Swansea Creative Focus 2022

Swansea Creative Focus exists to connect people, share updates on what’s happening, and co-create new projects and initiatives related to the creative sector in Swansea.

At 4theRegion we still believe that the creative industries present a huge opportunity for jobs, entrepreneurship, regeneration and wellbeing across Swansea.

We know that many partners across the city, and many creative people, are working to make the vision of Swansea as a creative, digital and cultural hotspot, a reality!

After a three year gap, we reconvened Swansea Creative Focus at Elysium Bar and Gallery with the aim to connect the dots and find out what is needed, what’s happening and how we can promote and increase creative enterprise across the city.

Event Themes

Actions and Ideas

Invest in making a digital hub for the area and have an enthusiastic, salaried, creative administrator to seek out opportunities, collect them and not let them die out.
Take a Pan-Wales approach to a creative network, where all regions are treated equally. No working in silos.
“The best ideas come through circular, community oriented groups. I want Swansea to thrive creatively like other cities such as Bristol.”
More creative spaces would be useful for networking, exploring creative opportunities, workshops and could be a platform to share resources and knowledge.
We need a creative hub, a central space where people can work together, run social events and give out information, just to make sure it reaches the largest audience it can.
An open mic night, similar to a show and tell where you just jump on and ask ‘can someone help me with this?’ could be a good way to network and share knowledge.
Let’s connect our creativity to whole new audiences and really create that groundswell of interest.
There’s a huge enthusiasm for the idea of connecting the creative community in the region.
With so many people having ideas and wanting to do something, translating this into action is the biggest challenge. We’re wiser having these types of meetings and is an important part of the process.
People in Swansea have an amazing mindset and willingness to help each other out. If you look at creative projects in other cities, there are lots of disparate studios that are always competing. We don’t seem to have that as much in Swansea.
Creative Cardiff works on the world stage, are doing great things and are visible. We need Swansea to also be on the world stage and enable us as a city to tap into a lot more opportunities.

Education and Opportunities

We need to educate our future creatives about the opportunities in the sector.
People need to have opportunities without having to leave the area!
We need to help students as they leave university. That first year is critical for people to decide whether they stay or leave Swansea. We need them to stay and keep them here in order for creativity to thrive.
Everyone needs to be able to access mentorship, employment, collaboration, support and advice.
Education has been all about STEM subjects. Why is it just STEM? It should be STEAM, we put an ‘A’ in it, because we need art in there.
There’s a great potential and gap for creative activities and companies here.
We know there are opportunities out there, but unless you hear about them, you may not know what channels to go through to get to it.
We need to harness the capacity of digital technology. We work around it all the time, we just need the capacity to make it reachable and comfortable, so that it’s routine.

Businesses

All companies need creative people, not just the creative sector
The best ideas come through circular, community-oriented groups. I want Swansea to thrive creatively like other cities such as Bristol.
We need to support entrepreneurial opportunities for artists.
Creative people really need to come to the forefront, to show us what they’re made of and how they feed into all sort of industries.
All companies need creative people, not just creative companies.

Wellbeing

Creativity is fundamental to being human. We should use creativity for wellbeing.
Art is used by many people as a healing process and also as a way to tackle community isolation.
Once you bring disparate groups together, you create opportunities for shared learning and peer to peer support.
Our USP should be “Community Kindness”
Blending different communities, cultures and ensuring that creative practice is accessible to a diverse range of people is vital.

Video Features

Next Steps

We really believe that the creative sector has a big role to play, in creating opportunities for young people, in making Swansea and the wider region a vibrant place to live, and in pooling skills and talent for the benefit of local communities!

We’re keen to keep this conversation going and to uncover opportunities to ensure that Swansea develops and thrives as a creative city. 4theRegion aims to join the dots and amplify, support and connect what’s already happening in the region.

Email Zoe@4theRegion.org.uk with the subject line “Creative Focus” if you have any projects or opportunities you would like to share with us. Also please make you are subscribed to the 4theRegion newsletter and Eventbrite profile to be notified of any future events!