creativity challenge 2015 handbook

17 - 19 April 2015 Hosted by TLC Educational TrustLower Hutt, Wellington

Handbook

Welcome to the Challenge!Jonathan Milne

a fallen fence, is The Learning Connexion, the only tertiary education in New Zealand totally dedicated to creativity. TLC’s campus used to be part of the old Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. It’s a fitting home for a school that works with art as a medium to connect creativity across boundaries.Science, arts, technology, business and education are pushing like tectonic plates to shape a new human landscape. How should we respond?

Creativity happens on the edge. That’s where boundaries meet and change has to happen.Aotearoa New Zealand is on the edge. Heaving tectonic plates produce mountains, earthquakes and volcanoes that push us into new ways of thinking.Our conference venue is on the edge. Most of the workshops are based at Taita College, an extraordinary multicultural school in a low decile area. Next door, across

My own list of questions includes:How can we reconcile people and the new machine age?How can we create a higher level of equity and better opportunities for everyone?How can we reconnect disciplines that have become separated?How can creativity help us to reconnect with our individual and collective potential? We hope this conference will be the beginning of a

positive seismic shift. We want to establish creativity, with its potential to create a portfolio of higher learning and innovative thinking, in a leading role. Ultimately all individual disciplines would connect within this framework. This is what we mean by the proposition that creativity crosses boundaries.

17thFriday

APRIL

2.00 - 3.00pm

3.00 - 4.00pm

Break-out Sessions

4.00 - 5.30pm

Block B.2

Block B.3

Block B.4

Block B.5

Block C.2

Block C.5

Registration

Powhiri and Welcome

4 x 20 min Presentations in Hall

Mike Grady | How to Turn your College (Institute) into a Work of Art

Jonathan Milne | Come to Your Senses

Alison Brown | Creativity Therapy

Peter Adsett | Painting and Architecture

90 Minute Workshops

David Kayrouz | PEARL - Creative Learning Cycle

Alice Wilson Milne | Two Wings to Fly

Dr Ralph Kerle | It’s All True - The Gifts of Light and Shade in the Power of Paradox

Dr Cathryn Lloyd & Michelle Walker | Crossing Boundaries through Collective Visual Imaging and Imagining

Francois Coetzee | Getting your Ideating Brain from Bust to Boom!

Robert Alan Black | Become a Living Cartoon or Clown

Hot Arts Demonstration & Student Exhibition at The Learning Connexion

VIP Event

5.45 - 6.45pm

6.45 - 7.30pm

18thSaturday8.00 - 9.00am

9.00 - 10.30am

10.30 - 11.00am

11.00 - 12.30pm

12.30 - 1.30pm

Break-out Sessions

1.30 - 3.00pm

Registration

Keynote

Professor Robert & Dr Michele Root-Bernstein | The Polymath’s Key to Creativity

Morning Tea

4 x 20 minute Presentations in Hall

Trevor Moeke | Creativity - Imagine - Native - Indigenous Insights - Creativity

Jenny Rock | How to Feel Like a Shark and Think Like an Ocean: When arts practice informs science

Dr Steven Pritzker | Is Creativity a General or Domain Specific Trait? Implications for education

Jim Yellowhawk | Immersed in the Arts of my Ancestors

Lunch


Dr Nick Wilson | “20 Minutes”

Henry Sunderland | A Creative Earth Journey: From garden gnomes and the South Pole, on art cars and road cones, to guardian G.N.O.M.Es, the North Pole and beyond…

Janet Mazenier | Creativity Crossing Boundaries - The Workplace

Dr Ruth Richards | Chaos and Creativity: 4 Steps 2 New Creative Power

1.30 - 3.00pm

3.00 - 3.30pm

4 x 20 min Presentations in Block B.2

Bruce Corson | Designing Day One - Introduction: Securing a Haven for Creative Collaboration

Dr Lee Martin | Creativity, Sustainability and Environmental Challenges: Helping the World to Jiggle

Dr Cathryn Lloyd | Body Mapped: Rich Pictures for Self-inquiry

Bob Eckert | The Innovation Imperative: Where the arts, business, education and community come together

90 Minute Workshops

Alison Brown | “State of the Art” - Creating a “Creativity Arts, and Humanities in Health Network” in New Zealand

Pip Cotton | A few strange ideas about the origins of image-making, creative minds and symbolic consciousness: A Systems Approach to Culture, Consciousness and Creative Transference

Nicola Pauling | Theatre, the Great Equalizer: Create, educate and unite a community with deep fun and active participation

Peter Adsett & Mary Alice Lee | Pressing

Robert Alan Black | Pick UP Your Pencil and Show it!

Afternoon tea

APRIL

18thSaturday

Block B.3

Block B.4

Block B.5

Block C.2

Block C.5

5.10pm - 5.40pm

6.30 - 10.00pm

Michelle Walker | Beyond Words: The Power of Working Visually

Damian Ruth | Creativity and the Art of Work

90 Minute Workshops

Wayne Morris | Create! Crossing Personal Boundaries

Lee Martin & Nick Wilson | What’s Wrong with Creativity

Bob Eckert | Building Sustained Innovation Cultures

Gaia Grant | How to Activate Creative Thinking: Practical tools for triggering psychological and sociological enablers

Bruce Corson | Designing Day One - Implementing Strategies for Securing a Haven for Creative Collaboration

Mike Grady | Chi - The Tao of Creativity

PanelTopic: Identify aspects of creativity that are able to cross boundaries. What would this look like?

