Surrealism art inspired by tragedy

I was lucky enough to visit the Surrealists exhibition in Te Papa last month. Extraordinary art works by Magritte, Salvadore Dalí, Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, Leonora Carrington, and more. Most of the works were extraordinary and captivating.

My favourite was Carrington’s Again the Gemini’s are in the garden. Surrealism was the artist’s creative response, born out of horrors of world war, where the worst imaginable had occurred, and then some.

Artists of the time chose to tap into the subconscious and juxtapose unrelated objects together both activated by and to activate the unconscious mind.

My second favourite was Not to Be Reproduced, a painting by the Belgian surrealist René Magritte. Magritte’s imagination fascinated me.

I kept thinking, how might I apply this way of thinking in my own life and work?

Covid restrictions have put extreme pressures on our everyday lives, who we relate to, and how. While surrealism put unrelated objects together, many of us have been held at a distance from those we care about, and where we want to go. To achieve our 90% vaccination rates in the next few weeks, DHB's need to look to quite different people to lead and use new processes to make it easy and attractive for non-vaccinated and first dosers to welcome being involved.

How might your team use their imaginations to innovate and create responses to delight your stakeholders?

? Diana Jones