Becoming X

Fresh. Buzz. Youthful. Playful. Daring. Difficult. Energising.
These are the words that are directing young creative practitioners in an English seaside town. I have just spent an afternoon with some twentysomething graphic designers at the Creative Media Centre in Hastings. They ditched careers in London and Brighton, unappealed by the lifestyle that designing for large corporate fashion and advertising houses could bring, in search for something more local. Their agenda was very much about being in the elevator at the ground floor. In a town undergoing heavy investment into its renaissance, these graphic designers, can see a horizon - a seachange occuring - in which the town develops a fresh, creative and distinctly cosmopolitan appeal. It is an alluring prospect. The Centre is a hive of a collective movement; each room a chamber for the realisation of graphic and digital dreams. If the town gets it right then such a space can be nurtured alongside more established enclaves of creative and artistic activity. But there are dangers. For the new breed coming out of the local college, it is abundant with opportunity in a market place that is distinctly absent from predators. Becoming X - having that special something that sets you apart and retains an authentic and youthful edge - might be enough for now, but won't last for ever. How long is it when your cultural referents (usually music, Kids TV, shopping, drinking) mature and you seem out of date. Becoming X and maintaining a place in the creative economy requires a negotiation of youth, and a retention of its spirit. In a town where a large majority have little esteem, or spirit of any sort, these creative hives take on a monastic presence - beacons for free expression and enrapturing design (one is even called The Beacon) - but at the margins of everyday life for the many. So we should add the following to the Becoming X agenda. Stratification. Exclusion. Minority. Refugee. Diaspora. White privilege. Monastery. (In)Tolerance. Understand and combat these with the energy and appeal of the terms above and the building blocks of local renaissance will fall into place.