Conference Dinner

Block B.2

Block B.3

Block B.4

Block B.5

Block C.2

Block C.5


David Kayrouz | The Missing Link - Making Meaning

Wynne Pirini | How to Get the Right People to Buy Your Creation

Break-out Sessions

3.30 - 5.00pm

19thSunday

APRIL

9.00 - 10.00am

10.00-10.30am

Break-out Sessions

10.30 - 12.00pm

12.00 - 1.00pm

Keynote

Professor Arthur Cropley | Transferable Criteria of Creativity: A Universal Aesthetic

Morning Tea


Eryn Gribble | Get Better Work Stories - The Stories of Alpha Art Studio

Louis Smith | Creativity Crosses Community Boundaries

Lillian Hetet | From Te Po - The Darkness, to Te Aro Marama - The World of Light

Gaia Grant | Is Creativity at Risk of Dying Off?: How to build a more creative future for the next generation

90 Minute Workshops at TLC Campus

Dan Wilkinson | Sensory Expressions

Sam Hughes | Release your inner child

Basia Smolnicki | Cut Paste Copy Print

Sarah Brock | (Including Painting)

Shea Stackhouse | Mokume-gane: Creative Process

Lunch

PanelHow can we support creativity crossing boundaries? What practical steps can we take to accelerate this?

Discussion

Closing

1.00 - 1.30pm

1.30 - 2.15pm

2.15 - 2.45pm

Peter Adsett

Mary Alice Lee

Peter Adsett, PhD, regularly exhibits art in Australia, New Zealand, New York and Boston. His work is displayed in various institutions and museums. One of his collaborations was with Sam Kebbell on “Humbug” resulting in a dialogue between painting and architecture.

Born in Tasmania, Australia, Mary Alice Lee took an MA in Fine Arts at Melbourne University and a PhD in Art History at Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore). Her fields of study were Italian Baroque art and literature, and twentieth century art.During recent decades she has published in Word and Image, Art and Australia, Eyeline, Imprint, Bulletin of the National Gallery of Victoria, curated exhibitions, including several for Peter Adsett (in New York and Canberra) and written catalogue essays.

Painting and Architecture

When Fri 17 April, 4pmWhere HallDuration 20mins

PressingPeter Adsett & Mary Alice LeeWhen Sat 18 April, 1.30pmWhere Block C.2Duration 90mins

Humbug is the result of a dialogue between an architect, Sam Kebbell, and a painter, Peter Adsett. The project was a process where ideas were formed and tested through this dialogue. We set out to investigate the space between painting and architecture. The intention was not to apply paint pictorially but rather to think ‘in painting’ as a disciplinary structure while making architecture and, conversely, to bring architectural thinking to the ‘construction of painting’. The connection we pursued was not any representational device common to both; the connection was the experience of space and surface.

This workshop will require participants to engage with chosen materials in order to realise the verb “to press”, or “pressing”. The aim is to remove the planning and designing stage from creative activity, so that artwork is never ‘applied’. This approach encourages a sensitivity to the operation of materials and focuses awareness on the making process, rather than concentrating on ’ideas’, which are a priority and therefore outside the work of art.

Robert Alan Black

Robert Alan Black, PhD, CSP Creativity, is a creativity consultant. “Between 1950 and 1961, through our family summer trips, I was in 48 mainland states and made it 49 by going to Hawaii in 2002. Since 1977 I have been in 93 countries and still continue to travel each year.”

Alan has worked in a wide variety of professions and completed five degrees. To Alan being creative is a daily choice, one that we can all make in our lives.

Become a Living Cartoon or Clown

When Fri 17 April, 4pmWhere Block C.5Duration 90mins

Pick UP Your Pencil and Show It!

When Sat 18 April, 1.30pmWhere Block C.5Duration 90mins

Using techniques of clowning, cartooning, improv we can become “LIVING CARTOONS” to tap and expand to explode our personal and professional creativeness, creativity and creative thinking. This session will integrate Clowning, Cartooning and Improv Acting Games to provide you with more instant creative thinking skills.

The primary goal is to tap the child you left behind when you turned 9 years old, then became a teacher and then an adult.

Reawaken the creative spirit you once had.

When you were a young child you drew with crayons, pens, markers. Chances are you put them away before you turned 12. You have lost great potential for creative thinking by not doodling, drawing, sketching or thinking visually. This fun session is for you. It will provide you a chance to reawaken and then expand your doodling, drawing, sketching and visual thinking skills to help you EXPLODE YOUR CREATIVITY.

Sarah Brock

Sarah’s background is a conglomerate of creative problem solving - graphic designer, art director, IT Project Manager, portrait artist (Adam Portrait Award finalist), sculptor, contemporary artist (Molly Morpeth Canaday Merit Art Award winner).

Trained in South Africa and the UK, she has been tutoring painting and sculpture at The Learning Connexion since 2012.

(Including Paint)

When Sun 19 April, 10.30amWhere TLC CampusDuration 90mins

It is important as creatives to know how to activate the state of mind where creativity can flow. It is our business to chase down and cultivate ‘what if’ moments and follow them through.

