A Design Task for Sivas Grand Mosque’s Minaret: Vertical Construction/Formal Articulation/Visual Stimuli

As well as a design process, experimental practices in architectural education are associated with the analytical approaches of visual thinking and visual reasoning. The main purpose of this study was to explore creative methods for devising a vertical construction through visual reasoning. In terms of experimental practices, design research is based on exploration while the primary research area in architecture is reframed by constantly renewed approaches. Accordingly, the hypothesis of this study was that creative methods would improve when the creation of a vertical construction in architectural education is nourished by visual stimuli. The study searched for a construction that plasticized the vertical spatiality of Sivas Grand Mosque’s minaret. The method was shaped by a prerequisite dialogue that rests on visual stimuli. The expected outcome of this dialogue was that the minaret as a pure form would be subjected to an abstraction and, a design proposal then developed for its current structural problems. The results indicated a two-fold appreciation of design. First, when the minaret was maintained within the idea of stabilization rather than being construed as a pure form, the search for a creative method of vertical construction was handled in the context of static preservation. Second, when Sivas Grand Mosque’s minaret as an imaginary design tool was construed as a pure form and the abstraction level increased through visual reasoning, the outcomes gradually demonstrated an approach akin to experimental practices

An Ethos and Practice of Appreciation for Transformative Research: Appreciative Inquiry, Care Ethics, and Creative Methods

This chapter departs from the need to pursue transformative research, understood as the co-production of knowledge with and for societal stakeholders aimed at supporting and enabling sustainable change. It explores how Appreciative Inquiry (AI) and its underlying ‘ethos of appreciation’ (after Zandee & Cooperrider, 2008) can complement and enrich care-full and resourceful approaches to transformative research. It presents the five dimensions of an ‘ethos of appreciation’, and lays out their philosophical meaning, their resonance with the care ethics literature, as well as their practical application. It gives a detailed account of how five different creative methods were employed during a participatory action-oriented Ph.D. study in Finland, and in so doing, showcases how an ‘ethos of appreciation’ can be embodied and applied in practice. Finally, it discusses the methodological potentials and limitations of using creative methods, as well as the challenges and outcomes they yield to support transformative research that aims to enable care-full and resourceful participatory engagement processes.

Imaginative Leadership: A Conceptual Frame for the Design and Facilitation of Creative Methods and Generative Engagement

In the field of sustainability science, many scholars and practitioners are embracing a ‘humanistic turn’ that draws from psychology and cognitive sciences and from the arts and humanities. Contributing to a spirit of ‘exuberant experimentation’ in the field, this chapter asks: How can creative methods of engagement be operationalized to support the imaginative capacity of researchers and practitioners in the arena of sustainability? In order to address this question, I (a) propose the concept of imaginative leadership to describe the ability to understand and consciously influence the symbolic/metaphorical dimensions of self and others, and (b) explore the process of designing workshops that employ creative methods rooted in ‘transformative mindsets.’ Transformative mindsets refer to specific conceptual frames identified for their potential to disrupt default unsustainable and anthropocentric worldviews and open new spaces of possibility for action and perception. The broad goal of these workshops was to support imaginative leadership towards regenerative sustainability through collaborative experimentation with unconventional methods. Informed by research on metaphorical thinking, somatics, neurocognitive linguistics, and arts-based environmental education, the methods were designed to activate a set of specific transformative mindsets, which were subsequently refined through the process of experimentation and co-reflection during and after the workshops.

Painting Outside the Lines: Transgressing the Managerial University, Avoiding Forced Creativity

This chapter aims to put creative methods into the context of wider trends in university institutions. As managerialism—here understood as the application of corporate values and practices into all sectors of society—continues to play a large role in the production and creation of knowledge, we argue that creative methods have the potential to either subvert or reinforce these trends. We see the entrenchment of managerialism as contradictory to the stated aims of the application of creative methods in knowledge production. In an attempt to avoid this, we provide a picture and discuss the institutional framework in which creative methods are deployed to understand and critique the values and practices of managerialism in academia. We point towards the constraints it places on those who wish to take a creative approach. First, we provide an historical accounting of how managerial values have contributed to de-politicization in the wider public sphere, with a particular focus on academia. Second, we outline the fundamental properties of the managerial university, summarized as: (i) accountability, (ii) competition, and (iii) obedience. Third, we sketch out a definition of forced creativity and illustrate two applied cases of how it might look in practice: “artwashing” and “funding tricks”. This section is meant to contribute to defining “truly” creative methods by spelling out what they are not. Finally, we summarize our main points and provide future directions of discussion.

LEONID ANDREYEV’S AND PÄR LAGERKVIST’S WORKS IN THE CONTEXT OF EXPRESSIONISM: THE PROBLEM STATEMENT

The article substantiates the classification of the creative methods of Leonid Andreyev (1871-1917) and Pär Lagerkvist (1891-1974) as expressionistic. Expressionism was the leading art and literature direction in the early XX century. The authors trace back the Russian and foreign academic tradition of viewing certain periods of these writers’ creative career as expressionistic. This tradition is based on some of the characteristics present in their works, such as heightened expression, one-dimensional characters, static scenes, grotesque forms, colour contrasts, the depiction of a chaotic world, and a nervous and alienated person within it. The authors come to the conclusion that the expressionist works of Leonid Andreyev and Pär Lagerkvist can be most effectively compared by employing the historical typological method developed by Victor Zhirmunsky.

