Top Global Thinkers of 2009 ... Who's on your list?

Who's on your list of important thinkers from 2009?

[December 2009 - Foreign Policy] The FP Top 100 Global Thinkers: From the brains behind Iran's Green Revolution to the economic Cassandra who actually did have a crystal ball, they had the big ideas that shaped our world in 2009. Read on to see the 100 minds that mattered most in the year that was. More (The List)

Making of Me: Creativity is vital in shaping our futures ... families are fundamental in developing it

[2 November 2009 - DEMOS (UK) - By Jen Lexmond and Shelagh Wright] Creativity and cultural engagement are essential ingredients in making our individual and collective lives rich. They are both key to developing and dependent on the social capital that is so vital in mobility and life chances. The terms creativity and culture are acknowledged as tricky to define, but the domains they describe, however disputed, are widely recognized as crucial to our futures. The Oxford English Dictionary defines creativity as ‘involving the use of the imagination or original ideas in order to create something’ and culture as ‘one, the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively. Two, a refined understanding or appreciation of this. Three, the customs, institutions and achievements of a particular nation, people or group’. Many commentators and researchers have argued that creativity and culture make more prosperous and cohesive societies.They provide accounts of how talent flows and grows. What we have been less good at is understanding how to nurture that talent and potential in the first place. The role of families is fundamental. This paper looks at how families could be better supported and how we might get more from our existing investments in this area. We ask questions about what should be done as a stimulant for the kinds of ideas we need. More

Art and Its Cultural Contradictions

This essay raises questions about the role of the artist/creative engaging in neighborhoods, communities and cities. How do they participate and involve? How much time in the community "counts"? How can artists/creatives have the most meaningful impact?

[Autumn/Winter 2009 - "Art and Its Cultural Contradictions" in Afterall] PREAMBLE: A FLOOD OF QUESTIONS: What is at stake when artists, architects, curators, organisers and other cultural producers facilitate bricks-and-mortar change, on the ground in cities, with citizens, communities and institutions? How do we test the interrelationships between the practices of artists and urban policy makers? What is the metric that we might utilise to determine effectiveness? And what do we mean by effectiveness? Critical effect? (Or, for that matter, critical affect?) The putatively emancipatory outcome generated by some kind of new situational knowledge? Or, is it a question of generating ambiguity, per se, as a means of problematising hegemonic political, economic and cultural formations?

Is it conceivable to imagine that the cultural and intellectual capital of artistic labour can generate sustained, and sustainable, responsiveness to urban crises that would offer palpable functionality (or applicability) for people's lives - contra to the useful uselessness of the aesthetic condition that is supposedly ennobling of mind and spirit, or generative of disinterestedness as a prerequisite for absorption and contemplation? Have we taken into consideration that as art critics, art historians, curators and art theorists we might be misapplying criteria of aesthetic evaluation in relation to the evaluation of art projects that arise from sometimes uncomfortable, difficult circumstances? Is it perhaps just a question of re-calibrating our criteria of evaluation or, at the very least, how we communicate to others our experience of a specific work within a particular situation, so that criteria remain sufficiently fluid and tactical? What does it mean to encounter a work of art in the midst of economic and social ruination?

This essay seeks to raise such questions on the occasion of and in relation to a new biennial (Prospect.1) and a new cultural initiative (Transforma Projects), both of which emerged in New Orleans after the Hurricane Katrina disaster that in 2005 flooded 80 per cent of the city, and killed nearly 2,000 people, as efforts claiming to engage in the regeneration, rebuilding and revitalisation of various aspects of that city's cultural, economic and social life. Prospect.1 and Transforma Projects are distinct from each other in terms of ideological and organisational strategies and infrastructures: the former presenting itself as the first international biennial in New Orleans (i.e. event-oriented), with official support from local and state government and major art world benefactors, and a more conventional 'top-down' hierarchical curatorial/exhibition process; the latter operating as a small cultural initiative on an emphatically grass roots level, involving 'bottom-up' socially participatory processes (i.e. rethinking normative institutional hierarchies) to generate and utilise art projects as a means of facilitating social rebuilding within economically and socially disenfranchised communities in the city, yet also supported by major art foundations.

Authentic education is always experimental

An old blog post from "The Speed of Creativity" blog, but an important one worth revisiting. What examples of authentic education and learning are you leading? Participating in? Creating?

[8 April 2006 - The Speed of Creativity] In the educational, classroom environment, authentic education is always experimental. This is because teaching is an art, not a science. Many, many people sadly mistake the purpose of the educational enterprise as mere content transmission. Much of the curriculum standards which dominate the educational landscape today [...] are based on this faulty assumption. Like E.D. Hirsh, I agree there are some common things with which people should be acquainted in order to be “culturally literate.” I do not agree, however, that schools should take those “laundry lists” of names and events and seek to make kids memorize and regurgitate those facts on multiple choice examinations. I do not think an understanding of the need for “cultural literacy” should lead to a shallowing of the curriculum, which remains a mile wide and an inch deep. To the contrary, authentic teaching and learning should be ALL ABOUT learning in depth through engaging conversations and activities. To create this type of teaching and learning environment, it is implicit that teachers must experiment. Authentic teaching and learning are experimental activities because the environment of the classroom is inherently dynamical and chaotic, like global weather patterns. More