East Meets West Creatively!!

Commencing on Sunday February 24 in Singapore is a promising new initiative in the history of the creative thinking movement. The American Creativity Association is launching its first annual conference outside of the US since its inception in 1987. The significance of moving the conference to a destination outside of the US cannot be underestimated. It is a sign of the American creative community reaching out globally in a way that it would not have done in the past. The importance the Singaporeans are placing on the event can be seen by the fact that Singapore Foreign Minister is officially opening it.

Much of the credit for this initiative must go to Professor Kirpal Singh of Singapore Management University. He is the Founding Director of the Centre for Cross-Cultural Studies at the Singapore Management University where he teaches a course called Creative Thinking and a noted author and poet. It was the Singapore government's emphasis on evolving a smarter more creative society that allowed Kirpal's instinct to think the time and opportunity was right for an event of this nature.

The official programme is a pot pourri of creativity specialists drawn from all continents playing to an audience that will be predominantly drawn from Asia. Given the genesis and history of the creative thinking movement is tied closely to the 50's and the rise of American capitalism, it will be fascinating to see and hear the reactions of the participants.

I am running a Master Class as a mid week special programme titled Making Creativity Concrete and a workshop. Both explore the theme that creativity sits below the surface of the consciousness in an incoherent and disconnected manner. In order to connect this chaos, we need to develop a range of aesthetic skills to manifest a coherent output. Paradoxically, aesthetic skills are not seen as part of the main stream of the creative thinking movement so it will be interesting for me to experience the process of presenting this material in a cross cultural context.