Creative hub leaders from five countries gathered to discuss the opportunities and challenges in the development of creative hubs, and how they can work collaboratively with different stakeholders and with each other.
The conversations were opened by Dr Tarek Virani’s keynote (Queen Mary University London), which looked at the global economic developments which shape the nature of work and the creative economy, and at the role creative hubs play in bringing about innovation, supporting small creative businesses and generating social inclusion practices.
Hub leaders took turns in sharing their stories and highlighting how hub collaborations and cross-fertilisation across the sector can help scale up impact in the creative economy.
The forum also saw creative economy specialists, funders, researchers and policy makers from the region and United Kingdom share their experiences in working with creative hubs.
Prior to the forum, 16 creative hub leaders from across Malaysia , participated in a two-day capacity-building workshop at Me.reka Makerspace in KL. Gillian Easson of Creative Dundee guided the hub leaders to collectively identify their challenges and strengths, share best practices to build communities and share entrepreneurial skills.
The conversations also tapped on understanding the key role creative hubs play as connectors between the cultural sector, policy making and the economy and entrepreneurship.
The workshop and the forum marked the start of a 3-year Hubs for Good programme in Malaysia which aims to enable and support the creative hubs ecosystem . The hub leaders and the partners will be working together to develop an online platform for creative hubs, produce video documentaries, baseline research, a toolkit amongst others.
As part of our commitment to support the professional development of creative hub leaders across the region, the Hubs for Good participants were supported to attend the 8th IFACCA World Summit on Arts and Culture. The Summit brought together leading policy makers, researchers, managers and practitioners from the arts and culture sector from around the world, and conversations examined how governments, cultural organisations, creative practitioners, and citizens can – and do – work together to actively lead change in a time of profound transformation.
If you want to learn more about our Hubs programmes in Southeast Asia, please contact Roxana.Apostol@britishcouncil.be