Creative subsistence and alternative forms of investment

What is creative subsistence? At first glance, creative subsistence refers to the ability of advanced practices in art and culture to sustain and support themselves. The true purpose of creativity is not to maximise the return on its output. Nor is it to destroy the value proposition of a potential competitor. Nor does it aim to dominate a market by offering something unique that no one else can provide. On the contrary, if creativity has a genuine goal, it is to regenerate the conditions that make it possible in the first place.

Creativity requires urgency. Where there is no urgency, there is no creativity. It stems from necessity rather than indulgence. Nobody is creative just to create something. Nobody becomes an artist just to become an artist. There must be a specific problem to which creativity responds, but there is also an abstract necessity to be creative, namely producing and reproducing environments in which something new can be created and recognised.

When creators speak in the name of a creation, they are not promoting a particular solution to a given problem. Whether consciously or unconsciously, they are always trying to extend the spatial and temporal boundaries of something that came into being independently of them and other things. Creating something new extends the limits of time and space, enabling it to exist in a completely different context with different intentions and consequences.

This session raises the question of creative subsistence in the three dimensions of sustainability: 

• Environmental sustainability
• Financial sustainability
• Aesthetic sustainability