“The Creative Process” off to a great start
The University’s new course about creativity, “The Creative Process”, has had its first lectures in the last fortnight. Taught by Associate Professor Peter O’Connor (Faculty of Education), these classes have introduced students to key concepts for exploring the creative process in theory and practice.
The inaugural class last Wednesday focused on what creativity means, and why it is crucial for individuals and societies. “Warm up your creativity” was the opening instruction of the lecture, with Peter O’Connor asking students to rub their hands together as a metaphor for that process. He asked students to consider where they kept their creativity and imagination: in their head? heart? hands? in the space around them? This led to questioning where society keeps its creativity, and how we collectively keep creativity ‘warm’ and nurture it.
Peter O’Connor then explored how creativity can:
– make sense of the world, helping us to process information and experience
– allow us to ‘walk in another person’s shoes’ and learn how to understand and empathise
– create beauty and fulfil aesthetic needs vital to humanity
– provide hope and meaning, even under the most terrible circumstances
– serve as a survival mechanism, allowing us to assert autonomy and individuality
– offer immortality, through artistic work that serves as a lasting legacy
Members of the Creative Thinking Board and staff were at the inaugural lecture to show their support, to learn, and to share the excitement. Creative Thinking Project Director Amy Malcolm said that it was “amazing” to see a long-cherished plan for this course finally come to fruition.
In the second lecture, Peter O’Connor addressed the question “can creativity be bad?” He offered Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein as an example of human creativity gone awry: by ‘playing God’, Dr Frankenstein creates a destructive monster that turns on humanity, destroying its own creator. In contemporary reality, the “terrible beauty” of an atomic bomb detonation and the crushing fall of the Twin Towers highlight that although human creativity is always powerful, it is not automatically positive. However, Peter O’Connor offered the Romantic view that creativity grounded in compassion is invariably a force for good. The ability to empathise, and imagine the impact of an action on others, prevents the perversion of the creative impulse to destructive ends.
Students were encouraged to ask questions and engage in discussion during the lectures. This dialogue will be extended in the course’s weekly tutorials, where students will also undertake practical activities, working on a range of creative projects.
Over coming weeks, students will hear other perspectives on creativity from academics across a range of disciplines. Lecturers will include Associate Professor Donna Rose Addis from the School of Psychology in the Faculty of Science; Associate Professor Mark Sagar (Bio-engineering); and two lecturers from the National Institute of Creative Arts and Industries – Associate Professor Ralph Buck (Dance Studies) and Associate Professor Peter Shand (Fine Arts).
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