Introduction
In 2006, the first phase in the conversion of a former paintworks into the âPaintworksâ creative quarter in Bristol was completed. Paintworks is owned by Verve Properties â a limited company with the stated aim to âreposition property into higher value marketsâ (Verve Properties n.d.). The mix of studio/offices, live/work and residential spaces were presented to allow âoccupiers full rein to fulfil their needs and fantasiesâ (Paintworks 2015a). Developing in phases over time, the Paintworks creative quarter has become the home to a diverse range of businesses including: architecture, advertising agency, web design, film production, hospitality designers, a dental surgery and a distributor of epoxy resins (Paintworks 2015b, 2015c). As would be anticipated with the creative quarter framing, the majority of businesses self-define themselves in relation to creative, cultural and media activities. There are also clear instances where businesses that form part of a related production process come together. For example, the Paintworks website (2015b) includes details of MCMC SUPPLY who provide âessentials to the replication and model-making industryâ and ScaryCat Studio who provide âmodelmaking and design services within the film, television & advertising industriesâ â all industries located at Paintworks and within the Bristol area more widely, for example at Spike Island. Given this range of commercial operations, Paintworks was selected by Bath Spa University as the site for Artswork Media â a creative digital agency run by media professionals and third-year students on the BA Creative Media Practice course.
This chapter examines Artswork Media as a creative industries simulated work-based learning environment operated by a higher education institution within a creative quarter. Artswork Media presents a crossover environment in which credit-bearing and assessed higher education study takes place within the framework of a creative agency workplace. For the entirety of their third year/level 6 studies, students have exclusive access on a full-time basis. While an undergraduate degree framework of three modules with learning outcomes provides a structure of assessments and credit weightings, the focus is on facilitating industry ways of working. Contact time is not organised around timetabled sessions, but instead a flexible working week is encouraged with âweekly team meetingsâ and bespoke workshops on technical training and professional practice.
This chapter examines the specifics of training for cultural workers as it takes place within creative industries spaces. Drawing on previous research (Ashton 2011, 2013), this discussion critically explores notions of identity and authenticity in how students articulate the emergence of their professional identities with(in) this environment. This chapter is structured in four parts. The first part outlines existing research on work-based learning and the importance of dedicated authentic spaces in developing career-focused experiences for higher education students. The second part introduces Artswork Media as the focus of the chapter and outlines the empirical research drawn on. Research on enterprise initiatives in higher education is set out before outlining how Artswork Media operates within its creative quarter context. The third part focuses on studentsâ experiences and explores the ways in which Artswork Media as a âprofessional placeâ factors in how students develop their âindustryâ identities. The fourth part returns to the concept introduced earlier of authenticity to critically address some of the challenges and tensions associated with Artswork Media and work-based learning. These include the depth of external exchanges and collaboration between Artswork Media and its creative quarter context, and the nature of work and forms of professional practice that students engage in.
Locating work-based learning
There is a considerable body of analysis examining the relationships between higher education and the city (Goddard and Vallance 2013), and specifically the role of universities in the creative economy (Comunian, Taylor and Smith 2014). More specifically, Comunian, Taylor and Smith (2014) identify three key dimensions for the role of institutions of higher education within a specific geographical context â human capital, knowledge and infrastructure. This chapter follows Comunian and Faggian (2013) as they identify a shift in focus from infrastructure and consumption to creative production and people. In a later study, Comunian, Faggian and Jewell (2014: 430) highlight research showing that
[âŚ] the primary role of the university system is to be a conduit for bringing potential high-quality undergraduate human capital into a region, and having a highly skilled labour pool far outweighs the benefits generated by knowledge spillovers. Hence, attracting and retaining higher human capital and creative individuals is a more effective long-term strategy for local economic development.
There are multiple points of entry for examining the connections between the universities and their regional context (Goddard 2011). By focusing on âhuman capitalâ and specific pedagogical innovations and practices, this chapter makes the connection between types of learning experiences and spaces that are identified as productive for developing skilled graduates, and the location of these learning experiences and spaces.
The transition from being a higher education student into working in the creative industries has been examined across a range of national contexts (Ashton and Noonan 2013; Ball et al. Pollard and Stanley 2010; Bridgstock 2011; Comunian et al. 2011; Oakley, Sperry and Pratt 2008). A key priority within higher education employability approaches is orientating and facilitating teaching and learning so that students graduate prepared for industry. This priority has been reiterated most recently with the âWilson Reviewâ, prepared for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) (Wilson 2012). Despite this sustained commitment, studentsâ and graduatesâ understandings of industry and their âindustry-readyâ status have continued to be a cause of concern. The Manifesto for the Creative Economy (Bakhshi et al. 2013: 106) echoed previous policy statements on the connections between higher education and industry in emphasising that steps should be taken to âaddress the disconnect between what UK creative businesses need from graduates and what universities are teaching themâ (see also DCMS 2006; Creative Industries Council 2014). Bakhshi et al. (2013: 104) raise concerns around âthe ability of most UK universities to teach those practice-based skills related to craft knowledge, team working and entrepreneurialismâ and identify organisational structures and institutional inertia as creating barriers to the âwider adoption of work-based learning models in universitiesâ. Bakhshi et al. (2013) then go on to briefly provide illustration of real-world applications through the example of the Dare to be Digital work-based simulation programme organised by the Abertay University at Dundee.
