What does it mean to be ‘creative’? What’s the point of a creative education? What happens at art school?

Academics, critics and creative practitioners, including Grayson Perry, Siobhan Davies, Richard Deacon, Neil Cummings,  Lucy Orta, Bob and Roberta Smith, Marvin Gaye Chetwynd, Nils Norman, Sonia Boyce, Roger Hiorns, and Scott King consider these questions and more in The Creative Stance, an authoritative and innovative contribution to the literature on creativity.

Essays and interviews with over 30 high-profile contributors are published here, alongside lavish images of artworks, exhibitions and actions that evidence contemporary creativity.

Structured around seven key creative values – imagination, provocation, risk, resilience, rigour, agency and ambiguity – The Creative Stance reflects on the rewards and demands of creative endeavour, from filmmaking to sound art, painting to protest.

Bringing together materials and musings from across and beyond the traditional artistic disciplines, it is essential reading for the first-time art student, the entrepreneur, and anyone who has ever felt the need to create.

This book was launched in November 2016 at the Creative Industries Federation in London, featuring an exclusive reading from Grayson Perry.