This workshop is an exercise in doing just that. Each workshop participant will be given a set of materials (including paint) and be encouraged to explore as many ‘what if’s’ in combinations of those materials (including paint) that they can find in the time available. Suitable for those with painting experience and those with none. As an exercise for creative thinking it works for everyone.

Bring along your ‘outside of the box’ thinking and let’s have some fun. Unless you want to paint the box. Sigh. There’s always one.

Dr Alison Brown

Born and educated in Scotland, I have lived in New Zealand since 1985.

Professionally I have worked as a psychiatrist in various clinical roles in New Zealand’s public health sector. Over the years my work has been based mainly in Wellington. Most recently I have worked in Northland in Community Mental Health services, and currently I am, for the short term, based in Thames.

“State of the Art” - Creating a “Creativity Arts, and Humanities in Health Network” in New Zealand

When Sat 18 April, 1.30pmWhere HallDuration 90mins

Introduction to what currently exists in this area – locally and internationally.

Then exploring – who and what to involve, what a network might look like and how it could “work”.

Creativity Therapy


An Unplanned Journey - a personal wander around the diversity, divergence, contradictions and personalities in Creativity and Therapy.

A “gatherers” approach to the interactions and involvement, focusing on imagination and empathy.

Francois Coetzee

For the past 25 years Francois Coetzee has been solving challenging client problems using creative thinking and processes. He’s a Master Practitioner of NLP, Master Practitioner of Ericksonian Hypnotherapy, NLP Coach and Trainer, NBI Wholebrainer Practitioner and Enterprise Architect.

Neuroplosion – Getting your Ideating Brain from Bust to Boom!

When Fri 17 April, 4pmWhere Block C.2Duration 90mins

Do you ever wish you could come up with new and exciting thinking, on the spot, inside or outside the box?

If you continuously have similar thought patterns, the neurons in your brain form into patterns that create habitual thinking. This is good for mastering skills, BUT it counts against us when we want to be at the edge of the exciting world of creative thinking and idea generation.

Bruce Corson

Bruce Corson has coordinated and coached cross-disciplinary design teams for 35 years, provided professional education for NASA, environmental studies and architectural energy design at Cal-Berkeley and both architectural and cross-disciplinary collaborative design at Cornell University.

Designing Day One - Introduction: Securing a Haven for Creative Collaboration

When Sat 18 April, 1.30pmWhere Block B.2Duration 20mins

Designing Day One - Implementing Strategies for Securing a Haven for Creative Collaboration


Conventional ‘expert’ collaborations recognise only familiar problems and familiar solutions. Their focus is doing the job right. However, if we hope to design creative solutions, we must conduct our collaborations with a fundamentally different strategy - one that maximises our collective potential for discovery. This begins with establishing a secure haven for engaging and sustaining the exploratory abilities and sensibilities that support our most basic responsibility – doing the right job.

This workshop will introduce a novel approach to effective collaboration - one based in developing and securing creative havens from which we can effectively engage problematic situations. Working with such situations from our own personal and professional lives, we will explore how we detect them, illuminate the boundaries that constrain them, distill elegant problems from them, and define success in resolving them. We will emerge as much better collaborative designers.

Dr Pip Cotton

Pip Cotton, PhD, is director of I.A.M (Inquiry into Art and Mind). Since late 2002 he has worked periodically as a contract researcher with The Learning Connexion. His association with TLC is on-going and he is a member of the school’s External Advisory Panel.

A few strange ideas about the origins of image-making,creative minds and symbolic consciousness:A Systems Approach to Culture, Consciousness and Creative Transference


This workshop takes discussion about creative processes and transference into a ‘trans-disciplinary’ framework and the premise that ‘consciousness’, ‘culture’ and ‘creativity’ are interdependent elements and processes that function and change ‘systemically’ through time. While ‘system’ views of creativity are not new, a novel perspective is offered which focuses on the first human image-making (40,000 – 11,000 BCE) and how this connects to both our deeper pre-human past and contemporary image-making.

Arthur Cropley

After working as a school teacher Arthur Cropley taught at universities in Australia, Canada, Germany and Latvia. He was editor of the European Journal for High Ability, and is the author of 28 books which have appeared in a dozen languages. He has published on creativity and crime, as well as urging the application of creativity as a general instructional technique at all levels of education. He also translated the Latvian national epic Lāčplēsis (Bearslayer) into English epic verse. He has been married to Alison Cropley for 52 years, and has two sons and five grandchildren.

Transferable Criteria of Creativity: A Universal Aesthetic

When Sun 19 April, 9amWhere HallDuration 60mins

The idea of creativity has been broadened in recent years to go beyond a spiritual understanding focused on fine art, although there is still resistance to “creativity creep”. Transferring creativity concepts to areas and activities where they are not traditionally applied requires, among other things, concepts for recognising creative thinking and acting in these areas – a universal aesthetic of creativity.

Keynote

Bob Eckert

Bob Eckert is the CEO of New & Improved, a globally respected creativity and innovation consultancy. He is the author of numerous books and articles focused on the human and organisational dynamics of building sustained innovation cultures. Bob is a recipient of the “Distinguished Leader Award” given by the world’s largest organisation of creativity professionals, the Creative Education Foundation. He lives in the Adirondack Mountains where he also operates a tree farm and leads a local Boy Scout Troop.

