Photo caption: MA Arts and Cultural Leadership students at the John Hansard Gallery. Photography by Yuqi Zhou (Koko)
What keeps you awake? The responses by students of MA Arts and Cultural Leadership, Winchester School of Art (WSA) are striking. They’re concerned about the “growing disconnection between institutions and lived experience”, “whose voices get heard”, and the “impact of generative AI on creative fields”. They question “how politics equates leadership and power with ‘wealth’ and devalues art, compelling people to exhibit ‘performative obedience’ that drains the human spirit”.
But if the arts are in crisis, they’re also part of the solution to re-orientate us during and beyond crises, the Gen-Zers propose. “The arts can amplify marginalised voices to pandemics, climate change, conflict”, they argue. “Encounters with nature through outdoor, environmental arts can support ecological awareness, care, and inclusive civic dialogue”.
Such students – and HE programmes that teach such skills and knowledges – are engaged in creative thinking to shape and transform agendas. That’s thought-leadership. Yes, ‘leadership’ is a tricky term, as also reflected in the students’ response. But as Professor of Music, Sound and Moving Image Miguel Mera states, “we need to distinguish ‘thought-leadership’ from ‘people leadership’ and ‘management’”. In fact, “academic work is all about thought leadership”, he argues. That’s because “academics demonstrate expertise in a specific area and shape others in their thinking. This is what we do when we engage with our respective research, with our students, and our broader academic communities”. Miguel isn’t just speaking as Dean of Faculty of Arts and Humanities of University of Southampton, which the art school is a part of, but as an acclaimed composer and musicologist.
Thought-leadership inspires change and helps tackle national and global problems, states Miguel. That’s why thought-leadership is a central pillar of the Faculty strategy. That’s also why the Advance HE 2030 strategy affirms thought-leadership in higher education. As the Chair of the Advance HE Board Professor Mark E. Smith states, these are “challenging times”, and HE’s “transformative power” for “people, places, and society” is urgent. In particular, SHAPE - that’s Social Sciences, Humanities and the Arts for People and the Economy - “help us make sense of the human world, to value and express the complexity of life and culture, and to understand and solve global issues”, reminds the British Academy and “we need SHAPE insights now”.
The creative arts are the heartbeat of SHAPE’s thought-leadership. Art, design, film, music, theatre, creative writing, and more, have always produced and distributed content and methods that educate, inspire, spark conversation and influence public opinion, often by challenging conventional thinking. The students’ visions are inspired by examples covered in class centering sustainability, social justice, equity and love. Take Brian Eno. Apart from pioneering ambient music, and facilitating others’ innovation as producer, the musician-activist (and WSA alumni) has organised concerts to raise funds and awareness, “galvanising’ people and enabling their “courage to speak out” on global issues. Indeed, creativity, curiosity and courage - Eno’s, the students’, and the curriculum’s - underpin innovation and critical inquiry. These qualities drive both educational excellence and thought-leadership.
Examples of thought-leadership remind us that there can be better futures, and we can be proactive (co-)creators of such futures, adds Miguel. Georgia Thom for instance, embodies thought-leadership that centers AI - artistic intelligence. The artist is completing her PhD fusing digital art, transgender resistance and neuro-futurism, or neurodivergence-driven change-making. Recent activities include an invited podcast connecting qualitative research and public health, and an invited research assistance role in a physics project. Georgia’s portfolio demonstrates how interdisciplinary research can provide new insights into both traditional and emerging societal issues. This brings to life the British Academy’s ambition for “more joint working” between SHAPE and STEM.
Institutions can also exemplify thought-leadership in what and how they work, too. The John Hansard Gallery through its Karama: Expressions of Resistance from Gaza project last Autumn models a collegial way of “sharing innovative ideas, insights, and expert knowledge, as a leading authority and trusted voice in the arts and culture” in Miguel’s framing of thought-leadership. Co-created with the MA as well as the grassroots and diasporic community-leaders, Karama (‘dignity’ in Arabic), introduced a novel research method combining photography, participation, love and neuroqueer co-curation. The 7-week exhibition and accompanying seminar reached 107,659 people in Southampton and online. Learning environments and outputs fostered benefited the Leadership students, plus those in Fine Art, Psychology and Archaeology. Communities previously disconnected called the project “deeply moving”, and “really pushing boundaries that bigger institutions avoid”. The Gallery thus also exemplifies Advance HE’s thought-leadership on academic freedom, and how, together with EDI and freedom of speech, these are “essential to the success, impact and reputation” of higher education.
Clearly, artistic thought-leadership can galvanise a globally leading community of arts and humanities students, scholars, practitioners and creative solution-seekers to positively shape knowledge, society and the environment together. Which was why the Gallery collaborated with the University’s Faculty of Arts and Humanities and industry players including Contemporary Visual Arts Network (CVAN) to co-author a national report highlighting the social and economic value of the arts. Launched at the House of Commons last Spring, the effort was a “once-in-a-generation intervention” that clarifies the role of art and design “at the forefront of tackling contemporary challenges”, for our “current and future generations”.
Indeed, we have an eye on long-term goals. We remain enthusiastic about collaboration, and always open to new creative ways of working. That’s also why the MA Arts and Cultural Leadership, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, and John Hansard Gallery, are joining forces to open up a space for stakeholders like CVAN, to gather and dive further into thought-leadership of the arts and culture in and beyond crisis. We’ll kick this off with a small summit in summer, as part of the MA Degree show on 2 September, to share best practices and co-design solutions. Keynote speakers include the formidable UK-Ghanaian arts and cultural thought-leader Larry Achiampong. Students of the Leadership programme – who are our next generation of thought-leaders – are co-curating this. They may even craft an outdoor encounter to advance ways to amplify ecological awareness, care and inclusive civic dialogue.
Kai is an artist-curator, author, public-speaker and consultant whose efforts seek to advance the social value and thought-leadership of the arts, culture, creativity and neurodiversity. Learn more about the Faculty of Arts and Humanities here, and Winchester School of Art scholarship, including for MA Arts and Cultural Leadership here.