Creating better creatives

An intention to broaden the meaning of culture within the community and make a positive contribution to the arts is the vision of Jam Creative director and founder Joel McGuiness.

Mr McGuiness resigned from his role as manager of the Bunbury Regional Entertainment Centre late last year and has since started an arts management company in Bunbury.

Jam Creative is about linking regional arts and culture to business and making communities understand the important role it plays in a community.

He said arts and culture “should not be an optional extra”.

“Local government doesn’t question the role of the swimming pool, sports centre or library to community life that collectively cost millions but they question the value of arts and culture,” Mr McGuiness said. “A business case for arts and culture needs to be made to measure the things people care about, for example the economic return from arts and culture and measuring community pride.

“Local governments don’t understand the value of arts and culture – it’s language, it’s food and art, people need to understand it is everywhere.”

From his recent travels to 16 performing arts centres around the State he saw a lot of art workers near burnout and this reassured to him that something in local government needed to change.

“It is about changing people’s mindset to create action, be it through food and music people will find they are cultural people even though they didn’t know they were,” he said.

“We need to champion the creative industries locally and enrich where we live and tell the stories of where we came from.”