A symposium addressing how to enact a Science-Art Institute for Transformative Creativity
To address the complex problems facing the 21st century, we need to go beyond current thinking and approaches. Innovation that crosses traditional academic boundaries would provide new solutions that need expertise and understanding from multiple disciplines.
We believe it is timely to contemplate an science-art institute to bring creative people together, invite outside-the-box thinking and to train the next generation to address these problems.
We also believe that embracing diverse voices, lived experiences, interests, and approaches. will open a wider array of thinking outside the box to such an institute.
To explore this, we are hosting the first ENFOLD SCI-ART Symposium to interrogate the concept of an Art-Science Institute to foster transformative creativity in addressing the critical problems facing us in the 21st Century.
ENFOLD SCI-ART will be closer to the Platonic version of a symposium where discussion and brainstorming dominate instead of our current definition with long talks. We will all first meet in an art workshop to initiate conversation on the value of a Science-Art Institute. We then propose a series of lightning talks by scientists, artists, academic administrators, museum directors, and foundation/industry leadership followed by breakout groups to model interacting for innovation and concluding with addressing how an Science-Art Institute could be actuated and sustained. The talks will not be about the speaker’s work/contributions. Instead, each talk should include their view and the value and challenges of establishing such an institute.
We will establish breakout groups with members from each community (e.g. academia, artists, communicators/activists, industry). The first breakout session will use the concept of Beginner’s Mind to model how bringing together individuals from Art and Science could address unsolved problems facing the planet. The first day will conclude with a networking reception and dinner. On the next day, the breakout groups will have in-depth discussion to address the following questions. Is a Science-Art institute of value? How is it of value? How might it best be implemented? How could it be actuated and sustained? After these breakout sessions, each group will report back to share their discussion and the entire meeting will brainstorm and suggest action points going forward. There will be a product developed from this symposium: a manifesto of what an institute would look like and how it might be best implemented.