This will be a discussion and audience Q&A event connected to the new book by Dr Simon Strange, Blank Canvas, exploring the impact of art school Britain in the 1960s and 1970s – a hotbed of experimental DIY creativity blurring the lines between art and music.

Blank Canvas, multi-genre musician turned university lecturer, Strange paints a picture of the diverse range of people who broke down the barriers between art, life and the creative self.

Tracing lines from the Bauhaus ‘blank slate’ through the white heat of the Velvet Underground and the cutting edge of the Slits, Blank Canvas draws on interviews with giants of the creative fields, across music, gender and race spectrums, from Brian Eno to Pauline Black, Cabaret Voltaire to Gaye Advert. Illustrated is a picture of two decades erupting in a devastatingly diverse flow of outspoken originality as an eclectic range of musical styles and cultures fused.

This book asks questions of today’s artists, musicians, and educators, looking for the essence of creativity and suggests how lessons learnt in and around art school education show a path for the cultural evolution of both musicians and artists hoping to create the future. The evening will explore the concept that with a Blank Canvas, anything is possible in creative development.

VENUE: EXETER PHOENIX, WORKSHOP

This event is an external hire