CreaTures – Creative Practices for Transformational Futures is an EU Horizon 2020 research project investigating the potential of creative practices in art, design, and related cultural fields to support positive eco-social change.
I contributed to CreaTures as a Research Fellow at RMIT Europe and Work Package leader of the Engagement and Dissemination work package.
January 2020 – December 2023
Project Partners: Aalto University, University of Sussex, RMIT University, Utrecht University, Zemos98, Sniffer, Superflux, Kersnikova, Hellon, Furtherfield, OKFI
Creative practices have already shown transformational potential in the area of social cohesion and environmental citizenship, but they are often fragmented, poorly resourced, and badly understood. The CreaTures project (Creative Practices for Transformational Futures) demonstrates the power of existing – yet often hidden – creative practices to move the world towards eco-social sustainability.
Through experimental co-creation, observation, and evaluation of diverse transformational creative practices, followed by a direct engagement of various stakeholders (including policymakers, researchers, artists, designers, and members of the public), the CreaTures project generates a diversity of insights and resources demonstrating how creative practices can stimulate action towards eco-socially sustainable futures. The CreaTures Framework summarises these findings in a concise and easy-to-access way.
The Engagement & Dissemination work package was driven by the research question:
How might we encourage and support future transformational creative practices from the individual to infrastructural level across Europe and beyond?
The experimental productions (ExPs) developed in the Laboratory have provided ample opportunities for co-creative engagements, following a variety of formats including workshops, exhibitions, performances, courses, LARPs, gameplays, experimental walks, as well as picnics and sharing circles. To further extend public engagements with the emerging project insights, we have organised a series of online public seminars, set up the CreaTures newsletter, published a zine series, and helped to facilitate the CreaTures-affiliated art tech nature culture network. In June 2022, we organised the CreaTures Festival in Seville, Spain that brought together experiences from across CreaTures work packages and the ExPs as well as contributions by external experts across the areas of creative practice, research and policy. The program consisted of a conference, an exhibition, workshops and a series of keynotes.