The Innovation Imperative: Where the arts, business, education and community come together


Building Sustained Innovation Cultures


Driven by commercial pressures to constantly innovate, our global culture stands at the brink of an incredible moment of change. Some will be afraid to step over the edge for fear of falling; others will take the risk and find they can fly. We can help people jump off to a positive future by crafting the right message of benefit. Let’s get that message right!

Innovation appears as an aspiration in almost every organisational vision statement. Yet efforts to build a sustained innovation culture frequently fail. The approaches needed for institutional-level sustained success are well known and validated by the research. So why the failure? We’ll understand root cause for failure and learn the 12 strategic action areas that require effort for those seriously seeking success, using case studies to illustrate mistakes and successes.

Mike Grady

Mike Grady is an artist, writer and educator who has travelled extensively in China and has studied Asian art practices such as calligraphy and landscape painting. He has taught and exhibited internationally and is Professor of Studio Art, at Appalachian State University in North Carolina.

Chi – The Tao of Creativity


Experiential use of traditional East Asian painting and calligraphic techniques to gain an understanding of the relationship between ‘chi’, body and creative expression.

Turning your College (Institution) into a Work of Art


Examination of the parallels between organizational development and the stages of creative expression in art. We will look at several colleges throughout modern history and see how they have, in various ways, seen themselves as works of art – dedicated to creativity and transformation. Images, lecture and discussion.

Gaia Grant

Gaia Grant is MD of Tirian, which focuses on transformation through creative thinking. Author of book “Who Killed Creativity?”, clients have included: Visa, JP Morgan, The Four Seasons Hotels, and others. Gaia holds an MS in Creative Thinking and degrees in education and arts.

How to activate Creative Thinking: Practical tools for triggering psychological and sociological enablersWhen Sat 18 April, 3.30pmWhere Block B.5Duration 90mins

Is creativity at risk of dying off?: How to build a more creative future for the next generationWhen Sun 19 April, 10.30amWhere HallDuration 20mins

Experience a powerful creativity culture diagnostic in a fun and education game board format. This detective themed ‘Creative Scene Investigation’ (CSI) diagnostic can be used to help determine the current and future needs of individuals, teams and organisations. Participants will learn how to identify potential psychological and sociological blocks, and then how to activate creative thinking through targeted tools. Through the ‘Strategies for Innovative Development’ (SID) model they are shown constructive strategies for building a culture of creativity and innovation.

A fascinating insight into the current and potential future states of creativity from the author of Who Killed Creativity?... And How Can We Get It Back?: Seven essential strategies for making yourself, your team and your organisation more innovative. Fascinating facts and stats indicating that creativity may be in danger of dying off are revealed, and practical ideas on how to counteract the ‘creativity killers’ are shared in a fun interactive format.

Eryn Gribble

Eryn Gribble has passionately worked in community arts for over 6 years, alongside and in organisations such as Vincent’s Art Workshop, Newtown Community Centre, Capital E! and Nautilus Creative Space. She is currently team leader at Alpha Art Studio, an art studio for adults with intellectual disability.

Get Better Work Stories – The Stories of Alpha Art Studio

When Sun 19 April, 10.30amWhere HallDuration 20mins

Boundaries are something for those living with disability that are constants. Sometimes it takes a little creativity to find ways to overcome them. Sometimes it takes a bit of a fight.

I have been fortunate to learn more than I could ever teach from the people I have been humbled to work with. In this presentation I aim to share their stories alongside mine through my journey of community arts facilitation.

Lillian Hetet

Lillian Hetet works as a writer, web designer and convenor of cultural conversations. Her current projects include writing a memoir and making a film about the lifelong creative collaboration of her artist parents.

From Te Po - The Darkness, to Te Aro Marama - The World of Light


What happens when artisans from different cultures attempt to work creatively together?

The power of creativity to act as a common language across cultures is not necessarily a given. Other factors must be in place for success.

A series of case studies from Aotearoa New Zealand illustrate the things that can go gut-wrenchingly wrong and how to ensure that things go beautifully right instead.

Sam Hughes

I am a practising artist enjoying any art medium I can get my hands on, particularly anything 3D, mixed media and illustration. I love to express myself through creating art and am highly influenced by nature, animals and people I have met along the way. I love to use my imagination and encourage others to do the same.

I am also a qualified and registered teacher and have previously worked as a kindergarten teacher and adult educator. I have also run holiday programme courses for 7-16 year olds as well as educational courses for primary school children.

Release your inner child


This workshop will be based around the importance of maintaining creativity, imagination and problem solving in adult life. We will be ‘playing’ with different art activities that focus on releasing imagination and creativity, drawing on your inner child uninhibited by expectation, fear, pressure that we should all be encouraging to express and nurture our artistic side.

Do you have a deep and insatiable need to ‘make’ something or ‘express’ something creatively? Then come along and have some fun freeing up your imagination and realising an aspect of creativity through a variety of fun art activities.

David Kayrouz

The principal of Creative Pathways, David provides facilitation and coaching to businesses. Creatively he draws on his experience as a practising artist (visual) and musician (violinist). His leadership and management skills grew out of his experience as an engineer.

