DAY 99: Co-creating the Creative Industry

By Gloria Kiconco at WDE in Eindhoven, The Netherlands 29 October, 2017

At the end of July 2017, I held A Day of Learning titled Co-creating the Creative Industry in Kampala. It was a workshop and exhibition exploring collaboration between artists and entrepreneurs: how each one’s strength could complement the other and how collaboration could lead to unexpected solutions for the challenges we face in the creative industry. This was A Day of Learning for those that joined and for me, because I had new layers to discover, new challenges to overcome in learning how to bring people together to collaborate. In the end, we created, we learned, and we made new connections.

At the end of October 2017, I arrived in Eindhoven towards the end of Dutch Design Week to share the same day of learning with Dutch artists, entrepreneurs, and others who had come to be part of Dutch Design Week. There was some irony in how co-creation and human centered design methods had traveled from The Netherlands to Uganda to influence my creative process and how I was carrying them back as part of A Day of Learning.

What exactly was I there to share?

Take Two: Co-creating the Creative Industry

On the last day of Dutch Design Week, I held the last day of learning with an hour and a half to share what I had learned about collaboration among artists. My approach focused on sharing a few key elements required for successful collaboration: storytelling and sharing, giving and receiving, accepting and denying, and problem solving from different perspectives.

Most our time together was for those present to share their story and to share their challenges. Each participant selected a found object to use to tell their story. A simple exercise, yes, but it gave each person an opportunity to present themselves as they preferred, even if others present already knew them.

The exercise of telling your story keeps those present from constructing your story for you; it keeps the rest of us from jumping to conclusions or placing you in a box.

Later participants had a chance to think about and write down the challenges they are facing in their work and to share this with the group. We went around one by one, opening up about the challenges we face. It was surprising how many issues we had in common, like the balance between work and life or the uphill battle of creating a project on a shoestring budget. It was even more surprising how many issues we took for granted, like how for one participant, being at the Design Academy in Eindhoven meant living in a culture of criticism, without anyone necessarily considering the truth or authenticity in a student’s work, without anyone hearing the story. Or how this workshop had framed creativity as an industry, which was an uncomfortable framework for another participant.

By the time we finished sharing, our hour and a half was up. We took a few more minutes to brainstorm solutions together. But as we closed the workshop, one participant said thank you, for taking the time to let everyone share, for listening to every single person tell their story and their frustrations.

This became the most important lesson to walk away with, or perhaps an important reminder because it’s so easy to forget the power or telling your story and the power of listening to someone else’s story. Before collaboration, there must be sharing and understanding.

On November 8, I attended Chombotrope, a fashion, dance, spoken word, and music fusion by Jitta Collective that confirmed this learning for me. After the show, the artists held a Q&A. They were asked how they managed to work so well together.

Their response?

In conceptualization and preparation for this performance, the majority of their time was spent in conversation; in sharing, listening, and understanding each other.