As in; as in ‘I can think of six impossible things…’

Alice laughed. ‘There’s no use trying,’ she said. ‘One can’t believe impossible things.’

I daresay you haven’t had much practice,’ said the Queen. When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes, I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.’

― Lewis Carroll

Recently, amdist the driving demands for publication, mind you, written publication, because you know, goddess forbid, anyone dares imagine. A person may be able to think, imagine, or produce knowledge in any but the narrowest definitions, such as a published paper, in a dwindling list of recognised journals. I have been thinking about how one might imagine a place in academia that is a spur for creativity. Some ‘Centers for the less good idea’  borrow William Kentridge’s term. However, for creatives of all kinds. Enabling them the space to imagine six impossible things before breakfast.

In a world that has never before needed so many creative solutions to wicked problems and fosters so few by creating seemingly endless roadblocks to the kinds of thinking and research that may actually get us there, we must drive creative thinking beyond the narrow confines that the establishment places upon our minds. We must create creative havens, fund ludicrous ideas, and give space and time for fantastic projects since the institutions of this world seem determined to strip away the possibility of finding and practising that might lead to innovation.

Consider Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, a man of words, numbers, and logic. Yet, he found joy in imagining six impossible things before breakfast. This is a testament to the power of vivid imagination in the creative process. It’s not just about thinking, but about daring to imagine the impossible. And this, my friends, requires practice. It’s a labour that takes time and resources, and it needs a nurturing environment free of judgment, where one can try and fail.

There are two common hurdles to creativity that must be overcome in academic spaces:

TIME and MONEY.

These are the two largest and most interconnected constraints to creative outputs in the academic context.  To produce good, deep and sustained creative work we need to give people the space to be creative without the demands of success at all costs. Trying (PLAYING) is one of the biggest drivers of creativity; failure leads to learning, and sometimes happenstance sparks new and innovative ideas and solutions. That is not to say that one should only pursue creativity for creativity’s sake. But that, presently, creatives are so constrained that they are unable to create meaningfully at all.

Within the Academic space, the critical issue is Time; I would go further to suggest that at its core, what is stressed in DECECATED time.  That there should be, to foster good productive, creative work, time dedicated to practising. That time should be ring-fenced from all other distractions. While many executives aim at large tracks of time, which are almost impossible to carve out, in economic under-resources institutions.  We should head the ‘I dear say you have not had much PRACTICE.’  Part of that conversation, consistency in creative work, bears far more fruit over time than blocks of time.  It may actually be more achievable, with the system as it currently stands.  Money again, is critical in addressing some of these time constraints, as understaffing due to financial pressures places undue time constraints upon staff.  Secondly the cost of producing creative work, is more and more loaded onto the Staff member to fund, where previously one might be able to access departmental discretionary funding or external grant funding, that funding more recently ring-fenced for ‘Youth’ development,  Under 35’s, devaluing experience in creative research.  This means that mid-career creative academics either need to fund their work or return to full-time practice if they wish to participate in practice actively.

While I value practice. I am also of the opinion that, with Accademia in creative fields, there is a critical role to be played for people who are practised in teaching their craft and practised in discursive academic discussion about their craft.  Art requires a balance of theory and practice for depth of meaning to be produced.

Just-in-time planning permeases the academic space, cross-contaminated from the industry. The Critical space, with creative fields, is to find ways to ring fences time every week for open creative work, including making, writing, reflecting, discussing, and sharing ideas. If you do one thing in your department, it should be this. Allow your staff one day per week to focus on creating production, in any of those areas. Half the battle towards happy, inspired, creative staff that foster the creativity of the student body will be won. Staff that feel they must choose between their own creativity and fostering creativity will become hostile to the student body, give them room for their own work, and they will inspire others.  Perhaps as James Elkins suggests in his recent book, Art cannot be taught, perhaps a good way to inspire staff, is to give them space to imagine something new.

‘The idea of having public lectures to define a curriculum is not a bad one for any art school or art department. If it is rare, that may be because it requires an administrator who is also an art theorist—but there is no reason not to have a symposium on the organisation and purpose of a school or department, even if the school has been around for some time. I recommend this to any school or department: it’s always interesting to see what faculty produce when they’re asked about the purpose of their institution….[1]

Sometims perhaps the thing is to try, to be creative.

Happy Creating

[1] Elkins, James. Why Art Cannot Be Taught: A Handbook for Art Students (p. 22). University of Illinois Press. Kindle Edition.