PEARL – Creative Learning Cycle

When Fri 17 April, 4pmWhere Block B.2Duration 90mins

The Missing Link – Making Meaning


PEARL is a practical framework for groups to use that self organises the core capabilities involved with inquiry, solving problems, determining actions, and learning. As a creativity tool leading to innovation it approaches work challenges as a constant improvement programme that evokes creative responses from a human centred design perspective. As an analytical tool, it reflects strengths and weaknesses in the approaches of its users.

MEANING may be understood as key to driving behaviour. Taking this approach an empowered view is offered to the way in which we create working environments for collaborating, learning, and sustaining a sense of achievement.

Dr Ralph Kerle

Dr Ralph Kerle, MCI, DADA, h.c. is an internationally respected thought leader, facilitator and writer on organisational innovation, creative leadership and behaviours. He has a key interest in using arts-based processes as a way of developing innovative practices at work.

It’s All True - The Gifts of Light and Shade in the Power of Paradox


Decision making is full of contradictions and mystery, yet underlying every decision making process we enter lies the need for certainty and control. We want to know who we are, where we stand and what we stand for. The definition of true genius is often described as the ability to hold two opposing views simultaneously without going crazy. This conceptual state is called a paradox and it is where our creativity is born and lives.

In this session, using a simple dialogue technique designed around a series of fundamental paradoxical questions, we will focus on recognising the paradoxes in our thinking, we will experience how to hold and live with them and observe the way they merge to provide meaningful insight and a way forward.

Dr Cathryn Lloyd

Dr Cathryn Lloyd is a creative development coach, facilitator and educator with over 20 years experience. She holds a Doctorate in Creative Industries, and is an accredited Action Learning facilitator with the School for Social Entrepreneurs.

Body Mapped: Rich pictures for self-inquiry


Crossing Boundaries through Collective Visual Imagining & ImagingDr Cathryn Lloyd & Michelle Walker


The focus for this 20 minute presentation will be on one creative element within the workshop – Body Mapping. Body Mapping is a full human scale creative process that allows people to explore, express and represent their creative qualities, capability and future through drawing, images, symbols and metaphors. Body Maps provide a visually rich picture for people to see themselves and others from a different viewpoint.

In this highly experiential and interactive session, the presenters provide an exploratory environment for participants to learn about and create visually rich pictures in order to explore and understand a challenging issue. The use of rich pictures as a powerful, creative communication and meaning-making tool is also covered. The workshop’s introduction session provides participants with the opportunity to learn the foundations of drawing graphic icons. Participants gain experience of rich pictures as a tool for their practice as well as potential insight about the complex issue under discussion. Rich pictures – as sourced from systems thinking and complexity theory – are a tool to enable clarity, understanding and aids in situations where there is ambiguity, complexity and varied understandings across a group.

Dr Lee Martin

Lee Martin works at the Hayden Green Institute of Innovation and Enterprise, University of Nottingham. He is Chair of the organisational psychology special interest group within the British Academy of Management, and is director of the University of Nottingham MSc in Entrepreneurship. His research and practice explores creativity in the workplace, education, sustainable contexts and the arts.

Creativity, sustainability and environmental challenges: Helping the world to jiggleWhen Sat 18 April, 1.30pmWhere Block B.2Duration 20mins

What’s Wrong with Creativity?Dr Lee Martin & Dr Nick WilsonWhen Sat 18 April, 3.30pmWhere Block B.3Duration 90mins

Whilst creativity can be part of the solution to building a sustainable world, effective change relies on more of our creative abilities than might be realised. This talk will explore the question: How much creativity do we need to change the world? It will examine why collaborative creativity is an essential part of building a sustainable future and highlights how barriers to sustainability can be overcome through such collaborative efforts. The session will include latest research thinking alongside practical examples drawn from working with one of the world’s leading sustainability charities. The examples will outline strategies for enabling collaborative creativity and demonstrate how creative action in one group can inspire others to bring about change through developing and using their own creative abilities.

The short answer is, of course, nothing. Creativity is a universal and (mostly) positive human potential that defines our being. There are, however, many things wrong with the assumptions we can hold about creativity (both academic and cultural), which perpetuate restrictive and ostracizing outcomes. To help reveal these problematic assumptions this workshop challenges each of us to consider how to engage the entire population of New Zealand in creative practices.

Janet Mazenier

Janet Mazenier has 30+ years in corporate and independent consulting positions plus many public speaking engagements. Currently she is a fulltime student of Fine Arts (painting). She retired in 2012 as Head of Planning at Telecom NZ.

Creativity Crossing Boundaries - The Workplace


Often the workplace is seen as a tedious place where creativity appears to be an add-on to the daily grind.

Despite rules, structures and constraints, business and government manage to invent new products and services. Perhaps constraints are one of the reasons creativity blossoms! Necessity is, after all, the mother of invention.

This presentation discusses case studies where creative solutions have delivered value to business, NZ schools and society.

Jonathan Milne

Jonathan Milne is managing director and founder of The Learning Connexion (TLC), New Zealand’s only tertiary school fully dedicated to teaching creativity. He believes that the creative process is transferable from one field, such as art, to another, such as science.

He has always wanted to de-mystify creativity and his book, “GO! The Art of Change” reveals many of the core practices that make creativity accessible to anyone.

Jonathan is a renaissance-style generalist with skills that start with art and extend into many fields. He is a writer, artist, photographer, educator, businessman, philosopher, philanthropist and cartoonist who is also intensely interested in science, mathematics and social change.

