Creative Changemakers

We are celebrating

People at every stage of their career who have used their creativity to make a real impact.

In 2023, we’re shining the spotlight on a shortlist of six Creative Changemakers  where creativity has changed the world in the last year. We’re also celebrating four Emerging Changemakers whose work is reshaping the creative industries that they work in.

Both lists have been nominated by the staff and students in our creative community.

In autumn, a panel of industry experts will select the team or individual behind the moment that has had the greatest impact as our Creative Changemaker of 2023. 

The selection will be made based on their creativity, accessibility, contribution to society, collaboration and future legacy.  

Creative Changemakers 2023

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Creative Changemakers 2023

Find out more about our Creative Changemakers 2023 list...

Jason M Allen - Theatre d'Opera Spatial

Théâtre D'opéra Spatial © 2022 Jason M. Allen

When ‘Theatre d’Opera Spatial’ won the digital category at the Colorado State Fair fine art competition it became one of the first artworks created using AI tools to win such a prize.

Jason’s use of the generative AI programme sparked a heated global debate and a backlash from artists who accused him of cheating. But he had openly credited his use of AI in his entry, believing that his collaboration demonstrates a progressive tool within the creative industry. He responded: "I’m not going to apologise for it… I didn’t break any rules”

Besides winning this award, Jason runs a studio, Incarnate Games, which produces tabletop games. His exploration of AI began with a curiosity of how the new breed of AI image generators would compare with the human artists whose works he commissioned.

Jason was invited to a Discord chat server where people were testing Midjourney, a platform that uses a process known as ‘diffusion’, turning text into custom images. Consequently, he became very passionate about this process and began creating hundreds of images, one of which he submitted to the Colorado art competition.

Jason wanted to create a change in the industry and inspire others to use AI as a tool for their own art. The publicity around ‘Theatre d’Opera Spatial’ certainly achieved that.

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Emerging Creative Changemakers 2023

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Emerging Creative Changemakers 2023

Find out more about our Emerging Creative Changemakers 2023 list...

Photography by Charlotte Regan, A man carrying a child in his arms

Charlotte Regan

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Film director Charlotte Regan tells working-class stories differently. Her debut feature, Scrapper, won a Sundance World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic in January 2023 and opened the London Sundance Film Festival in July.

Charlotte grew up in London and started shooting grime videos when she was fifteen. Her reportage shots of the London riots were published in all of the UK’s papers. After graduating from Ravensbourne in 2016, her first short film premiered at the Toronto Film Festival and won a Sundance award, a BFI fellowship and a BAFTA nomination. Charlotte still shoots music videos, as well as commercials with Knucklehead and TVs show for Apple.

Speaking about Scrapper, she told Sundance: “The working class films I had seen didn’t feel like the truth of what I felt growing up. To me, those worlds are full of happiness. There’s for sure struggle and tough moments, but what never falters is the joy and the love. The dark humour that comes out of not having much. As a kid, in particular, I feel like you don’t know that your upbringing is any different to anyone else’s. You look around and see magic everywhere you look.”

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