Welcome to another excerpt from my latest ebook Near and Far, a collage of excerpts from interviews I did with experts on creativity, artistic work, and interdisciplinary collaboration. You can read the first two excerpts here and here.
In this excerpt I thought I would introduce you to the people I interviewed for this project, just for your future reference as you read the rest of the excerpts:
The interviewees
Wherein I gush about the seven people who were good enough to give their time and their insights to this project; the dialogue we engaged in was wonderful. Throughout this book, and at the beginning of each extract, I have listed their name and the name of their organization, if they have one, or their title if they don’t. But in this section below I thought I might briefly introduce them and indicate why I wanted to talk to them for this project.
They are an eclectic bunch. Two are based in Europe, two interstate in Sydney and Adelaide here in Australia, and three, like me, are local to Melbourne. I guess you could say that three interviews were with folks from the arts, and three were from people outside of it but that would be superficial. Even though the interviewees were all involved in different sectors – academia, business, design, and the arts – they were all interdisciplinary in their own professional practices, splicing together various disciplines in a way that I would describe as artful. And doing so to engender creative experiences for others.
Anke de Vrieze, Centre for Unusual Collaborations
Anke is the Knowledge and Learning Advisor at the Centre for Unusual Collaborations, which is based in Utrecht, The Netherlands.
I first came across CUCo on Twitter and, on clicking through to their website, was struck by the idea of an organization, funded by a consortium of Dutch universities, that was dedicated to facilitating interdisciplinary research focused on tackling wicked problems. I was fortunate enough to conduct an online workshop on co-creation skills for CUCo in January 2023, and then to visit them in Utrecht and to participate in one of their training sessions in March 2023. Although CUCo work with many researchers from STEM backgrounds, they use highly creative methods to train their research teams with a view to encouraging them to tap into creativity in order to think outside of the box.
I had actually first connected with Anke as far back as 2021, when I saw her and her colleagues from the Re.Imaginary collective facilitate some workshops as part of the Transformations Conference. I then attended, via Zoom, the Wageningen University Transformative Learning Hub online sessions during 2021-2022 which were dedicated to sharing creative facilitation methods among practitioners. I loved Anke’s artful approach to designing and conducting workshops. When it came to choosing potential interviewees for this project, someone from CUCo was an obvious choice and it was great that Anke could find the time.
Lamine Sonko and Olive Moynihan, The Knowing Project and 13.12
Lamine and Olive are the leading lights of The Knowing Project and 13.12. Lamine’s practice is interdisciplinary; he is a multi-instrumentalist, singer, composer, theatre director, and film director. When I interviewed Olive, we agreed that the word ‘producer’ is not really an adequate one to describe what she does. While she does arrange, coordinate, and manage the financial, logistical, and business aspects of their projects, she has to do so in such a way that she, herself, has to bring imagination and an artistic sensibility in order to make sure that the systems and production approaches she puts in place are completely aligned with the artistic and cultural dynamics of the work of the artists.
This is even more important when you consider the fact that Lamine is a guewel – “a keeper and communicator of history, customs, rituals and sacred knowledge through music, dance and oral storytelling.”
I was put in touch with Lamine and Olive by Sophia Kostava, a producer who works with them. Sophia read one of my blogs about the Near and Far project and suggested that Lamine and Olive would be appropriate interviewees. I am grateful to Sophia; Olive and Lamine’s insights, framed by Senegalese spirituality and cultural knowledge, are a beautiful addition to this project.
Logan Timmins, Amble Studio
I first met Logan, and two of his colleagues from Amble - Hailey Cooperrider and Rebecca Dahl - when I attended their excellent Game Design for Facilitators workshop. Logan was good enough to come to a couple of my own creative conversations and then, in September 2023, Amble invited me to join a team of facilitators to lead residents and then employees of the City of Merri-bek in playing The Adaptation Game, a serious game designed by Amble and other creatives to tackle climate change awareness and to foster community resilience.