Come to Your Senses


‘Experience is not the best teacher, it’s the only teacher.’ (Bev Bos, educator)

The digital age brings excitements that fudge the truth. We humans are amazing technology in our own right. We can’t do arithmetic as quickly as computers but we do lots of other things that make machines look dumb. Human experience is so subtle that scientists are light-years from duplicating it. The big question isn’t to explain how or why humans can do amazing things. It’s far more important to discover how to nurture creativity through experiences that switch on our creative lights. If we get it right, humanity has a future.

Trevor Moeke

A weaver of people and narrative, Trevor Moeke effects positive change in everything he does. Visionary, globally connected and engaged, Trevor has unique insight into indigenous potential and how it can be harvested for positive global change.

CREATIVITY – IMAGINE – NATIVE – INDIGENOUS INSIGHTS - CREATIVITY

When Sat 18 April, 11amWhere HallDuration 20mins

Taking a collection of the disparate and bringing a cogency in thought design in action… Maori dynamics in play…

“OUR PLACE – OUR STORIES – OUR TIME” - thoughts from an East Coast North Island Aotearoa New Zealand South Pacific Ocean “bootcamp” view…

Wayne Morris

Wayne Morris has worked as a consultant, trainer and coach in a range of industries applying “whole brain” approaches to leading, learning, and creating. He facilitates creativity focused workshops in New Zealand and abroad. Wayne is also an artist with collections in New Zealand and overseas.

Create! Crossing Personal Boundaries


You can be no more creative than you are now if you don’t cross your own personal boundaries. Highly creative people do things that less creative people don’t. Highly creative people have habits that less creative people do not.

We will explore what highly creative people do, apply the ‘creative process’ to our own lives and develop a personal strategy for going beyond existing personal boundaries. The workshop is both practical (individual and group activities) and reflective (time for you).

Nicola Pauling

A performer, director, writer and facilitator with more than 20 years experience, Nicola Pauling has developed many of Voice Arts Trust’s most successful projects. She is passionate about providing opportunities for creative self-expression and the telling of our own stories.

Theatre, The Great Equaliser - create, educate and unite a community with deep fun and active participation


Experiental games and exercises that demonstrate how the tools of theatre can positively impact a group. Facilitator Nicola Pauling will also talk through two very different but very successful creative community engagement projects developed by Voice Arts and explain how drama-based creative engagement can faciliate positive change, crossing cultural, generational and social boundaries, uniting strangers and building a sense of community within a room.

Wynne Pirini

Starting out as a Chemical Engineer and Project Manager, bored of his job he travelled the world and founded his first business in 2007. He’s since created marketing courses, software applications, and become a best selling author. Besides consulting he also works in startup businesses.

How to Get the Right People to Buy Your Creation


Here’s a typical scenario... you create a ‘widget’ you’re certain the world is going to LOVE. But when you go to sell it, you find people are not interested!

If you focus on just a few key marketing actions you can achieve step-change results. During this brief presentation you’ll learn those key actions as I reveal them through my own story. Plus, by attending you’ll receive a one-page blueprint of the system you’ll be able to use yourself.

If you want to learn how to sell your skills, your ideas, your creations or your business more effectively, then come join me for this important presentation.

Dr Steven Pritzker

Steven Pritzker is Director of the MA and PhD. Creativity Studies Specialisation and The Creativity Studies Certificate at Saybrook University. He is Co-Editor-in-Chief of The Encyclopedia of Creativity published by Academic Press. Steven is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and President-Elect of Division 10 (Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts). His research has examined creativity and film, collaborative creativity in writing and business; creativity and spirituality; audience flow; comedians and longevity and the creative process in high achieving writers. Dr Pritzker is a writer and creativity coach who wrote and/or produced over 200 episodes of network television.

Is Creativity a General or Domain Specific Trait?: Implications for Education


Can eminent creativity be generalized with or across domains? Einstein said: “The greatest scientists are artists as well.” His assertion is bolstered by research indicating that many award-winning scientists have a passion for the arts and many great writers have an interest in science. However individual differences vary widely so there is no predictable pattern. Implications of the unpredictably of success will be discussed in relation to current approaches to education. If creativity is viewed as an invaluable asset for human survival, then we are hindering our own chances for economic success and finding solutions to challenging problems by depriving many students the opportunity to sample a wide range of educational experiences. Because results are unpredictable, the more exposure students experience in a variety of domains, the more likely they will be able to find an area where they can become exceptionally creative.

Dr Ruth Richards

Dr Ruth Richards from Saybrook University, USA, is a psychiatrist, educational psychologist, and one of the world’s leading scholars and researchers on creativity in everyday life. She has edited/coedited two related books and is authoring the forthcoming Everyday Creativity and the Healthy Mind. She and colleagues from Harvard Medical School have shown, for everyday creativity, that it is less what we do than how we do it! It is a way of life. And one that can be profoundly healthy, present, rich, and engaged, and can change our view of the world and ourselves.

Chaos and Creativity: 4 Steps 2 New Creative Power


Wake up!—Be the process!—Learn the flavours!—Follow the fractals! Chaos and complexity theory offer insights (metaphorical at minimum) into change and emergence (“whole is greater than sum of its parts”). Consider weather forecasts, Internet, self-organising workgroups, and…? “Aha! Moments?” Creative mind-states? Edge-of-chaos? Beauty and awe? We are “open systems” in a sensitive, recursive and vastly interconnected dynamic—offering deep views of self and world, and new creative power.

