Beth Perry
As October rolled in and I returned to Durham following six months of lockdown, the reality of my final year and lack of future prospects began to emerge. Facing the notorious annual job hunt in an already over competitive and now pandemic-volatile market, I palpably felt the lack of graduate creative opportunities. It became apparent that embracing the Durham stereotype of applying to every bank in the City, every Times top-100 Graduate Employers or the Civil Service, would only result in me selling my soul and mental health to a future in which I frankly found no passion. Where were the creative graduate opportunities that excited me and why were they so difficult to find?
There is an ingrained underappreciation for the importance, socially and economically, of the global creative sector. From Advertising to Publishing, TV & Film to Arts & Culture, creative careers are found in almost every walk of life. In fact, these industries generate more than £100bn a year to the UK Economy. Before the pandemic, future prospects were booming, with employment rising three times higher for these sectors than the national UK average in the last decade. So why then do they hold so little weight, other than perhaps in marketing and advertising, within the graduate marketplace?
In my ‘younger and more vulnerable years’, I was encouraged to pursue the ‘respectable’ vocation of the Law and had little to no exposure to careers in creative sectors. This clearly can’t be because these are dying industries, so why are creative careers not better advocated for, is there a lack of commonly held respect? Whilst there is no clear-cut answer that can be offered in the space of one article, it could be held that graduates depend too much upon the traditional channels of corporate employment, so that careers in the creative world are simply, albeit unintentionally, ignored.
Over time I have come to find that it is the Art World, specifically the Art Market, that I am drawn towards and that there are, albeit few, graduate opportunities available. I was encouraged to see the flexibility of this industry in response to the pandemic, in October Sotheby’s produced a live streamed auction of Contemporary Art. During this, a notorious Banksy painting ‘Show me the Monet’ (2005) went under the hammer for £7,551,60, two million more than its highest pre-auction estimate. Elsewhere, online success has also been attained by galleries such as the Royal Academy with their interactive tour of their famous Summer Exhibition. It could be argued that this switch to technology has been able to provide not only a novel, but a more cost effective and less exclusive environment than in-person viewings invite. These exciting and resilient responses to the pandemic highlight how careers here could be held, contrary to popular belief, as commercially appealing and highly innovative to future job seeking students.
Similarly, large international corporations have hired creatives to help them adapt to this growing digital marketplace. Forbes Magazine highlighted that ‘today’s successful companies are the ones willing to […] embrace creative innovation and technology’ as the ‘recipe for the perfect digital event’ (6 April 2020). I wonder; perhaps, with the movement of services online, will the importance of creative careers may be finally held with the high regard they deserve?
Whilst these companies, larger galleries and auction houses have shown themselves to be resilient, unfortunately other smaller members of the sector have found themselves in an increasingly more precarious financial position and with a lack of serious attention from Governments during the Covid crisis. The Art Newspaper and economist Rachel Pownall revealed in April last year that 33.9% of galleries around the world are not expecting to survive the pandemic. Interestingly though, having predicted the economic impact of Covid-19 upon the Arts, in the same article Pownall stated that lockdown has in fact highlighted ‘the societal impact of a world devoid of arts and culture’ and that it may even ‘encourage improved financing of the arts in the future’. Maybe the suffering of creative industries worldwide has finally woken people up to their social, political and economic importance in our constantly evolving international marketplace, and perhaps then, creative careers in all their shapes and sizes will be offered the same new acclaim.
Frankly, this period, having begun as one of stress and angst, has in fact excited me immensely about the future of creatives leading into 2021. Looking forward, the Art World’s persistent response to the pandemic has stirred up an increased interest in me to pursue my passion for Art and business at an Auction House. In some sense then, the pandemic, despite financially impacting the creative sector on an unprecedented level, has positively catalysed an awareness of the importance of the arts and their ability to support wider industries of more notable standing. Adapting and reshaping methods to suit the growing online populous has favoured creatives, with this platform being an example. Shouldn’t we then hope for the relatively narrow selection of our graduate marketplace to experience the same sort of transformation?
Whilst I may still end up surviving on no more than half a dozen hours of sleep a night during my early years of employment, I would rather those working hours be in support of my own interest in the Art Market, rather than the result of pursuing a decades old tradition of graduates in a field where my creativity could not flourish in the same manner.
For more information surrounding the breadth of careers in creative industries see:
https://www.thecreativeindustries.co.uk/
For more specific information on internships and work experience at galleries, such as the RA or V&A, see their websites and Careers pages which are constantly updated as and when vacancies arise.
The Art Newspaper is an online paper that publishes articles written by top art historians, curators and economists about the art world and market.
