Using culture to shape Exeter’s development over the next 20 years.
What is Creative Arc?
A collaboration between the University of Exeter (UoE) and Exeter City Council (ECC) to deliver a programme of cultural activity across the city, Creative Arc brings together creative practitioners, community groups, researchers and Design Thinking facilitators to explore the ways in which cultural activity can build ‘pride in place’. Over the next two years, Creative Arc will commission projects that speak to the themes of Health & Wellbeing, Environmental Sustainability, and People & Place-shaping.
Creative Arc is funded by the University and through a percentage of ECC’s allocation of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (a central strand of the Government’s Levelling Up agenda). This funding is focussed on the role of culture and creativity in developing and shaping place, and how this can inform the building programme in Exeter over the next 20 years.
From the University’s perspective, this involves harnessing the world-leading research expertise of its academics from across all disciplines to collaborate with communities and creative practitioners to develop projects.
For ECC, this means activating the Shared Prosperity Fund allocation with the aim of ‘building pride of place and increasing life chances’ across the city, by focussing on delivering tangible outcomes for community and place; supporting local business; and the engagement of people and the development of skills.
At the heart of Creative Arc is the aim to explore solutions to the social, economic and environmental challenges facing the city now and in the future:
How do we achieve environmental sustainability within the context of a pressing need to develop housing for our growing city?
How do we support the health & wellbeing, both physical and mental, of communities across the city, particularly at a time when stresses and pressures are exacerbated by the cost of living and access to services?
How do we ensure that opportunities – to develop, to find fulfilment, to connect and to live well – are open and accessible to all?
Tackling these challenges will require new approaches, ideas and ways of working, which is why Design Thinking methodology underpins the Creative Arc programme.
What is Design Thinking?
Design Thinking refers to the mindset and processes used by product designers to ensure that everything they put to market responds to their end-users’ needs. As a methodology, it utilises specific techniques in order to quickly generate, develop, prototype and test new ideas.
More broadly speaking, Design Thinking is a human-centred approach to creative problem-solving, and can be used to address a variety of personal, social and business challenges in new ways. The process focuses on learning directly from people, working collaboratively to explore a wide range of creative possibilities, and then honing in on what’s desirable (what people actually want), feasible (what’s technically possible) and viable (what has the best chance of really working in the world).
Underpinning the process are these core problem-solving principles:
Put people first: by starting with empathy and an understanding of people’s lives, their needs, desires and motivations, we can start to solve problems from their perspectives. This stage is fundamental to being able to define and frame the question/challenge that you’re seeking to answer.
Collaborate and co-create: by working together with people from different backgrounds, experiences and perspectives, we can gather inspiration from further afield and create richer ground for new ideas to flourish.
Ideate: by being free to let our imaginations run wild and generate myriad ideas – some of which might be completely outlandish! – we create the space for expansive, divergent thinking and to experiment. This stage works best when done quickly, to push past the obvious and to prevent the tendency to self-censor.
Make ideas tangible: by identifying and converging on what, among the plethora of ideas, have the best chance of working, we move towards solutions. The most promising ideas are taken through iterative rounds of rapid prototyping – rough but clear enough for people to respond to. These can be physical models (made from paper, card, pipe cleaners, etc) or storyboards/diagrams or even a ‘performance’ to demonstrate a service.
Iterate, iterate, iterate: by continually developing, refining and improving the ideas, we have a better chance of arriving at successful solutions.
Share the story: by crafting a human story, we can inspire others to action.
The challenges we face as a city and as a society require more than one idea; they demand cross-cultural and -organisational collaboration that fully connects with and involves citizens and partners. It is through the approaches described here that we can gain insights into what’s important to people and how they live their lives, ensuring that Creative Arc can generate projects that will have meaningful, tangible impacts on the city and its citizens.
How does that work in practice? Head to our Projects page to find out.
Meet the team and Steering Group
Let’s connect and explore how we can work together to make change happen.
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