Dr Jennifer Rock

Dr Jennifer Rock is a lecturer at Otago University in the Centre for Science Communication. Her subject areas include aesthetics and paradigms in science, climate change (ocean warming), creative analogy and visual cognition, community co-creation, and methods in art-science integration.

How to Feel like a Shark and Think Like an Ocean: When arts practice informs science


Two stories tell the trials and triumphs of incorporating arts practice within scientific inquiry. Story 1: arts practice (exploring identity and bronze-age celtic narratives) helped a marine molecular ecologist to step away from the prevailing paradigm of genetic connectivity and consider new hypotheses. Story 2: a doctoral student incorporates visual art and poetry (exploring the experience of being electrosensory) in her behavioural and neuroscience research into reducing fisheries bycatch of sharks.

Professor Robert & Dr Michele Root-

BernsteinHusband and wife team from Michigan State University, USA, Professor Bob and Dr Michele Root-Bernstein are widely published authors and researchers. Their contributions to the understanding of creativity include studies demonstrating a strong correlation between creative success as a scientist (notably, among winners of the Nobel Prize) and strong involvement in the arts.

The Polymath’s Key to Creativity


Creativity depends on new and useful syntheses of problems, methods, materials, and ideas. It follows that creative people will often choose to “specialise in breadth,” to train as polymaths engaged in high-level pursuit of multiple and disparate interests. Ultimately, what mediates the transfer of knowledge and skills between disciplines, whether explored in tandem or serially, is a universal set of “tools for thinking” and their unifying effect on creative process.

Keynote

Dr Damian Ruth

Dr Damian Ruth is a senior lecturer in organisational strategy at Massey University. He has taught at several universities in different countries. His current focus is around the use of art and design in developing strategic thinking, organisation studies, and strategy.

Creativity and the Art of Work


In this presentation we examine the conceptual tools of the crafter, artist and designer, and the conceptual tools of creativity and innovation. It is inspired by the observation of J Bronowski that If [the scientist] is to break out of what has been done before, he must bring to his own tools the same sense of pride and discovery which the poet brings to words.

Louis Smith

Louis Smith is a remarkable change-agent who combines charm and ingenuity to develop a better community. His gentle negotiating skills open doors. His warmth and encouragement help people to change their lives. His patience and integrity make a profound difference in situations where the slow building of trust is at least as important as money.

Creativity Crosses Community Boundaries


Several urban areas of New Zealand share similar challenges to Porirua City. We have a population of just under 53,000, with 23% identifying themselves as being ‘Pacific’ and 21% Maori. Pacific families live in two main areas with low socio economic status and high deprivation - Cannons Creek and Waitangirua. It’s in this setting that our small team are privileged to work. We have to move into the heart and soul of the community to create positive outcomes with very modest resources. I will share some ‘wow’ moments not always visible to the general public eye.

Basia Smolnicki

Basia is a Wellington based artist specialising in the graphic arts of Intaglio and Relief printmaking processes.

Basia uses traditional printmaking techniques to produce woodcuts and etchings on paper and works on commission to custom design sand etched glass for domestic and commercial interiors. As a complement to her art practice Basia teaches printmaking at The Learning Connexion.

Cut Paste Copy Print


A team effort, stamp making exercise using simple and accessible materials.

Participants will cut shapes from sheet foam rubber which will then be adhered onto the surface of a cardboard tube. The tube is rolled in ink and the relief image transferred onto paper. Continuous rolls with additional spot colours will produce an image that can be printed as multiple repeats onto different surfaces, paper, fabric, plastic etc.

Shea Stackhouse

For me creating is a way of life, it comes as naturally as breathing. When making itself presents a challenge I research to further expand my knowledge and overcome obstacles so that I can improve on each piece that I make.

As I have learned I have constantly tried to pass on my knowledge so that others will benefit from my triumphs and mistakes. To gain a true understanding of your material you must always be alert watching for the slightest change. As you learn you will be aware of so many more things about the process and properties of the material itself.

Mokume-gane: Creative Process


The process of layered steel and copper comb is called Mokume-Gane (Mokoo-may Gar-nay). This is a Japanese technique of metal-working developed in the 17th century, involving stacking and fusing different layers of precious and semi-precious metals. This metal sandwich of ‘billet’ can then be textured or cut to reveal the layers within, the patterns created relate to a wood grain effect but, like a finger print or snow flake, these patterns can be made time and time again but will never be exactly the same. It is still used today in many forms, not just metals.

Based on this metal-working technique, this workshop will use coloured plasticine to build up the layers to give a clear example of this particular creative process.

Henry Sunderland

Henry teaches design at the Christchurch Polytechnic and Institute of Technology (CPIT). He is a creative lateral thinker and gnomologist with a predilection for the ironic and kitsch. “I feel that I am adept in using creative thinking and fun to make a serious point.”

A Creative Earth Journey: From garden gnomes and the South Pole, on art cars and road cones, to guardian G.N.O.M.Es, the North Pole and beyond…


It is a life story of standing outside the traditional creative box.

