Art and NC (part 1)

How can we master change more effectively? A reflection space on new forms of transformation (part 1):

Introduction

As a curator and a specialist in sustainability and transformational processes, I have spent many years addressing the relationship between art, everyday life, society, climate change, and the economy.

I have always been fascinated by the wide range of different, or even totally dissimilar, reactions that can be triggered by engagement with art. That is why I have always also been interested in new learning and exchange formats for transdisciplinary collaboration. What is the best way to learn from each other?

It is often impressive to see the surprising ways in which people find access to artworks, even though they have not engaged with them before. That always play a crucial role in my work: Looking at artworks together with people and talking about what the works trigger creates an inspiring associative space, an “associative unconscious”, in which new ideas arise (Long & Harney, 2013, p. 10).

Although I share philosopher Otto Friedrich Bollnow’s opinion that “We live in a world as art has taught us to see it” (Bollnow, 1988, p. 32), I have repeatedly found that managers and leaders make far too little use of art’s potential, both regarding change or innovation and as a source of inspiration for new ideas. This is precisely where I wish to make a contribution with my work.

Leaders need new skills because the world is becoming more and more complex. But how can they learn to handle uncertainty and unclear circumstances productively? How can they make new connections with the associative unconscious, so as to support their teams in empathic, future-oriented and productive ways? One important key to achieving this can be found in engagement with art and ‘negative capability’. This is because artists and their artworks create unique platforms for intensive engagement with the associative unconscious. Deep feelings, bias, boundaries, memories, desires, values and dreams – all of these can be experienced, discussed and exchanged in many different ways through works of art. In this paper, the hypothesis put forward is that purposeful engagement with artworks can lastingly strengthen leaders’ and their teams’ negative capability: in other words, their ability to see the paradoxical, the ambivalent and the feeling of indecision as resources, and to use these as important and constructive building blocks for managing transitional processes.

So how can an experience of productively and collectively handling uncertainty be enabled? What new reflective spaces can be established, so as to productively use negative capability for transformative processes?

"...it's no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then." Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

Next steps

What exactly does the word "negative capability" mean? I will look at this in more detail next Monday in the second part of my series. (I am referring to my thesis at INSEAD as part of my Executive Master for Change (EMC). )

#transformation #art #negativecapability

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REFERENCES

Bollnow, O. F. (1988). Zwischen Philosophie und Pa?dagogik: Vortra?ge und Aufsa?tze. Aachen: Weitz.

Long, S., & Harney, M. (2013). The associative unconscious. In S. Long (Ed.), pp. 3-22. London: Karnac Books.