EDUCE

Future WORK - SEGRO YOUNG ARTISTS - winning school

SEGRO and CREATIVE JUNCTION

Ten schools were selected in the south of England to take part in the SEGRO Young Artists Programme 2009.  I was selected to work with Year 8 pupils from Folkestone Academy to explore the theme of work.  Taking our inspiration from the exquisite corpse parlour game and referencing surrealism we looked at how we could transform our ideas about work.  Finding the careers guides and information lacking any interest for young people we decided together to make a visual response using both traditional and digital collage techniques, imagining what future jobs might be.

The work exhibited at the Royal society of Arts in London in June 2009 was three large digital prints and a digital screen with up to 100 images produced by the class. Folkestone Academy were one of four schools to have their work purchased by Segro for display in their Head Office.

SEGRO YOUNG ARTISTS BACKGROUND

SEGRO FOLKESTONE

SEGRO AND LINDA JAMES

archifest 2009 - Slough

Artist in residence at Slough Museum as part of Archifest 2009.  I worked with the local community and local artists to create an installation that explored people's relationship with the architecture of Slough, past, present and future.  See photo albums for further images
 
 

Building Community

Supporting Allsigns Group to become a 'Business in the Community' award winner as part of the Prince of Wales initiative

Business in the Community - why it matters

Building Community Through Arts - based in Kew - a project that I have been invovled with - the attached is a link to

BUILDING COMMUNITY THROUGH ARTS- A GUIDE

creativity in your business

Catching Butterflies with a Wooden Spoon
Linda trained as a Chartered Accountant and worked as a Business Transformation Consultant for KPMG for over ten years before becoming a professional artist and creative agent, using a unique combination of analytical thinking and inventiveness. 

Linda helps individuals and organisations to become life-long creative learners and risk takers and supports them to develop their own creative processes within the constraints of organisational pressures.

Delivering workshops, coachmentoring sessions and seminars, Linda looks at ideas of creativity, inventiveness and processes of ‘letting go’. Linda explores contradictions and notions of the absurd and the ridiculous and questions the sense of self to understand how we create meaning.    By suspending judgement and re-thinking possibilities Linda uses her experience of visual thinking to help people to change perspective, re-frame values and look at what is possible.   

Linda challenges, questions and provokes a deeper level of understanding to open up ideas and raise awareness of how inventiveness combined with analytical thinking can benefit productivity and competitiveness.

To print out a copy with contact details Download businessweb.pdf

Creativity in Business

The Cox Review was published in 2005.  If you haven't seen it before it is worth a look.  A very narrow focus of creativity as design (and creativity can be more than that) but the points raised are important ones.

http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/independent_reviews/cox_review/coxreview_index.cfm

it's official

art reduces stress

a recent report commissioned by the Guildhall in London reveals that going to an art gallery at lunch time can reduce stress.  click on the link to read the report.

Powerful de-stresser

a big window

do you have a big window - do you want to draw attention to yourself?



as an artist I have recently finished an 'participatory' exhibition 'in the wild wood' at OVADA in Oxford.  For this project I worked on the window facing the coach station and encouraged visitors to participate in the work.  If you have a large window and would be interested in discussing the possibility for creating a participatory project with your staff and visitors please contact me (lindajane.james@virgin.net)
(visit my  lindajanejames.blogs.com weblog photoalbum in the wild wood )

Inconvenient Truth

it may be a little inconvenient but worth it in the end

Al Gore's 'Inconvenient Truth' is a film that highlights the power of images in a powerpoint presentation.  The majority of his communication was verbal supported by a diversity of different, powerful images.  Al Gore created this presentation over many years and delivered it over 1,000 times before making the film, a man with real passion and a sense of ownership of a problem.  The actual delivery, the key messages and the relationship to the personal throughout the presentation were the successes of his approach to communicating.  As he mentions in the film, it doesn't necessarily mean that peple will take any notice.  The lessons learned from this film is that not only does the presentation need to have impact, it needs guts and determination to stick with it, to refine it and most of all that through repetition and chance you may finally succeed.

The Inconvenient truth of this for business is the need to accept that time must be valued, in the way that we must value and respect the passing of the seasons.  People must be given the chance to take the time to keep plugging away at something that they believe in.  It goes against our consumer culture of instant gratification and onto the next party trick but the lesson will be well learned and of greater value through the disciplline of effort and time if we canconcentrate on 'crafting' a more creative approach to doing business (not a series of new fresh and bright ideas but a refinement and testing of ideas)

the value of arts and culture

Tony Blair Endorses the Value of  Culture - 2007-03-07

In a landmark speech at Tate Modern on 6th March the Prime Minister acknowldeged the role and  value of culture to the UK and made a pre Spendng Review  'commitment' to  avoid 'boom and bust'  funding.

"A country like Britain today survives and prospers by the talent and ability of its people. Human capital is key. The more it is developed, the better we are. Modern goods and services require high value added input. Some of it comes from technology or financial capital - both instantly transferable. Much of it comes from people - their ability to innovate, to think anew, to be creative.

Such people are broad-minded: they thrive on curiosity about the next idea; they welcome the challenge of an open world. Such breadth of mind is enormously enhanced by interaction with art and culture. ......"

Easier to say than to realise in practice.  My work is exploring what it takes for people to feel comfortable with the idea of exploration, or undertaking a journey, taking a risk and using art and culture to explore at a deeper level.  It requires patience, trust and time but it works if there is an underlying passion and determination to succeed.  I have recently evidenced this working with a scientist at the Institute for the Future of the Mind.  Using visual approaches to exploring his subject matter and engaging in it on a personal level has resulted in a richer and more informed debate with others.  As he said " I have gained a deeper understanding working with an artist by relating to my work on a much more personal level"

This also came across in a BBC production featuring Diane Abbott learning to play the piano.  An inspirational journey of determination, courage and passion with an ability to be prepared to feel embarrased and humiliated in order to explore something deeper and more rewarding.  Someone who has begun a journely of letting go in order to explore a deeper sense of self through creativity which enhances her understanding of not only the subject matter of music but also her engagement with family history and a culture outside of politics.  Her broad-minded engagement throughout her life with possibilities and opportunities demonstrate how a country like ours can thrive and prosper, from little acorns.....

business should embrace the arts

'...an arts-rich curriculum can be instrumental in achieving greater school improvement and increased learning across the curriculum. The arts challenge pupils to consider complex issues and think in different ways, using different forms of intelligence and to examine their thoughts, feelings and actions.' 
Charles Clarke,
Secretary of State for Education 2002-2004

Business will soon be faced with a new challenge to its thinking from the work currently taking place in schools.  Children are learning to incorporate the arts into their everyday lives as a way of thinking differently.  I have been involved in helping children through work I have been doing with creative partnerships.  There is often a lot of talk about how we make children fit for the workplace but I think a greater challenge lies with the management of companies making the workplace a place fit for the imagination and talents of our children. 

Business has been slow to recognise the value of the arts to its growth and development, mostly seeing the arts as 'too risky', 'too difficult to sell'.  This is because business looks at outcomes rather than process.  Art has the potential to generate creative and imaginative thought, not for the purpose of making art, but for the purpose of exploring a problem in a new way, of taking a fresh look at something.  If education recognises the need for arts in the everday workings of a school what will it take for business to grasp this idea and reap the rewards of a lot of bright and talented arts professionals.