Creating the Space to Think Differently
Written by Belinda Dillon, Creative Arc Programme Manager
During the development phase of Creative Arc, one of the constant ambitions for the programme was that creativity would be at the heart of every part of the process. Although the programme was conceived to provide increased access to and opportunities across the arts, culture and heritage sector, we also want to ensure that creativity is key to how we engage with communities, stakeholders and researchers; not just through partnering with cultural practitioners to ‘bring’ the creativity, but by providing the tools and the space for everyone involved to take the leap into imaginative possibilities.
The other essential component of the programme is for community voices to be part of the process from the beginning – working with researchers, stakeholders and our programme team to explore the thematic challenges, bringing their lived experience to the table, and even co-designing the commission call-outs where appropriate.
So, how to bring together people from different walks of life, with varied experiences and knowledge, and provide the right environment for them to work together quickly, effectively, and creatively on those ‘wicked problems’ within the themes of Health & Wellbeing, Environmental Sustainability, and People & Place-shaping?
The answer is Design Thinking, a human-centred approach to creative problem-solving, that can be used to address a variety of personal, social and business challenges in new ways. The process is especially suited to groups working collaboratively to explore a wide range of creative possibilities – even when people in those groups don’t think of themselves as ‘creative’.
Design Thinking Facilitation training, July 2023. Photos by Theo Moye.
Through the Innoplay Studio at University of Exeter, we offered a free three-day training programme to individuals from across the Greater Exeter area in Design Thinking Facilitation – building their skills in supporting groups of people to think creatively together about a specific challenge, to come up with ideas, and to move towards possible solutions, collectively.
The trainees came from across the creative sector, including professional theatremakers, musicians, artists, printmakers and performers, as well as arts managers, coaches, mentors, and teachers who had a creative practice of their own. We workshopped ideas, drew cartoons and storyboards, made prototypes out of pipe cleaners and cardboard, imagined scenarios and tested them out on each other. It was intense, inspiring, challenging, and playful. And it demonstrated how we, as Creative Arc, can create the right environment to encourage innovative thinking among everyone we engage with, in order to come up with new, creative approaches to the challenges we want to address.