2014 UK Award Part 2
Untitled, 2014, Mixed Media

"Untitled, 2014, Mixed Media" presents a critical design project that interrogates the United Kingdom’s dependency on its Creative Economy. This work questions whether the continued application of financial mechanisms to the Creative Arts and the increasing co-alignment between our economic and cultural sectors is ultimately devaluing their inherent worth.

2014. January. The Department for Culture, Media, and Sport announces that the UK’s Creative Industries are worth £8 million/hour to the economy. Placing such a definitive value on our creative resource recognizes its potential to be lost.

February. The Worshipful Guild of Arts is granted its livery status within the City Of London. Its founding council consists of a Lawyer, two Bankers and Lloyd Grossman. Situated on Austin Friars Passage, the Guild sits within a preexisting network of curated, cultural objects throughout the City.

Projecting a massive shift in our creative values, this work offers a cautionary tale of over-cultural quantification. Taking the Guild as the Monster of a regulated future and documenting its growth across a fictional timeline, we see the formalization of this cultural network as an architecture that is characterized into an emotional response.