From standing on the South Pole with a garden gnome in 1977, to creating art cars for Christchurch, to asking people to place flowers in road cones and much much more.

This session may surprise you and be the beginning of something new and exciting in developing your creative awareness.

Michelle Walker

Michelle has over 20 years experience in training and facilitation, with background in applied science, creative industries, and business. A key focus of her trainings include visual creative processes. She regularly speaks to international audiences.

Beyond Words: The Power of Working Visually


In a fast-paced, visually engaging presentation, Michelle Walker covers the key points of why visual thinking is an important professional and personal skill in our text-heavy world.

Michelle explains the power of thinking and working visually through research from neurobiology, psychology and behavioural sciences. This information is grounded with examples of its application in four areas: 1) leadership communication 2) presentations 3) community engagement and 4) report writing.

Michelle uses selected video clips from industry leaders that illustrate key points and demonstrates foundational drawing skills to bring the material to life and allow the audience to gain a first-hand experience of these visual techniques.

Crossing Boundaries through Collective Visual Imagining & ImagingDr Cathryn Lloyd & Michelle Walker


(See Cathryn Lloyd’s page for workshop description)

Dan Wilkinson

Teaching art is something Dan Wilkinson loves to do. He has spent almost a third of his life passing on his artistic and creative knowledge and enjoys watching his students progressing and developing at their own pace. Dan prefers to create an environment where students express who they are, as well as what they see and feel. He encourages a balance of working intuitively and developing skills that help to create works that are aesthetically pleasing. Dan’s own works mirror his teaching style; he is constantly evolving as he explores surface and media to satisfy his creative needs.

Sensory Expressions


How does one draw or capture sound on paper? In this sensory experiential workshop we will explore ways of channeling the sounds that we hear onto a 2-D surface and discover new and exciting approaches of expressing.

We will explore the use of oil pastels and dry media on different paper types. Suitable for all levels of experience.

Dr Nick Wilson

Nick Wilson’s research and teaching focuses on creativity and cultural management. In particular, he explores the organization and management of arts and culture, social creativity, and the transformational and emancipatory potential of creative and cultural (artistic) engagement in everyday life. Nick’s interest in ‘creative living’ is influenced by many things, including his professional training as a singer and work in entrepreneurial education. He is Deputy Head of the Department of Culture, Media & Creative Industries, King’s College London. His latest book The Art of Re-enchantment: Making Early Music in the Modern Age was published by Oxford University Press in 2014.

20 Minutes


What would you do if you were given 20 minutes extra each day to be creative? In this talk I draw on research findings from two major new campaigns in the UK – ‘64 Million Artists’ and ‘Get Creative’ that are offering the public just that possibility. “20 minutes” highlights the importance of crossing personal boundaries, whilst exploring how we might ‘give permission’ as a society to engage in creative practice.

What’s Wrong with Creativity?Dr Nick Wilson & Dr Lee MartinWhen Sat 18 April, 3.30pmWhere Block B.3Duration 90mins

The short answer is, of course, nothing. Creativity is a universal and (mostly) positive human potential that defines our being. There are, however, many things wrong with the assumptions we can hold about creativity (both academic and cultural), which perpetuate restrictive and ostracizing outcomes. To help reveal these problematic assumptions this workshop challenges each of us to consider how to engage the entire population of New Zealand in creative practices.

Alice Wilson Milne

A deep interest in education, the arts, people and organisations supports Alice Wilson Milne’s long-term engagement with The Learning Connexion.

Her travels have been largely education-focused. She discovered that TLC is unusual in its focus on creativity and in its support of student-led, action-based and social learning.

Alice is passionate about her work with the organisation and the people she works with, and this leaves little time to complete her book, its focus on how TLC fits with the world. Finding it difficult to relinquish the exciting world of learning she has also become a student again.

Two Wings to Fly


Two wings to fly takes us on an adventure. (Flying on one wing lands us back where we started.) Flying with both wings adds creative practice to our known capabilities, empowering us to soar beyond our imaginings.

Creativity disappears boundaries, exposes fresh perceptions and opportunities, and shifts our conditioning. It helps us to expand our thinking. Working through simple art processes, we can prove for ourselves (action learning) how creative practice opens up the way for transformation, or crossing of boundaries, shifting from one form to another.

Then, looking at TLC’s campus art, we can discover Sue Lund’s own transformative creative practice.

(”Two Wings To Fly” is the title of a book centred on The Learning Connexion. It will be published later this year.)

Jim Yellowhawk

Jim Yellowhawk is a member of the Itazipco Band of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. Immersed in the arts of his ancestors, he holds a Bachelor of Science in Art. “I have opened my art up to international level, including being invited to perform Lakota men’s traditional dance at venues all over the world.”

Immersed in the Arts of My Ancestors


Jim Yellowhawk’s workshop will present a fascinating insight into his life on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation, including a short film from the Smithsonian Institute on a project he initiated with Lakota Youth and Cultural Identity. There will be discussion on his latest project (illustrating a book on Crazy Horse) and about the challenges of the church in regards to his connection with Lakota roots, involvement with ceremonies and the dance of his ancestors. The workshop will honour Yellowhawk’s ancestors and conclude with a traditional Lakota dance.

TAYLOR

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The Learning Connexion School of Creativity and Art | www.tlc.ac.nz | 0800 ART POWER

creativity challenge 2015 handbook

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