“I am neither a pessimist nor an optimist, I am a vigilant mind.” —Edgar Morin
Welcome to the July Methods and Madness: Notes on Creativity.
Let’s get straight into this month’s creative prompt.
For this I am borrowing from The House of Beautiful Business’ latest Beauty Shots newsletter. The House is a platform and global community that aims to recreate business practice as something that is more loving and generative for the planet and the creatures who live on it, including us. Even though its mission is aimed at business, I really enjoy how interdisciplinary The House is in its approach, and its programs, events, and content are created by progressive thinkers from a broad range of sectors, including the arts, humanities, community, environmental, social justice, and social enterprise sectors (alongside the usual suspects from business, tech, and the like).
The House is a big fan of the quirky and the playful as ways of shifting rusted on mindsets, and in their Beauty Shots newsletter they recently asked us to consider exercising ‘unnecessary’ superpowers. You can check out the newsletter and the rest of the suggestions yourself here, but I am sharing my favourite with you today as a creative prompt:
“Put your personal motto onto a t-shirt
We all have that one phrase that we live by, the encapsulation of our beliefs that we may or may not have told anyone, ever. Live your truth by walking around with your ‘self slogan’ burned onto your chest. Observe how the world around you responds (or not).”
I’m always saying to myself ‘I should put that on a t-shirt’ so no wonder I liked this suggestion. If it were me, I would borrow from Morin as quoted above: “I am a vigilant mind.”
What would you put?
And if you like the clothing theme of this creative prompt, revisit the prompt I sent out as part of last year’s Advent series. I used this prompt in one of my recent events and it inspired some delightful and creative conversation; I am currently planning more events so stay tuned.
A resource
Coming up in November this year is Arizona State University School for the Future of Innovation in Society’s ‘Emerge: A Festival of Futures’. The theme is food, and Emerge invites us to
“think and taste our way through asking what alternative forms of food production, distribution and consumption we should consider to build a more inclusive, equitable and delicious culinary world.”
One nifty exercise they suggest is inventing recipes for the future:
As our environment changes, what ingredients will (should) be available to you where you live?
How might you combine them to make a dish?
The exercise as outlined on thus webpage is for high school students, but I think it could be a thought-provoking exercise for anyone. Included on the webpage are printable pdf templates that can be used for classes or workshops.
Or just for yourself.
Upcoming events
3-5 August, online: The Creativity Conference: “re-inspiring and re-invigorating creative minds of all kinds from around the world.”
4 August, online: What happens when you remember the future? Servane Mouzan hosts a foresight session designed to engage participants with “imagining and reflecting with ease in a space free of judgement and interruption.” To cater for different time zones there are 2 sessions:
30 August, online: Australian arts and cultural workers taking action on the converging planetary climate and ecological crises meet up as the Cultural Gardeners on the last Tuesday of each month.
Register by 1 September for face-to-face festival Sirenos which “showcases Lithuanian theatre and performing arts for international theatre professionals.”
28 September, online: It me! Talking about this Substack! I’m guest speaking at the Melbourne Knowledge Management Leadership Forum on Creating in fragments: Substack as a tool for reaching the time poor.
Opportunities
1 August: Submissions due for ExperimentalRealism, “A highly visual edited collection of short textual stories and visual artefacts showcasing visions of plural possible futures, from the minds, hands and hearts of those currently absent.”
1 August: Applications due for Bundanon Artists Residency – “Accessible Arts partners with Bundanon to present an annual residency program specifically for artists with disability or who are d/Deaf.”
2 August: Applications due for the Helsinki International Artist Programme.
5 August: Applications due - “Science Gallery Melbourne is inviting proposals for their 2023 exhibition DARK MATTERS, which will be developed in collaboration with Arts at CERN”
13 August: “… for our October 2022 issue, we (Modern Poetry in Translation) invite poetry on foodways—cooking, eating, agriculture, the impact of colonial extractivism on cuisines as intrinsic to heritages, foraging, feasts and celebrations, hunger, culinary memories, futurist menus, and otherwise-odes to the edible.”
15 August: “Emerge… seeks short experimental film submissions for screening at its 2022 festival… Eating at the Edges playfully explores what it means to eat in a time of increasing environmental extremes.”
31 August: Aesthetica invites poetry and fiction writers to enter the Creative Writing Award.
1 September: “The Master program ‘Performing Public Space’ (PPS) invites guest artists from a variety of backgrounds to apply with proposals to host interactive, on-site workshops for our students. (Fontys Campus Tilburg, The Netherlands)”
1 September: Copenhagen Contemporary has an open call for artists, architects, designers, curators, landscape architects or others who are in any way professionally engaged in art or architecture in the public space to send proposals.
Thank you so much for reading!
If you like what I do, then please share this Substack on your socials so I can pick up some more subscribers. And why not consider becoming a paid subscriber – you get a fortnightly creative prompt emailed to you plus either free or discounted tickets to my workshops.