BOM - CREATIVE SOCIAL ENTERPRISE

"Where art, science and technology collide."

BOM is a centre for art, technology and science dedicated to creative innovation with purpose.

Located in central Birmingham, less than one minute’s walk from New Street Station and the Bullring, our gallery is free to enter and presents cutting edge digital artworks and exhibitions that spark debate about technology and scientific progress.

BOM is dedicated to positive social impact in all that we do. Our exhibitions and events explore topical issues in digital culture and science which impact on human lives. Our education work engages excluded children, young people and adults in creative technology programmes, with a particular interest in neurodiversity and technology.

Doing more research into social enterprise businesses I found BOM, which is an ideal reference to what I am trying to create for my final project.

On their website they have created a short video series covering what a creative social enterprise consists of and what can differ from one creative social enterprise to another.

In the videos they invited various other creative social enterprise businesses in to chat about their businesses, who they benefit, what they do and what issues they have faced.

The great thing about our delicious, premium hand-made gluten-free French macaroons isn’t just that they taste amazing. It’s that they’re made to make a difference. Every penny we make in profit is invested in helping young people who need a helping hand, gain skills that will change their lives.

Miss Macaroon is a high end high quality high finish macaroon company that provides the delicious little sweet things to clients such as John Lewis and many other well known high street names, they also provide them for corporate events as well as private functions such as weddings.

Miss Macaroon hires vulnerable children who are dealing with foster care and the process that troubles so many young children in the UK. The profit that is made is also invested back into the company and back into the recruitment and training of these individuals.

This is a really important point as, from the outside you would think that this small boutique macaroon company is made up of university degree chefs and bakers who wouldn't dream of letting vulnerable children into the kitchen, but in fact it is the complete opposite.

What I found was most important is the fact that she then went on to say that although she had the vision of purely helping vulnerable people and people who need these opportunities but this vision was holding her business back as to actually make this company work meant that she did need help from professionals meaning it become a training programme as well as a bakery. She now has a policy of 3 professionals to 1 trainee which she believes is the best way to get the best out of both the trainees and the company.

An important point was that having so many vulnerable children in a kitchen who all need different training and different personal needs was extremely difficult to control, so being flexible with getting help from professionals and 'outsiders' was important.

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"I use to technology & design principles from my years in the

games industry to build games that take place in the real world."

John Sears interactive games that are made to bring people together, for example, he creates interactive touch boards which rely on user collaboration (in person) to solve the game.

John used to work in the video game industry for Xbox but has now taken a different path which is to bring interactive in person video games to places such as museums, castles and theatres.

What I really like about John is that he took the idea of video games, made them a collaborative, interactive activity and put them into the most exciting, interesting sites in the UK (Castles, Museums etc.). Utilising the pre existing spaces around him to push his video games further is interesting to me as it took it a completely different level because it was not only a video game, it was now an educational video game in a beautiful surrounding.

As well as this, his business was split into two, he would design and develop advanced level video games with big budgets for companies but would also then make the same video game in a cheaper, easier form for smaller businesses and would then create workshops on how to make the video game AND upload tutorials, for free, showing how to do it. I believe this is a really good thing to do as it takes down any barriers for individuals and businesses to be able to do what the larger companies can do as well as learning the education and training behind the ideas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqVlETFzvj0&list=PLHTa13vir4fV1jZEZgeHY4sL-rFRWlW-n&index=5

"Our vision is to co-create a world in which artists are free to dream, play, lead

and create without limitations or barriers."

MAIAI is a creative social enterprise business that well, wants to do just about everything.

But to summarise, they want to bring entire communities together to create a fully sustainable society that allows for artists to not just thrive but profit off comfortably - So everything is somewhat in the balance.

it became clear the problems preventing artists from living and working freely were systemic and wouldn’t have quick solutions. We couldn’t talk about sustaining creativity in communities without acknowledging the ways power and privilege manifest in society.

Driving towards this dream gave them more information on the difficulties that they are going to face if they are going to create this 'utopia'. From issues coming from privilege to government laws to actual planning permission, their dream was clear but they realised that it isn't going to be as easy as they once thought.

This is the main thing I am going to take away from this interview and what Amahra Spence had to say regarding her experience with creative social enterprise and the business behind it - My project, although it has a clear vision and idea behind it, will get very political and require not just myself but the institutions behind it to look, think and realise what the issues behind austerity, poverty, crime and gang crime are and to believe that there is a way to fix it that isnt blaming music, because we all know that is a clear scape goat for the government to pass blame.