The Creative Workforce Initiative at Curtin University is exploring the significance of creative capital to Western Australia’s economic, cultural and social wellbeing. A key component of this work is the Committee for Perth’s project The Western Edge.
The Western Edge focuses on the working lives and economic circumstances creative artists and the broader creative workforce. By better understanding the State’s creative workforce the team hopes to inform initiatives that will attract, support and retain them in the long term.
The project, led by Associate Professor Dawn Bennett at Curtin University, draws on an international team of scholars. In particular, the project is working with colleagues in Glasgow and Vancouver - two other cities on the Western Edge. This collaboration will enable the team to contrast the WA experience with insights drawn from the partner regions.
Over 200 arts and cultural organisations are promoting the WA study. There are over 250 individual creative workers now involved, and more than half have completed an in-depth survey about their life and work.
The research will provide timely and important information for planners, policymakers and arts advocates, as well as for the sector itself.
Projects and activities within the Creative Workforce Initiative include:
- A landmark study of creative practice, featuring an in-depth survey and the development of multiple case study profiles;
- A study of creative artists who leave Western Australia to live and work in the Eastern states or overseas;
- Sectoral snapshots with an initial focus on fashion, publishing, film and television, gaming design and music;
- Presentations to government and creative industry organisations in Scotland, Canada, WA and Queensland;
- Proposals for major competitive grant funding, to be submitted in each country by mid-2012, with a view to substantially increasing our capacity and reach;
- An ARC Discovery proposal with Griffith University, offering the potential for comparative data from another Australian city;
- An investigation of career and life planning among the student population (funded by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council).
The Western Edge artist workforce study was launched in Vancouver in April and in Perth in May 2010 with Glasgow following later in the year. If you are working in the creative industry and want to be involved in the Perth artist workforce study, please contact Dr Dawn Bennett at Curtin University on 08 9266 4482 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
Alternatively visit the website of Simon Fraser University who are also partnering in the study to download the Understanding the Creative Workforce Survey.
Associate Professor Dawn Bennett - Perth
Dawn Bennett is a Senior Research Fellow, Australian Teaching and Learning Fellow, and Director of the Creative Workforce Initiative at Curtin University. Her research focus is the working lives and economic circumstances of creative artists. This incorporates Australian and international studies on the career pathways of undergraduate and graduate students; practising artists; and artist academics.
Professor Alistair Rainnie - Perth
Al Rainnie is Director of Research at Curtin Graduate School of Business, and previously Director of Research at the Centre for Labour Market Studies at Leicester University. Al has researched and written widely in the fields of small firms, spatiality, creative workers and regional development, restructuring of work and employment, and trade union organisation.
Dr Scott Fitzgerald - Perth
Scott Fitzgerald is a Research Fellow with the Graduate School of Business at Curtin University. He holds a PhD in Sociology (Curtin). His research and teaching interests encompass the sociology of communications and culture as well as political sociology, international political economy and labour studies.
Ms Christina Ballico - Perth
Christina Ballico is a PhD Candidate in the School of Communications and Arts at Edith Cowan University and a student researcher at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation. Her primary research area is in sociomusicology, with a particular focus on the relationship between music and place. These ideas are examined within broader themes of: popular music and culture; creative and cultural mapping; and creative and cultural capital.
Professor Catherine Murray - Vancouver
Catherine Murray is Professor in the School of Communication, Co- Director of the Centre for Policy Studies on Culture and Communities, and an associate of the Masters’ of Public Policy Program at Simon Fraser University. Her research interests include cultural work and participation; cultural infrastructure and creative cities; cultural industries and especially broadcast policy in the creative economy; communication rights and global trade; and research design in audience and policy evaluation.
Professor Philip Schlesinger - Glasgow
Philip Schlesinger was appointed to the University of Glasgow’s new Chair in Cultural Policy and became Academic Director of CCPR in January 2007. His current research interests include cultural creativity and government policy; the European public sphere; and ethnography and representations of exile.
Professor Celia Duffy - Glasgow
Celia Duffy is Director of Academic Development at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. Celia's research interests are in performing arts education including career planning and pathways, the use of digital technology, and knowledge exchange in the arts.