SIBERIAN STEPPE IN MODERN AESTHETIC PRACTICES (KONSTANTIN BALMONT – MARINA TSVETAEVA)

Statement of the problem. The problems of the article are addressed to the methods of cultural development of the vast Siberian steppes in Russian modernism, to the methods of overcoming cultural entropy. The purpose of the article is to describe the parameters of the “steppe” texts by M. Tsvetaeva and K. Balmont, to identify their cultural genealogy. Review of scientific literature on the problem is associated with solving specific problems: identifying ways of authorizing the Siberian text in the poetics of a particular author (works by A. Smith, E. Korkina, and V. Marosha). Research results. The article is devoted to the Siberian texts by K. Balmont and M. Tsvetaeva. In the collection of works by Balmont entitled “Blue Horseshoe. Poems about Siberia”, the perception of the Siberian steppes is built around the concepts of “distance”, “width”, and “freedom”, characteristic of Balmont’s poetry, in principle. In Tsvetaeva’s poem “Siberia”, the steppe theme appears twice: in the exposition of the poem, and also in the second part (the image of the Barabinsk steppe). The sources of Tsvetaeva’s steppe imagery can be considered her individual perception Blok’s “Scythianism”, her direct empirical experience of experiencing the Crimean steppes, as well as her keen interest in the Eurasian theory at the time of writing the poem. Conclusions. Spatial entropy does not become an obstacle for an artist of the modernist formation in the cultural development of space. Each poet creates his own image of the Siberian steppes, based on the available poetic tools, synthesizing creative methods.

EARTH'S CREATION STIMULUS: CREATION OF GRAPHIC ARTS WITH USED PLYWOOD MEDIA

Natural phenomena, especially climate change, are increasingly worrying lately. Graphic art can be used to express concern for the environment in response to climate change. The creation of this graphic art work uses the concept of the earth's creation stimulus. The creative methods used include: experimentation, contemplation, and formation. Abstract Expressionism was chosen as the style of personal expression in the creation of this work. The creative technique used is high printing technique with used plywood media. The results of the creation process show that the visualization of the concept of the earth's creative stimulus produces the forms of circles and lines. These forms are the main motif in the creation of graphic art with the stimulation of this earth's creativity

“Were I not here to record it, there would be no trace”: Chava Rosenfarb's “In the Boxcar” and Patrick Modiano's Dora Bruder

Patrick Modiano’s Dora Bruder and Chava Rosenfarb’s “In the Boxcar” – an excerpt from the as-yet not fully translated novel Letters to Abrasha – rely on original and creative methods in their responses to events and memory associated with the Holocaust. In contrast with these works, this article also considers the approach taken in Michal Glowinski’s memoir The Black Seasons, as well as in Barbara Engelking and Jacek Leociak’s The Warsaw Ghetto: A Guide to the Perished City. These texts convey, in a new light, pre-war and wartime sites: Paris, Auschwitz, Lodz, Warsaw, and the ghettos installed by the Germans in the latter two cities. Dora Bruder de Patrick Modiano et «In the Boxcar» de Chava Rosenfarb - un extrait du roman Letters to Abrasha, qui n’a pas encore été entièrement traduit - s’appuient sur des méthodes originales et créatives dans leurs réponses aux événements et à la mémoire associés à l’Holocauste. En contraste avec ces oeuvres, cet article examine également l’approche adoptée dans les mémoires de Michal Glowinski, The Black Seasons, ainsi que dans The Warsaw Ghetto : A Guide to the Perished City de Barbara Engelking et Jacek Leociak. Ces textes présentent, sous un jour nouveau, des sites d’avant-guerre et de guerre: Paris, Auschwitz, Lodz, Varsovie, et les ghettos installés par les Allemands dans ces deux dernières villes.

Co-creation in Migration Studies

Co-creative methods are increasingly used to understand and facilitate integration processes of migrants in immigrant societies. This volume aims to contribute to the debates on the ways in which co-creative methods may advance migrant integration. More specifically, the contributions investigate how co-creative research strategies can provide insights into how integration processes into various domains of immigrant society (e.g., language learning, housing, employment) are shaped, and how they can contribute to policy making and new policy practices. Because co-creative methods are relatively new approaches to research and policy making, the authors evaluate and demonstrate the pitfalls and benefits of using them. Starting with a theoretical and methodological overview of co-creative methods, empirical chapters document and critically assess ongoing research experiences and studies to incorporate co-creative methods in academic research across Europe. Co-creation in Migration Studies analyses the use of co-creative methods in migrant research and policy making, reflects upon the conditions required to successfully implement these methods, and offers new insights and recommendations for future research and policy making practices.