‘The art of being curious’ is a creative exploration of curiosity.
Inspired by a random encounter on a trail run, I’m taking a deep dive into the mysteries of my own curiosity and creating work that responds to the experiences it brings me.
I’ll be reporting back on where my curiosity leads me, and what I learn from following it, through a combination of creative outputs, written reflections and whatever other methods and mechanisms turn out to be appropriate as the story unfolds.
This blogsite provides a place to share the emergent process and its outputs with other curious humans.
Why curiosity?
Curiosity is a phenomenon with the power to shape many different aspects of our lives. It’s seen as a positive influence on learning, memory, original thinking, workplace engagement, emotional intelligence, personal growth, resilience and empathy. On its shadow side, however, our urge to scratch that compelling itch might render us more vulnerable to clickbait, prone to rubbernecking or drawn towards risky behaviours.
By placing curiosity in all its disruptive glory at the heart of my work, I’m building on a longstanding interest in learning, change and innovation. Curiosity is the vital spark that ignites our desire to seek out new knowledge, skills and understanding. Curiosity helps us lift the lid on the status quo, question the way things are and imagine how they might be made otherwise.
I want to explore the impact of this potent resource on my own lived experience, become more intimately acquainted with its inner workings and discover new ways to harness its potential benefits in my work as an artist/maker and facilitator.
Why so curious?
As a child my happy place was pootling around outdoors, marvelling at the beauty of the world and pondering the complexities of being human. I still do quite a lot of that kind of thing now. My curiosity feels intimately bound up with my core sense of self and I’m keen to learn more about what it’s up to.
I experience my curiosity as a creative driving force and the internal compass that has guided my lifelong journey as an enthusiastic and eclectic learner. Along the way I’ve gorged myself on formal education, radically altered my understanding of the world and developed a voracious appetite for critically-engaged reflection. Every aspect of my life is now grist for that particular mill. I can’t even do the washing up without wandering off into questions of knowledge, power, truth and reality.
My curiosity has a lot to answer for, but I wouldn’t be without it. That insistent, burning desire to know has stayed resolutely by my side offering up its various gifts and curses for as long as I can remember. I’m curious to see where my curiosity might take me next.
So what?
The personal significance of this exploration goes hand in hand with an aspiration to encourage curiosity about the richness of our lived experience. I want to create opportunities for productive reflection on what we know, what inspires us to seek out new knowledge and all that we have to gain – or lose – by remaining open to learning. I want to spark conversations that help to inspire and sustain our collective adventures along the bumpy path towards meaningful insight and change.
