A spiritual home for creativity: The case of an artist-led collective

This paper explores a ‘spiritual home’, a place of meaning for the contemporary artists and musicians who live and work in Islington Mill, an artist-led organisation, defined by the “deeply held beliefs” (Lips-Wiersma & Mills, 2014: 159) of its creator. In re-imagining other organisational forms in contemporary times, where there is a search for meaning and connectedness, beyond the dominant, arguably, self- interested, neo liberal ideology, this paper seeks to contribute to the Workplace Spirituality literature. It does so by exploring the “whole person” (Sheep, 2006: 357), through a life history methodology, to present an understanding of how meaningfulness is created through the spirit of non profit, independent, artist-led collective that supports, enables and influences the lives and work of those who work within it.