Poet, philosopher and cultural critic Raymond Tallis and writer and former museum director Julian Spalding look at why artists create their work and why we all feel the need for them. Tallis believes the arts spring from our inability to fully experience our experiences and from a hunger for a more rounded and complete sense of the world. Tallis and Spalding worked together on Summers of Discontent: The Purpose of the Arts Today.

Tallis is a former professor of geriatric medicine at the University of Manchester and author of more than 20 books of fiction, poetry, philosophy and criticism. Spalding is a former director of the Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow and of galleries in Manchester and Sheffield, and author of more than a dozen works of art history.