Beatrice Pembroke: The creative council
If you live in the UK, the chances are that you would have heard of the British Council, but not know too much about it. The reverse is true in the rest of the world, where the organisation promotes the UK’s arts and cultural industries to — almost — every country in the world. It’s something of an unsung hero in terms of keeping the UK as being a world leader in the creative industries. Spearheading this process is its Creative Economy Director Beatrice Pembroke. Her remit includes the promotion of British work in creative technology around the world, and it’s from that perspective that we started the conversation.
Pembroke’s team, based at the British Council’s office tucked behind Trafalgar Square, has an interdisciplinary focus with creative technology increasingly part of its work. The team’s projects have allowed them to create a rather powerful network of people around the world. A recent project with Bristol’s Watershed, tying into its well-known Playable Cities award, gathered a group of creatives and technologists from the UK and Brazil. They worked together in a 2-week intensive lab in order to develop real-life examples of how the “playable cities” idea could manifest itself in Brazil. It started when Silvio Meira, creator of successful Brazilian tech hub Porto Digital, visited the UK to see the many initiatives and centres which facilitate a more creative use of digital technology. It was Watershed which captured his imagination and from there, the British Council helped to create the Playable City lab event in Brazil.
For the Creative Economy team, it’s always about developing these international partnerships. While digitally-enabled creativity is far from a new or emergent concept itself, Pembroke argues that there’s still a lot to learn, particularly at a organisational level.
“I think that cultural organisations, particularly institutions, are still figuring out how best to support it, how best to engage other people within it, and how to exhibit it. It’s still quite tricky for institutions to get their heads around it. What the British Council can do most usefully, I think, is to shine a spotlight on talented people, collectives, and projects. It gives them a wider audience, but most importantly, connects them with inspiration in other countries. What I’m keen to do in the infrastructure here in the UK is to encourage those interdisciplinary connections. We, like many other arts organisations, are still quite discipline-based, and work is still often commissioned on that basis. The interesting stuff is much messier.”
Because of the Council’s global presence, it has people on the ground who understand local economies, cultures, and practices; essentially, the “talent scouts” for finding the partners which Pemroke alluded to. These people are tasked with finding the shining stars to whom networking and co-production on a global scale would be beneficial. In the UK, it works with organisations such as FutureEverything, Sync and Lighthouse in order to find the right indigenous talent to put out to the rest of the world. Pembroke admits, however, that the way in which the Council works means that awareness of who it is and what it does, isn’t as it should be in its home country. “There hasn’t been a high recognition of what the British Council does in the UK. People don’t necessarily know our work outside of those sectors that we support. It’s certainly something that the organisation has been keen to do more about: raise our profile here, and to engage people in opportunities. Around the world, we have a much higher visibility because that’s where most of our work happens.”
Refreshingly, partnering with the Council on creative projects isn’t just for those with a CV full of experience. Its Young Creative Entrepreneur programme starts with an open call in different countries around the world, with an independent jury sourcing the best upcoming talent. The programme brings the winners together in the UK and for the British cohort, it’s a chance to find out what’s happening in different places that they wouldn’t normally get a chance to see. For the overseas cohort, they have a chance to access what’s happening in the UK in various sectors. A recent Young Creative Entrepreneur event took 5 people from the UK to Nigeria to give them an insight into the market there, meaning that the opportunities for upcoming British talent are there, and they are global.
One of the interesting factors at the Council, and as Pembroke says, sometimes one of the most challenging, is that cultural and artistic excellence is fragmented and highly subjective. What’s interesting and innovative here, might be different in Indonesia, of course. It means that the team have to balance the local context but with the global market in mind. That can work both ways: a Brazilian self-publishing business with 10% of that country’s book market visited the London Book Fair in order to tell their experiences to young British publishers. Pembroke is happy to give many more examples of this intellectual transfer.
“We had someone from the biggest social networks in China, Douban, who started a little startup within that business, Douban Read. The cultural approach to consuming or enjoying content often completely changes the nature of what work is, and how people experience it. Our local colleagues are able to contextualise that, as well as pointing to people who are interesting in that field. One of the best things that we can do here is to give UK creative and cultural readers and pioneers, a bespoke international experience. Go to anywhere, from Tokyo to Nairobi and you will get to meet the most interesting people in your field. We have that power of interaction and ability to broker connections.”
Although Pembroke’s view is global, she is aware that the UK has a creative industries model which is rather different to many around the world: one which delicately balances public funding, commercial sponsorship, and philanthropy. This, in her view, gives rise to a more experimental view of the world and work that the team can take to the world. Other parts of the British Council are called upon where relevant: in many places, basic infrastructure is still quite poor, so the organisation works at policy and institutional level to help to build structures and infrastructures in order to support creative development.
It’s a busy time for Pembroke and her team; the explosive fusion of arts and technology, the changing shape of funding models, and the globalisation of content means that their focus will need to be as sharp as it has ever been. Their insight, understanding of the market, and their ready acceptance of change stands them in very good stead.
Beatrice Pembroke is Creative Economy Director at the British Council. She is @burnbinkyon Twitter.
More information on the British Council’s Creative Economy services and team is available at their website.
