Polly has opened the second day of the UK Creative Festival in Margate.
The creative industries are one of the UK’s fastest-growing sectors, and championing this industry is one of Polly’s biggest priorities in Parliament.
Creative businesses across Kent continue to face challenges finding the talent, skills and experience they need to grow, and many young people remain unaware of the breadth of creative careers available to them, or the routes into them. Hosted by UK Creative Festival, Building Creative Futures brought together creative employers, educators, industry bodies, local authorities and policymakers for a practical conversation about the future of creative skills in Kent.
In her speech Polly said:
“Art and creativity are woven into everyday life everywhere but especially in Margate.
“We wander past blue plaques commemorating so many creative people and after a while take it for granted. But our past is a good place to start building on our future. Which is why this [campus] in the heart of Margate offers the chance for that creativity that is the birthright of everyone should be harnessed encouraged channelled and set free.
“For far too long and recently increasingly the chance to do this has been hoarded and not shared. Art and creativity has been seen as a nice to have – not a fundamental, and a career in creative industries has become available to a narrower and narrower group of people.
“And when that happens everyone loses out. Not just the people who dreamed of making art and don’t get the chance, but the people who didn’t even know it was possible, and indeed everyone else to who is deprived of the art and creativity of people who are locked out of earning and learning in these industries.
“Consuming art and culture is literally good for your health.
“And the creative industries contribute 126bn a year to the UK economy.
“Considering the narrow group of people currently dominating these industries can we imagine how much more money we could generate and how many more people we could help to keep and make well if more people were able to be part of a creative uprising of talent and energy across the country.
“I reckon a lot of people here in Margate can get a bit tired of people like me going on about Turner, a working class man who captured our amazing skies here in Thanet and made his name as a world class artist. And also Tracey Emin, our living world class artist, home grown and giving back every day to the town where she was as born and raised.
“But even if we are tired of hearing these stories the world is not. We should capture their interest through these stories and bring their attention to bear on the future Tracey’s and turners who are already studying here at the digital campus, working out how they can turn their ideas into reality, making something compelling and interesting inspiring or challenging here in this space.
“One of the most important lessons to learn anywhere is that the sentence “I can’t” is cut short. Add “yet” to the end and everything changes.
“Let us remember that those who learn and explore here are part of Thanet’s story of optimism and hope. Where we make art and we make history, we create our own jobs, and tell our own stories.
“We also know we achieve more together than we do alone. Which is why it is right that this government has invested in Thanet, including this campus as well as the pride in place programme in Ramsgate, saving pie factory music, potholes and buses, healthcare and schools.
“We can and should be more than the sum of our parts, more than individual pots of money. We are a community with so much energy and so many ideas this should just be the start.”