On Thursday the 24th of November I attended a session on freelancing and self employment in the creative industry, an enterprise event available for students in the LSAD which took place at 10am in the morning in The John Foster Auditorium in the LSAD. We received a welcome from the Centre for Entrepreneurship, who are located on Mount Pleasant and then passed over to Nathan Jones, creative director from Mercy (design agency and literature and arts collective) Liverpool, who provided a thought provoking and inspiring key note speech which helped ignite entreprenurial sparks. We got the opportunity to meet the LJMU 'Fellows' past and present, who received funding to set up their own businesses. They spoke in depth about their various practices in fine art, architecture and design and answered questions concerning difficuilties they faced along the way. I have always thought about starting my own business when I finish university so this conversation was really ideal for me to gain an insight how to go about it from the initial plans. The students were then split up into 'green rooms', the majority being fashion and design students and I happened to be the only fine art student, so that left me with 4 professional local entrepreneurs from the creative industries to talk about my ideas to. At first I thought to myself that this was going to be like an interview, really intimidating and awkward but it actually turned out to be a brilliant opportunity that benefitted me greatly. The professionals there to speak with me included Sally Medlyn, director and creative consultant at Independant Cultural Consultants and Jump Ship Rat, Liverpool, David Cornett, director of Snow Architects ltd, Liverpool, Jenny Roberts, managing director at Sprocket Design Consultancy, Lancaster and Andrew Small, artist and sculptor, Liverpool. We sat in a circle in the auditorium and had a discussion for about 30-40 minutes about how I can take advantage of the close networks in Liverpool and gave me great websites, galleries, organizations to look up and to go see. They really gave me an insight to what it takes to be a success in the creative industry and how I should be beginning now to develop contacts and networks which I feel I accomplished that day. When the discussion came to an end they each gave me their business cards. I am very glad I attended this event, it was extremely motivational and insightful to lots of opportunities within Liverpool for an art student like myself that I would have been otherwise unaware of!
Jump Ship Rat
ability to move in any direction
with speed and agility
and fit through the narrowest of entrance/exit points
or to make them appear
ability to recognize when the ship you're on is in trouble
to survive
to be held in wildly different regard
to be vilified
to be used to understand the human condition
to be able to startle human senses
to be open to misinterpretation
to be clearly recognized and understood
to have power and strength in numbers
to make a distinctive noise
to be heard
to be part of the night
daytime appearances to be committed to memory
public consciousness to be affected
to become immune to poison
to survive many efforts to be eradicated
to be mythologized
and exaggerated
made folklore
warning to society
pied piper is Santa Claus
occupation of disused spaces
unswerving pursuit of life
celebrating what others disregard
living in slums and palaces
the underground home
great fucking tunes
social shifts
cultural exchange
time changes
mean time
jump ship rat
JUMP SHIP RAT
JUMP SHIP RAT
JUMP SHIP RAT