Amble combines the two disciplines of game design and facilitation to allow people to tackle complex conversations with imagination and a sense of purpose. To state the bleeding obvious, game design is an art form, but I believe that facilitation can be done in a way that is highly creative – I would say artful – as well. In bringing their own design skillsets to bear on their work and doing this with the express purpose of freeing up other people’s imaginations, I felt that someone from Amble would be a perfect interviewee for this project.
Melissa DeLaney, Australian Network for Art & Technology
“We are the confluence of three interconnected and interrelated ecosystems; arts, science and technology, that are critical in shaping this rite of passage and unique opportunities to shape the future.” - ANAT Strategic Plan 2025-2028
In her role as CEO of ANAT, Melissa combines personal history in visual arts and arts-management practice to support the development of systems, including interdisciplinary collaborations, that “collapse boundaries to extend understanding and create future scenarios” (ANAT Strategic Plan).
Melissa describes herself as a social sculptor and sees this creative practice as one which can elevate leadership and managerialism as a form of art and a social good.
ANAT exists with the express purpose of facilitating interdisciplinary collaborations between artists, technologists, and scientists in order to generate groundbreaking research and artistic projects. I think it’s obvious why I wanted to interview someone from ANAT, and, as an interdisciplinary practitioner herself, it was great to be able to include Melissa.
Monika Jiang, House of Beautiful Business
The House of Beautiful Business is a unique organization. On its website it bills itself as “The network for the life-centred economy. Through projects, content, and experiences, we inspire and equip organisations and individuals to shape more purposeful, inclusive, sustainable futures.”
I first came across the House on Twitter. I loved the sound of the things that it was doing in Europe – dinners, performances, conversations, activations – and stalked them assiduously on social media until 2020 when, due to lockdown, they produced their annual gathering online. I could finally tune in from down here in Melbourne and see, firsthand, what they were up to. That event – The Great Wave – is the best online event I have ever seen and it was packed full of art – digital, visual, performance, literary – as well as far-ranging discussions and presentations.
The House’s unapologetic centering of the artistic and the design-based in its methods of exploring what it would take to transform business into a force for regeneration (of people, culture, the planet) is, for me, a compelling demonstration of just how effective art can be when used transversally.
When I interviewed Monika for this project, she was Head of Curation and Community at the House of Beautiful Business and warmly liked and respected for the deft and intelligent way in which she engaged us all with the House’s programs. Shortly after our interview, she (amicably) resigned from the House and is currently working independently as a writer, emcee, curator, and community builder.
In Near and Far I have decided to associate Monika with her former position with the House, as when we spoke it was about the activities of this organization and Monika was very much representing it. However, I think you’ll also get a sense of Monika’s own individual voice coming through and, therefore, the sensibility she brings to her current work.
Paulina Larocca, Creative Catalyst
I would describe Paulina as a force of nature; she describes herself as a “creativity author, trainer, provocateur” who helps “people to connect to their creativity to create a culture of innovation.” She has worked with companies such as Absolut Vodka, Pernod Ricard Winemakers, Telstra (muru-D), and Seven West Media.
I first came across Paulina when I attended one of her workshops at a conference in 2021. What Paulina had to say about creativity resonated deeply with me. What interested me was that although Paulina and I come from different professional backgrounds – she from corporate innovation and me from the arts – we have very similar ideas about creativity and the way in which people experience it. We have traveled along different trajectories but encountered each other at the same place.
Paulina is currently undertaking a PhD on how creatively framing problems can generate insight. Of course, she can draw on her extensive corporate experience and her Masters of Science in Creativity and Change Leadership, but she is also incorporating her own lifelong love of art along with current practice in theatre and visual arts. I felt that, in including hands-on arts practice in her research and being able to compare it to corporate innovation practice, Paulina would surely have some insights to share on the arts and artists as transversal forces. I was right.
Next up, I’m going to be sharing excerpts from the conversations I had with these folks about the arts as a transversal practice.
Your paid subscription now entitles you to a copy of Near and Far. If you can’t wait until I drip feed all of the excerpts to you over a series of fortnights then contact me by replying to this email and I will email you a copy.