Diplomatic World 67

2021 was the International Year of Creative Economy for
Sustainable Development. Diplomatic World explored and
highlighted through two articles what cultural diplomacy can
look like through lenses of sustainability, cooperation, mutuality
and solutions on global challenges.
The question “Can the International Year of Creative Economy for
Sustainable Development bring innovation to cultural diplomacy?”
was also asked and two articles highlighted different international
collaborative projects with actions and results aligned
with several of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
This article looks back at the year and provides some food for
thought on questions like “Did the year influence policy?”
“How has it reached culture and creative sector professionals?”
“What has been done during this year?”
We also talk to Emmy-winning film-maker, curator and Founder
of Create2030 and The ARTS x SDGS Festival, Lisa Russell.
CONTEXT: THE INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF
CREATIVE ECONOMY FOR SUSTAINABLE
DEVELOPMENT
In 2019, a United Nations resolution created the International
Year of Creative Economy for sustainable development and the
UN mandated the United Nations Conference on Trade and
Development (UNCTAD) to implement it.
UNCTAD has been the lead agency driving the events and
observations of the year, alongside UNESCO (United Nations
Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation), WIPO (World
Intellectual Property Organisation), UNIDO (United Nations
Industrial Development Organization), the WTO (The World Trade
Organization) and others.
LOOKING BACK
AT THE INTERNATIONAL YEAR
OF CREATIVE ECONOMY
FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Many different policy discussions and exchanges have taken
place during the year. There was for example, the Culture Summit
in Abu Dhabi, with participants from governments, policy and
other institutional representatives. Representatives from the art
world were also invited. The UNESCO 14th Intergovernmental
Committee of the 2005 Convention for the Protection and
Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions focused,
among other things, on the international year. There was a UN
high-level event on culture and sustainable development for
Member States where for example experiences were shared
on crisis-response measures to support the creative economy
during the pandemic, how to identify implementation gaps and
solutions and call for strengthening strategic cross-sectoral partnerships
to unlock the transformative potential of culture.
Many of the events have surely increased awareness of creative
economy among governments. It would be interesting to do
an analysis and evaluation of all policy dialogues having taken
place within the context of the international year to see what
the outcomes are. One interesting highlight announced at the
World Conference of Creative Economy in December 2021 by the
UAE government was that they have placed creative and culture
industries at the centre of future growth and they have created a
10-year strategy around this.
There are two upcoming interesting follow-ups in regards of the
international year.
The first is the upcoming session of the UN General Assembly
where UNCTAD and UNESCO will “inform about the implementation
through a dedicated section of the Creative Economy
Outlook, elaborating in particular on how the resolution is aligned
with, and advances, the 2030 Agenda, including recommendations
on concrete actions that would help Member States and
the United Nations system to accelerate their efforts in the implementation
of the Agenda”.
The second one is a UN resolution on Culture and Sustainable
Development from November 2021 that calls for a report of implementation
for the same topic for its 78th session in 2023.
These kinds of policy events and dialogues may be seen as abstract
for practitioners. It is clear that there is a need to balance
high-level meetings with practitioner dialogues and events. It is
a problem if sector professionals do not know what is happening
in terms of policy development.
ARTISTS AND CREATIVES PARTICIPATION
Lisa Russell is an Emmy-winning film-maker, curator, founder of
Create2030,and equally founder of The ARTS x SDGS Festival.
This festival brings together members of the growing creative
economy with UN/NGO agencies, the private sector and academia
in support of the SDGs. The first festival was held in
April 2020 and it continues as a gathering for socially conscious
artists and creatives.
Lisa says that she was enthusiastic when the international year
was announced. She had known about it since 2018 and she felt
that the year was going to amplify the important role artists and
creatives bring in helping to solve some of world’s greatest problems
– not just as entertainers or “cheerleaders” for the SDGs,
but to utilize the inherent creative thinking and problem solving
skills to help develop innovative solutions and to help “translate”
the SDGs to a wider audience.
LISA, WHAT WAS YOUR EXPERIENCE WITH THE
INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF CREATIVE ECONOMY?
As 2021 started, I hosted an online event welcoming the international
year that was attended by hundreds of artists, cultural operators
and policy experts interested in ways arts and creativity
could support sustainable global development.
Although unplanned, it also became a year where I began to
strongly advocate for the rights of artists at the UN – in support
of respecting intellectual property rights and ensuring artists
were compensated.
As the Founder of Create2030 and curating many working class
artists, I felt it was my responsibility to push for responsible and
meaningful participation of arts and to also speak out about the
various initiatives and campaigns that were hurting artists at the
height of the COVID-19 pandemic when many of us lost work.
For example, there were numerous UN-led “creative briefs”,
“arts contests” and “calls for art” that were asking for artists to
contribute artwork for free but then were given pro-bono to mega
corporations like Facebook and BBC. I know I made a lot of
people uncomfortable but these were very harmful initiatives that
were created not out of “bad intentions” but because policy and
programme experts who develop these initiatives don’t always
understand our work cultures or our industry standards.
That is why in 2022, I continue to advocate for artists representation
at the United Nations in order to create more ethical policies
regarding engaging artists in sustainable development. I did
my third TEDx talk on why the UN needs an Arts Envoy for the
international year.
I also created a new Change.org petition with an Open Letter to
the UN Secretary-General on the need for artist representation at
the UN.
After speaking at the second World Conference on Creative
Economy hosted by the Government of UAE, it became apparent
to me that arts and storytelling must be at the heart of the SDGs.
In order to do this, we need to train artists how to effectively
work in the global diplomacy space, and we need to train UN/
NGO entities how to effectively work with professional curators
to engage artists in a responsible manner.
WHY DID YOU START THE THE ARTS X SDGS
FESTIVAL?
The Festival was conceived of in late 2019 to be held in and
around the United Nations as a place where artists and UN/NGO
actors could come together in support of the SDGs. The first festival
was scheduled to occur April 15-21, 2020 to coincide with
World Creativity and Innovation Week.
When COVID-19 was on the rise, we made the decision to pivot
to an online gathering and with the support of Earthx Film, we
hosted a very dynamic one-week, online festival filled with art
showcases, daily webinars and weekend workshops for creatives.
As a creative practitioner in the UN/NGO space (I work as contracted
film-maker and arts curator), I felt it was necessary to
host an artist-led gathering to help tailor the festival to an artist
audience. While we invited policy and programme experts to
present and attend, our intent was to really tailor to artists and
storytellers interested in working in the sustainability space.
The reason why it is important to support artist-led gatherings it
that we speak a “different language” and have a different work
culture so we tailor the festival to meet artists where they often
congregate. Often that is not conferences but rather spaces
where creativity, free thinking, and critical thinking are emphasized.
As COVID-19 continued to financially impact artists and creatives,
we continued hosting the online gathering every 4-5
months and have just completed our fifth edition. The focus
shifted to provide members of the creative economy who lost
gigs and were struggling financially, with skills-based workshops
and discussions to focus on uplifting livelihoods.
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