The creative economy is built on how communities, businesses and individuals can turn cultural knowledge into meaningful returns. With much of the research typically focussed on urban areas, this session offers a regional lens on one of the world’s fastest growing sectors. With their own distinct stories, culture of innovation, sense of place and provenance, regionally based creative businesses, projects and networks are not only key community assets, but have a lot to offer audiences and customers on a national and international level. As digital continues to significantly impact our ability to engage more directly, the creative industries also offer knowledge and skill-sets which are more important than ever to other sectors. With the creative economy’s importance increasing across social, economic and political agendas, this fascinating panel will look at the value of the sector from a range of perspectives and its potential to transform rural economies.
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Kate Hooper: Creative Director and Co- Founder, Strategy Story
Kate is co-founder and co-director of award-winning, research-led strategy and strategic communications consultancy, StrategyStory. The company use modern storytelling and state of the art strategic thinking to help businesses, communities and other forms of organisation develop strategies that work. She is a former BBC Senior Content Producer and current Women’s Enterprise Scotland Ambassador. She is also the former Senior Communications Manager for the Institute of Design Innovation at Glasgow School of Art and an experienced journalist.
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Lomond Campbell: Musician, Producer, Studio Owner
Multi-faceted artificer Lomond Campbell lives deep in the Highlands of Scotland. Although his music is grounded in sound it often incorporates sculpture, engineering, product design and visual art. Using a combination of hardware hacking and industrial manufacturing techniques, Lomond builds his own unique instruments and devices for creating sound which he combines with modular synths, piano and voice. He released his first album on Heavenly Recordings then took five years out to build a studio called The Lengths where he now makes all his work. He occasionally produces albums for other artists there, most notably Kathryn Joseph’s ‘for you who are the wronged’, which was recently shortlisted for the Scottish Album of the Year Award. After re-emerging from his hiatus he signed a record deal with One Little Independent Records, who were keen to release albums based around his unique instruments. His latest creation is a machine called the Unsung Machine that converts words to sound. Lomond spent his formative years making sound installations, winning a BAFTA for creating a moody, narcissistic music machine called Cybraphon which now resides in the National Museum of Scotland.
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Simon McKerrell: Professor of Media and Music and Head of Media and Journalism, Glasgow Caledonian UniversityProfessor
Simon McKerrell is a Professor of Media and Music and Head of Media and Journalism at Glasgow Caledonian University. He is interested in the social impact of arts and particularly issues relating to the rural creative economy. He is an expert on the role of music in media and policy and the author of Focus: Scottish Traditional Music(Routledge), and the Co-Editor of both Music as Multimodal Discourse: Media, Power and Protest (Bloomsbury) and Understanding Scotland Musically: Folk, Tradition, Modernity (Routledge). He is also an expert performer of Highland-, Border- and Uilleann-pipes and has toured, taught and performed throughout the world and recorded twelve commercial albums. The final report from his research on the rural creative economy can be downloaded here: Music in the Rural Creative Economy Project | Simon McKerrell
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Iseabal Hendry, Designer
Born and raised in the Highlands of Scotland, Iseabal Hendry is inspired by the traditional craft skills that she grew up with, from basket-weaving and roof-thatching to clinker boatbuilding. As with these ways of making, Iseabal takes individual segments of a material and combines them by hand to create work that is both beautiful and functional. Her creative practice is materially-led, inspired by zero waste and her family heritage in leatherwork. Working with vegetable tanned leather, which changes over time dependent on how it’s handled. Iseabal finds beauty in this ever-changing quality which she finds mirrors her landscape, continually transforming with the shifting light. Iseabal has a number of stockists throughout the UK including the Hauser & Wirth owned luxury art-hotel, The Fife Arms.
