Creative YOUCreativity is everywhere. Opportunity is not. We are part of the solution. The secret is in our name. Every year Creative Youth Network gives thousands of young people a taste and thirst for the arts and culture and the joy, life-skills and opportunity they bring. But we want more. Creative YOU is our campaign showcasing how we, you and the engaged, emerging and amazing young creatives we support, come together. We want to reveal how, together, we are ambition, quality, cultural democracy and social mobility in action. Every young person deserves the right to access creativity and development opportunities in the creative and cultural industries. It all starts with education. If all young people have access to creative subjects in school, then talented young people from all backgrounds can pursue their passion, develop crucial skills needed in so many industries and improve their wellbeing. 1. Pledge Add your name and join the many people passionate about bringing creativity back into our schools. With all the pledges we’ll be reaching out to headteachers in Bristol and the South West. We hope this will encourage local academies to give more space to creativity in their curriculum. Bristol, being the creative city we know and love, can pave the way for other regions to do the same, showcasing the true value of creativity. PLEDGE 2. Sign up Join us by signing up to our newsletter where we share best practice of how to support young people. sign up 3. Find out more Join us by reading and sharing our CreativeYOU report which shows how our work brings opportunities for creative expression and enables young people to explore their talent, regardless of background or circumstance. Download our Creative YOU report Future Bodies Art Exhibition This blog was written by our placement student, Anna Wilson, who’s been working on the programme of cultural delivery and events at The Station since November 2022. Her blog is about the exhibition she led on from March – April. I am a third-year English and Theatre student at the University of Bristol, currently on placement with Creative Youth Network. As part of my placement, I was given the exciting opportunity to put on an art exhibition at The Station. We consulted with some of our young people and asked them to choose a theme from a list we had created. The theme they landed on was ‘Future Bodies’. Over the last few weeks, you might have come across the vibrant ‘Future Bodies’ exhibition, an exploration of the self in the digital age. We asked young artists to think about how changes in technology, politics, economics, and the environment affect our sense of identity through a medium of their choosing. We invited young people of all levels of experience and style to contribute artwork to the exhibition in the hope to brighten up the space. The artwork showcased pressing issues today; fears around climate change, the cost of living crisis and the increasing use of AI and robotics, with a clear focus on the importance of preserving the natural world. The brilliant pieces were accompanied by quotes such as: ‘The bills, will they save us’ ‘Dreaming of a better world’ ‘What we save saves us’ ‘Stop littering and save our planet’ ‘Stop driving start planting trees’ Their work highlights the harmful impacts of the burning of fossil fools, littering, and the construction industry as well as a hopeful plea for change. Some artists chose to focus on robotics, depicting themselves in robotic form, or drawing robotic hands. Others produced work in the style of Friedensreich Hundertwasser, one of Austria’s most famous avant-garde artists. His artwork reflects his philosophy, which is based on a harmonious interaction between man and nature: Manage Cookie Preferences How can we help?