About Creative United

I am a PhD candidate at KCL funded by the London Arts and Humanities Partnership. My research focuses on the promising and yet underexplored notion of Creative and Cultural Ecology. The framework recognises the complementary modalities and value(s) of creative production and consumption while questioning both the primacy given to narrow economic-led imperatives and the mechanistic understanding of the sector of previous research and models. To empirically prove the notion, I am mapping and investigating theatre professionals’ flows between the private, public and not-for-profit spheres through network analysis and interviews.

The PhD’s contributions aim to be: theoretical, mapping current definitions and literature to establish a stronger theoretical grounding; methodological, testing curriculum vitae analysis and mixed-method network analysis as a tool for exploration in CC ecology; empirical, describing the relationships between the private, public and not-for-profit sphere in the theatre sector and the influences they exert on the work network, also including considerations on intersectional inequalities.

Connected to the PhD project’s collaborative nature in partnership with Creative United, the PhD aims to provide policy implications of the listed contributions for the sector and organisations that aim to support its development.

James Cunningham is a Northern Irish, visually impaired musician currently studying at Queen’s University Belfast as part of the Bridging the Gap project. He grew up in NI surrounded by a musical family, and he received his Bachelor’s in Music (BMus) from Queen’s with a focus on composition. James has had pieces premiered in both Belfast and London, and he is also an experienced improvisor with various instruments, most notably clarinet and piano. James’ Guide Dog Bart has travelled with him through much of the formative time in his musical career, and although he plans on retiring in Summer 2022, he will always hold a special place of honour in James’ work.

Jason Dasent has over 25 years’ experience in all aspects of recording and music production. Jason launched Studio Jay Recording in Trinidad in 2000 catering to both the Advertising Sector and Artist Production for many top Caribbean recording artists. He has done Music Scores/ Dialog Replacement & Post-Production for both films & documentaries.

As a visually impaired producer he was challenged to overcome the limitations of mainstream music software when “accessibility” was in its infancy. Over the years this has enabled him to compete successfully with his sighted counterparts and makes him well poised to impart his knowledge and experience to other visually impaired producers and engineers.

In 2017 Jason became a member of a worldwide team of Beta testers for accessibility with AVID ProTools, the first DAW to fully support accessibility. As a result of this project, with the knowledge gained, he now engages with several music
equipment manufacturers e.g. Native Instruments, Arturia, Focusrite/Novation and Antares Autotune among others, to assist them in introducing accessibility features to their products from the back end.

I am a PhD student at the University of Leicester, supported by the Future 50 Scholarship. Currently, I am actively engaged in the project titled "Art & the Blockchain: a post-cryptographic future for the culture sector?" at the Institute of Digital Culture. Based on my diverse background of studying and working in the arts and creative culture industries across the UK and China, my research delves into the potential of emerging technologies within the art and cultural sectors, taking a 'post-hype' perspective to explore the forthcoming changes.

The overarching goal of my research is to empirically examine how these technologies address longstanding issues in the field of art and creative work, such as inequality, and the lack of inclusivity and diversity. This investigation is supported by Creative United, allowing for an exploration of real-world practices and an in-depth analysis of the everyday aspects of artistic, cultural, and creative work in relation to emerging technologies.