I write — a personal take on 180 Creative Camp by Carolina Rodrigues
We met Carolina Rodrigues a few months before the 180 Creative Camp. Although already having her ticket she seemed a bit stressed and out of place even before packing for Abrantes. Carolina, like many others, shared a fear of not being creative enough for the 180 Creative Camp. But creativity comes in many forms and shapes! And who to tell you best about it than Carolina herself. Read her story about sharing this fear with other campers and overcoming it.
“I write.” — This is how I reply to one of the most asked questions during 180 Creative Camp in Abrantes: “what do you do?”. It turns out to be sort of an unusual answer, surrounded by so many designers, illustrators, photographers, and filmmakers. Nonetheless, there’s one thing that brings most of us all together: a great pursuit of self-discovery. Who are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going?
It was with these same questions that Ioana Lupascu and Monika Bozek were faced. Both trained architects from Romania and Poland respectively left the AutoCAD drawings and the Kapa line mockups and now they meet at the 180 Creative Camp to find out what to do next. However, it’s not only participants who are reached by the identity search.
Dutch illustrator, Jordy Van Den Nieuwendijk, shared during his presentation “Meet the creators!” he would feel “stuck” inside of his own creations even preparing a funeral for them, inviting friends and family. Also, the locals had faced their own creativity crisis.
Joana Borda d’Água, who was a participant in the first ever 180 Creative Camp in Abrantes, also wasn’t happy with her current job when she decided to quit.
“When you’re young and you’re out of college you want to do something challenging and what I was doing wasn’t. I was tired of it and I decided to stop.”
She said during her “Meet the locals!” presentation was then when she took over her grandfather’s old drugstore giving it a new concept of an offer of New Portuguese products while also keeping the must-haves of any Portuguese drugstore such as cleaning products and “sabão azul” (edit.: a Portuguese type of a household soap). It looks like creativity crises are for everybody.
“I studied architecture for six years although every year I wished I wouldn’t and I would do something else,” said Ioana during one of our conversations. For some reason, that sentence stuck with me. The same thing had happened with Joana. She kept working for two years before she quit. My first reaction was “Why?”. Why would someone be unhappy and deciding (were they really deciding?) to stay at the place that makes them that way? Why not change? Why not move? It was when I realized that courage is needed to be in a creativity crisis.
Many don’t dare to be in that uncomfortable, and sometimes despairing situation of having no idea of what to do next. Because, people, myself included, get used to the comfort of discomfort because it’s all they know. It’s safe. A steady job with a reliable income. What more can someone ask for? Is someone whiling to give it all up for the dream of doing something they really love? Of being truly happy? Can’t happiness be found somewhere else? After all, a job isn’t everything.
As a matter of fact, most of the times, it isn’t about a job or income but about fulfillment. It is a true risk, yes. And many don’t even dare to make it. There is this song by this Portuguese songwriter called Miguel Araújo named “Valsa Redonda” and it has what I believe one of the most beautiful lyrics:
Duro vai ficando o coração de quem não quis dar-se à dor de ser feliz.
Like a stone gets the heart of those who don’t want to give in to the pain of being happy.
Being happy is very demanding and many aren’t willing to take the quest. The quest to figure out who they truly are.
All the pictures used to illustrate this article has been taken by the participants of the 180 Creative Camp Abrantes 2018 on disposable cameras.