Literature on âwork-based learningâ helps in conceptualising and evaluating the different types of industry engagement with which students can be involved. Roodhouse (2010) considers a number of perspectives and definitions to draw out the differences between work-based and work-related learning. Recognising the challenges of introducing clarity about work-based learning, Roodhouse (2010) refers to the University Vocational Council Awardsâ position that work-based learning is about learning (not teaching) and occurs in the workplace (rather than on campus). Alongside this âoff-campusâ aspect, the common factor that links the many potential forms of work-based learning is that âthe individual would be doing a job of work, or would be undertaking a work roleâ (Little and ESECT 2004, cited in Roodhouse 2010: 22). With work-based learning, there is a distinctive set of contextual circumstances that see students taking on roles within a specific environment. Indeed, it is these very acts of undertaking roles and working within specific contexts that underpins the employability aspects, which helps to make the links between being a higher education student and being a graduate with the potential to contribute to the economy.
A similar perspective is offered by Billett (2009: 838) in his discussion of integrating work experiences when he describes authentic experiences âin terms of the enactment of an occupation in particular work situationsâ. As Billett (2009: 827) outlines:
[âŚ] programs in higher education are increasingly becoming occupationally specific and universities are being seen as providers of âhigher vocational educationâ. With this have come expectations that graduates from these programs will enjoy smooth transitions into professional practice. Aligned with these expectations is an educational emphasis on providing students with access to and engagement in authentic instances of practice, and an expectation that these will be effectively integrated within higher education programs.
Billettâs (2009) account of authenticity and the facilitation of authentic practice are especially important in drawing out a rationale for why universities seek to physically position students more closely alongside creative industries businesses. As the following further considers, authenticity is a significant aspect of work-based learning initiatives.
In their discussion of situated learning, Brown et al. (1989: 34) suggests that authentic activities are those âmost simply defined as the ordinary practices of the cultureâ and these are important for learners as the âonly way they gain access to the standpoint that enables practitioners to act meaningfully and purposefullyâ (ibid.: 36). Students based within the studio form together as part of a âcommunity of practiceâ (Lave and Wenger 1992) characterised by a shared domain with joint activities and learning relationships, and a shared repertoire of resources that are in part structured by the industry professionals who run the studio and in part negotiated on an annual basis by each cohort. The contributions of Holmes (2001, 2013a, 2013b) on âgraduate identityâ are helpful here for illustrating how students engage in professional practice learning contexts. Specifically, Holmes (2001: 117) suggests that â[learning] tasks should be used explicitly and intentionally in relation to the practices within the occupational arena and the positions typically occupied by graduates.â He goes on to give the example of preparing a report for an organisational case study and requiring students to write the report as if they were employed within that organisation.
With Artswork Media students are not typically taking on roles occupied by recent graduates (for more on this tension, see Ashton 2013). The tasks they undertake though are firmly within relevant occupational arenas, and students approach tasks within Artswork Media as an employee for a creative agency might. For Shreeve and Smith (2012), within the creative arts there is a range of ways of providing âauthenticâ learning experiences, including industry practitioners setting briefs, students undertaking work placements and the replication of conditions of working in a studio or workshop structure. The context and environment for engaging with authentic activities is a notable dimension in generating an authentic experience
[âŚ] archetypal school activity is very different from what we have in mind when we talk of authentic activity, because it is very different from what authentic practitioners do. When authentic activities are transferred to the classroom, their context is inevitably transmuted; they become classroom tasks and part of the school culture.
(Brown et al. 1989: 34)
Artswork Media aims to maintain an authentic context for cultural work. The replication of working environments and the development of work-based learning opportunities aims to create a contiguous experience between higher education and working in the creative industries. Locating students both alongside and as a form of creative business is at the core of this effort to provide authentic practices.
The concept of authenticity is also particularly helpful in considering how students approach and engage with Artswork Media as part of their trajectory into creative careers. Holmes (2001: 115) sets up his position on graduate identity in stating that â[âŚ] situated identities are associated with sets of practices that may be specified in varying degrees, and may change over time or between different contextsâ. These comments help in keeping sight of students not just as âhuman capitalâ and âindustry-readyâ workers, but also as socially situated individuals engaged in complex forms of identity work. In discussing work and the authentic self, James (2015) suggests that, âin a time of increasingly fragmented careers and short-term, episodic work, it becomes more necessary to create a meaningful narrative to link numerous and varied jobs to a core sense of self.â This issue of fragmented careers and episodic work will be addressed later; for now Jamesâ analysis of authenticity connects with this analysis of Artswork Media in terms of the meaningful narratives that students operationalise to make sense of their emerging professional identities (see also Ashton 2013).
The Artswork Media experience
In exploring studentsâ narratives, this chapter draws on findings from a past research study in which empirical data was generated through a mix of semi-structured interviews, focus groups and filmed âtalking headâ interviews with students. The sample comprises 42 participants across four academic years/cohorts between 2008 and 2012. Each of the 10â18 students based at the studio within an academic year participated in interviews and/or focus groups at some point during their time at the studio. Interviews and focus groups were contextualised through interviews with the studioâs industry professionals, as well as a series of participant observations following production projects and observing briefing meetings and guest sessions with industry professionals.
A constructionist approach was taken in which statements were seen as a form of identity work (Taylor and Littleton 2008). Taylor and Littleton (2008: 279) outline how this approach can be used to âfocus on the meanings that prevail in the wider contexts of the speakerâs life, for example, around possible life courses and available choicesâ. Taylor and Littleton (2008: 279) clarify how âspeakers are understood to be already positioned within larger social formations but also active in their identity work and are able, ...
