Urbanism festival Torinostratosferica may have been born to reflect and examine its namesake city of Turin, but its remit goes well beyond the Piedmontese capital. Taking place this weekend, the three-day conference was set up by a team that also organises city breaks dedicated to creative types hungry for transnational inspiration. The festival’s line-up is all the better for being equally as outward-looking: today’s highlights include an address by the Canadian architect Jean Beaudoin. An appetite for exploring notions of utopia is also one of the festival’s strongest assets. In an Italian context, too often burdened by bureaucracy, big ideas are a powerful tool with at least one tangible consequence: to shake up morale and a discourse often demoralised by the details.

An elevator full of sharply dressed creative types clutching coconut water, a list of buzzwords on a whiteboard, a tense conference call about the best way to sell mouthwash; these are all familiar scenes for photographer David Stewart. “I’ve worked in advertising for most of my career,” says Stewart, whose exhibition Paid Content takes place this weekend in East London’s Wren Gallery. This clash of corporate and creative worlds provides the brilliantly sardonic humour behind Stewart’s work. “Over the years I’ve noticed how creativity is gradually being diluted by committee decisions,” he says. “I wanted to hold a mirror up to the industry and give it a gentle prod.”