Creative Thinking, Creative Practice

Creative workshop at Museum of Modern Art: New York, 7 May 2005

The newly reopened Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City hosted a one-day workshop, 'Creative Thinking, Creative Practice' at its education centre in Manhattan. Chris Rose (School of Architecture and Design) was invited to put on a short programme of participatory themes linking perception, aesthetics, knowledge, design and communication. The project was a follow-up to the seminar 'Hand, Mind and the Creative Process' in autumn 2004 sponsored by The Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, The MIT media Lab and Haystack Mountain School of Craft.

This earlier event ranged over the complexities of touch-related knowledge of materials related practices such as blacksmithing or studio ceramics, and the virtual world of machine haptics in surgical procedures and interaction with exotic materials. The ‘Haystack’ seminar provided a meeting ground for new cross-discipline initiatives, of which the MoMA workshop on creativity was one.

The 'Creative Thinking, Creative Practice' event was hosted by the education department of the museum. The participants were museum educators from MoMA and the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, together with representatives from other city- based art education schemes linked to the gallery programme at MoMA.

With curator/historian Deborah Goldberg, Education Deputy Director Deborah Schwartz and materials scientist Caroline Baillie, and with the galleries open to only the study group, we toured selected works thinking about materials and concepts working together.

The day ended with a round table discussion concerning the social contexts, challenges, and further developments of experiential learning supported by major gallery resources. This followed on from the workshop sessions, which explored conceptual and practice-based techniques suitable or cross-discipline and cross-cultural working. Workshop Topics included: Material Concepts and how knowledge is built; Representation and Understanding; Drawing – seeing – knowing; The senses work with each other; Materials and making; and Young people’s access to knowledge through creative practice.

This workshop project was supported by the Centre for Research and Development and the School of Architecture and Design as part of a programme of research leave. The next workshop in this inter-disciplinary approach to creativity is being devised in conjunction with the SHRISTI College of Arts and Technology, Bangalore, India. A pilot project will explore concepts and practices in appropriate design for a traditional crafts economy in a development context.