Wring the sponge - produce something new

“I absorb things like a sponge,
from all of the artists from all periods –
and from everything I see and experience.
I wring that sponge at the workshop,
and the result is what you see here.” (Golder 2010)

Creativity is common -
people do what they do
with the materials they have
at hand.

Creativity and improvisation
are aspects of everyone’s life.
It is both exceptional
and mundane.

Creativity is not
something special -
nor the preserve
of ‘the special’.

It is common
rather than genius.

Creativity is not
liberated from the world.
It simultaneously contains
the unexpected and the recognisable.

Creativity is not just about
coming up with a good idea.
It’s also the process by which
the idea is realised.

There’s always a line to trace.
We lose sight of collaboration
when prizes are handed out
to individuals.

Isaac Newton saw further -
standing on the shoulders of giants.

Socrates, Plato and Aristotle
followed one another -
over three generations.

Creativity is
an everyday phenomenon.
It’s the change and transformation
of social practices over time and space
in everyday life.

Creativity’s origins
lie in a large number of people
who build upon one another’s work.

It is just as creative
for someone to find a new means
of baking bread, as it is
for a professor of maths to discover
a new algebra.

They are each significant
in their own way.

Indeed we should possibly map out
the biographies of objects
rather than just
the biographies of scientists.

I read ‘The sociomateriality of creativity in everyday life’ (2013) by Lene Tanggaard in early November 2024, and thought - ‘a piece adapted from it to kick off ‘Dreams’ in 2025 might be a good way to start the year’. Tanggaard debunks creativity as the preserve of the individual, the genius, the special, the few, and plots it in the domain of the collective, the everyday, the common.

Off you go into 2025 then - dream intentionally (wring the sponge - ‘be’ creative) while you’re awake.