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pandemic has levelled the playing field of removing all sense of community that relied on
social interaction. As a global phenomenon we have all been affected.

In a situation, such as a global pandemic, the creative arts offer a way to communicate with
fellow humans in a truly global language. Where written or spoken language fails, visual and
expressive languages conquer. Photography, film, visual arts, performance, sound, and
media have provided us all with a way to tell stories and share experiences from all corners
of the globe. When we all felt the greatest sense of isolation in recent human history,
creativity reconnected us, not just maintaining but improving and galvanising our
relationships. Art colleges have taken over empty shopfronts in town centres to replace
their traditional in-house final exhibitions, enabling a wider community audience to
experience the students’ work.

So what next...

As so much of our lives had become digital and screen based, we have started looking for
the new solutions to feed our creativity. This has led us to start to think about the
“analogue”, about how we use our bodies and brains in a non-digital way. The least likely
people have started knitting to give their loved one that lumpy odd scarf they’ve spent hours
over, people have started making water colours of the imagined view, they have decided to
cook the entire Jamie Oliver back catalogue.
We have had to look around us and start to build and create. We can watch YouTube and
learn new skills, we can order supplies off the internet, and we can start being creative, but
we need to supply the origins of that creativity, the thinking, the initial idea, and the space to
be creative. Companies have supported their employees by allowing time to explore ideas
and behaviours outside of their normal role and comfort zone. We have all had to think of
new innovative and at times radical ways of achieving objectives that had been seen as set
and immutable. Creativity can also be tiny alterations that allow you to be happier in the day
to day.

We need to now find a new balance that allows us to hold onto our newly discovered
creativity whilst trying to navigate a post-pandemic society. We need to take forward the
strengths and benefits of our learning and apply these to a new world. The future belongs
to the creative –thinkers, the storytellers, the innovators, and the inventors; this can be
everyone as these attributes are in everything we do as a society. Our differences can
inspire us, but our creative attributes unite us, together we can overcome anything.
By Matt Moseley and Vicky Cull – Chief Examiners for Art and Design subjects at UAL
Awarding Body

About the authors:

Matt Moseley and Vicky Cull are the Chief Examiners for Art & Design at the UAL Awarding
Body. They are both experienced educators and experts in the planning, delivery and
assessment of visual arts learning in further education. Matt is also a creative thinker and
practitioner with a background in Fine Art Printmaking. Vicky is a creative designer, thinker,
artist with a background in Science and Textiles.