacy's presentation was especially eye opening as it exposed me to some of the unjust circumstances within the creative industries, and I will definitely keep this in mind when finding post graduate jobs after Uni as I am not in the position to be able to do unpaid internships or work freelance.

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After hearing Chrissy's talk and researching Creative Conscience myself it has made me think how I can inspire change with my projects and incorporate that into briefs that are given to me.

My current course project involves redesigning an existing platform for people with reading and literacy issues such as autism or blindness, and I would like my final outcome to fit within Creative Conscience's ethos and purpose as I believe this could create positive change.

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Throughout Chrissy Levett's presentation she showed us a range of work submitted to Creative Conscience, the majority of which aimed to create social or environmental impact.

One of these that particularly stood out to me was a project against 'online radicalisers' created by Animal Welfare, which focussed on the radicalisation of people online. They found that 70% of registered extremist were radicalised through social media, and they wanted to stop this.

The idea was to create a way to shut down extremist Instagram accounts that contribute to this radicalisation, since Instagram was not deleting these accounts themselves.

They found that Instagram's algorithm is designed to ban accounts with fake followers, so they created the website 'Follow Their Leader.' where you can buy fake followers for these accounts and therefore shut them down. They gather a list of prevalent accounts to choose from and the user can then decide the amount of fake followers to buy them, the account receives the fake followers and is then eventually banned from Instagram due to the algorithm.

I found this to be quite clever as the creators used a tool that was already there and changed its purpose for the greater good, creating a safer online space for everyone. Although it may seem like a small thing, an idea like this could possibly prevent politically and racially motivated attacks in the real world or even influence elections and public opinion.

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"Creative thinking and innovation can create positive change."

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"Creative thinking and innovation can create positive change."

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During Alena Joyette's presentation she gave us a tour of LS:N's website, giving us access to some of the articles and trend forecasting that their clients and members have access to.

After looking through this with her and scrolling through the website myself, I have realised the importance of staying in the know about trends from the perspective of both a designer and a business. I think it's important to follow both micro (short term) and macro (long term) trends as this can contribute to a business' long and short term success, I also think it is important not to blindly follow these trends but to strategically follow the ones that are appropriate for your business or brief that's given.

I will take this into consideration especially after University, as I'd like my work to always be culturally relevant and up to date. To do this I would definitely consider using or becoming a member of the Future Laboratory and LS:N Global.

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In terms of strategy they provide foresight reports to clients so they can stay ahead of the 'curve'.

Strategic Services are also provided to help clients align their current business objectives with future scenarios or trends.

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An LS:N Global Membership provides access to trends defining tomorrow's cultural landscape, and the early adopters of these trends.

LS:N's experts also provide presentations to bring trends to life in the eyes of each clients business.

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"We've spent our time fretting about the New Normal when we should be talking about the new Extra-Ordinary"

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"We've spent our time fretting about the New Normal when we should be talking about the new Extra-Ordinary"

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Creative Conscience is a non profit organisation who believe that "creative thinking and innovation can create positive change." Their mission is to embed purpose-driven creative thinking into every institution, brand and organisation across the world. They achieve this through their training programmes, events and Creative Conscience awards.

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LS:N is a division of the Future Laboratory, a trend forecasting consultant who provide insights for organisations such as Facebook, Google and H&M. This allows organisations to remain relevant and innovate according to current and future trends.

They provide for these clients through two departments: Foresight and Strategy.