(PLN1) The New Spirit of Creativity: Work, Creativity, and Compromise

“They say artists don’t know how to compromise, but they don’t work here.” Kat, study participant

This talk advances a sociology of creativity that draws on resources from sociology and related disciplines to better understand cultural work and occupations. Based on fieldwork conducted at Imagination University (pseudonym), I present the day-to-day work, organization, and administration of artistic creativity and its clashes with a “new spirit” of creativity that has widely taken hold. The combined uncertainties of higher education and cultural work make for a volatile mix. There are intense critiques and disagreements over creative values and practices, and organizational life requires magnified negotiation and compromise. For artists, designers, and other creative practitioners employed at the art school, a day at work can involve quarreling over planning objectives, funding allotments, and evaluation formats. But more deeply felt, workers must navigate heightened ambiguity around artistic identities and creative excellence. Accordingly, compromises of different orders and consequences emerge between artistic creativity and the new spirit; I will illustrate how this study rethinks the relationship between creativity and compromise within cultural work. While creativity may be inequitably recognized and rewarded across the art school, compromise, given its close companionship with critique, can support or erode creative diversity.

Moderator: Judith Taylor, University of Toronto

Keynote Speaker: Dr. Saara Liinamaa, University of Guelph

Recipient of the 2023 Canadian Sociology Book Award

The New Spirit of Creativity: Work, Compromise, and the Art and Design University. University of Toronto Press, 2022

As a major contribution to advancing cultural sociology in and of Canada, The New Spirit of Creativity unpacks the everyday work, organization, and administration of creativity in Canadian cultural institutions. Based on fieldwork at three Canadian art and design universities, Liinamaa examines how creativity operates as a malleable institutional value in these institutions. With a focus on the intertwining of the fraught landscapes of contemporary higher education and creative work, Liinamaa traces how “the new spirit” is characterized by both a creativity-driven focus on identity, work, and consumption as well as by the enduring adaptability of contemporary capitalism. Liinamaa identifies the compromises required between artistic creativity and the new spirit, while demonstrating how not all compromises are created equally: compromise can support or erode creative diversity.

Tags: Culture

Organizers: Judith Taylor, University of Toronto, Sherry Fox, CSA