Uk Government suggests creatives should ‘Rethink. Reskill. Reboot’
Boris Johnston - Stefan Rousseau / pool / Getty
Uk Government suggests creatives should ‘Rethink. Reskill. Reboot’
Words: Dylan Murphy
2020 is just one big collective sigh.
This morning social media erupted in reaction to an ad campaign from the UK Government that suggested those in the arts should consider a career switch. The ad in question depicted a ballerina and said “Fatima’s next job could be in cyber (she just doesn’t know it yet)”.
The timing of the ads is comically bad. They have arrived off the back of comments from the Chancellor Rishi Sunak who encouraged people in Britain to retrain which also invited huge backlash.
The arts have suffered hugely during the pandemic, with artists, sound engineers, event programmers and numerous other people within the industry being left with little to no source of income.
The Culture minister replied to the backlash of the campaign on Twitter saying, “This is not something from the Department of Culture and I agree it was crass”
According to Arts Council England, prior to the pandemic, the arts and culture industry contributed more than £10bn a year to the UK economy.
