Retreat on the High Street
The room is small, tucked away behind a door at the back of the Imaginarium next to the Workshop. You might not even notice it. Inside there are a couple of armchairs, a small bookcase, blankets, cushions and a coffee table, with space to lie or sit on the floor. It’s simple and unassuming. It’s a quiet place; something quite different. It’s a place where magic can happen.
Using Retreat in our Process to Create a more Creative High Street
We are motivated to create the conditions for a more creative High Street — to ‘build creative spaces and experiences together’. We do this by encouraging and supporting local creatives to make, do and experiment. We are curious about the creative process and what we need to provide to enable creativity.
Creativity is an ebbing process of peaks and troughs, absorption and avoidance, flow and procrastination, certainty and doubt, play and pause. Doers want to do, and makers want to make. But creativity sometimes requires us to be. In the ‘being’ we rest, reflect, let it all percolate through us. We make connections and meaning, we work out what has to happen next, and then we start again. The being bit is where the magic happens. It’s often the unconscious bit — whilst we’re folding laundry, cooking dinner, taking a shower. Those moments are the gold dust; the place where things work themselves out, where we suddenly realise what we need to do next, where we unconsciously find meaning and direction. The process makes the product: the art. Without the process, there is no art.
We can’t do and make unless we be.
Moustakas’ heuristic research methodology provides a helpful framework for Retreat, both as an invitation and a metaphor. ‘Heuristic’ means “to discover or find. It refers to a process of internal search through which one discovers the nature and meaning of experience and develops methods and procedures for further investigation” (Moustakas, 1990, p.9): the process of creativity. The heuristic research methodology’s basic design consists of six phases: “the initial engagement, immersion into the topic and question, incubation, illumination, explication, and culmination of the research in a creative synthesis” (Moustakas, 1990, p.27).
The Retreat provides a physical reminder and symbol of the importance we place on periods of withdrawal. It’s a literal and metaphorical ‘stepping away’ from making and doing. Moustakas (1990, p.28) defines withdrawal as ‘incubation’. “Incubation is the time period during which the researcher retreats from the intense, concentrated, conscious focus on the question” (Sela-Smith, 2002, p.66).
Pausing, withdrawing and incubating can feel challenging. My experience of heuristic research has taught me how difficult being can be, especially when there is much to do. It can bring shame and judgement. There is so much to do. Sometimes it’s difficult to give ourselves that space and time because we don’t know what we’ll find there. It can feel like we’re not doing anything, like we’re not making, not being creative. It can feel difficult to let go, to let the meaning emerge from the unknown and the chaos. Whilst incubating we allow “tacit knowing, vague hunches and formless insights” (Douglass and Moustakas, 1985 in Moustakas, 1990) to emerge. We give our unconscious the time and space needed to make some sense.
During incubation we begin to discover that it’s all connected — this is where illumination happens: our seemingly unconscious choices reflect our internal and creative process. The things that pique our curiosity are all about the same thing. Even when engaged in seemingly separate endeavours, there we are — and there is our creative process. Moustakas (1990, p.29) states that illumination “occurs naturally when the researcher is open and receptive to tacit knowledge and intuition”. We need to withdraw, to incubate, to retreat, in order to create.
Ultimately, incubation acts as a catalyst for illumination. It brings revelation, refocusing and re-engagement. “Illumination opens the door to a new awareness, a modification of an old understanding, a synthesis of fragmented knowledge, or an altogether new discovery of something that has been present for some time yet beyond immediate awareness” (Moustakas, 1990, p.30). Armed with this new information we can move back into a period of immersion. This is the dance of heuristic inquiry.
The Retreat celebrates incubation. Just by being there it signals the value we place on retreat as part of our creative process. It’s a literal and metaphorical commitment to giving space, in the absolute belief that periods of incubation are healthy and essential in our work to create a more creative High Street.
Using Retreat in our Process to Create a Kinder High Street
Kindness underpins all of our Lab work. Our experiments are built on kindness for others and our environments. We aim to create a kinder High Street by being kind and valuing kindness in others. We recognise that retreat is an essential part of kindness to the self and to others.
The Retreat provides a literal retreat space designed for self-kindness and self-care. It is signal, a physical manifestation, of our commitment to kindness. It is a secure and unmovable provocation, quietly sitting at the back of the space, to remind you to be kind to you, to take the time and space you need, to reflect, restore, relax, reimagine, to do what you need to do for you.
Practicing kindness is an ebbing and flowing process in much the same way as creativity. We have times when it is difficult to be kind to ourselves, when it’s challenging to give ourselves what we need. The times when we need to be most kind to ourselves are often the times we’re not. There’s always more to do. The Retreat symbolises our commitment to stop the glorification of busy. It provides permission, and sometimes we need permission.
It says, “There’s no judgement in self-kindness. Kindness and self-care are celebrated here. Stop and take what you need, because we need you”.
We know that recognising retreat in the design of the space and in our experiments is essential. Retreat is embedded in our design. Self-kindness is in our bricks and mortar: we have a room especially for it. You might use the space to self-care, you might use it as a reminder to self-care. We have built it because we need it. It’s essential. It’s not an add-on or a sometimes, it’s there, quietly reminding us of our guiding principles, providing a prompt to be kind to ourselves often and purposefully. We know we can’t do this work without it.
The Retreat represents boundaries: the room has a door and walls and they are fiercely and gently maintained boundaries. If you’re in there, you won’t be disturbed. It reminds us to be fierce with our boundaries outside of the room too.
We can’t pour from an empty cup. Without practicing self-kindness, it’s more challenging to be kind to others. We need to keep filling our cup so there’s tea to pour for others.
Using Retreat in our Process to Create a more Connected High Street
The Retreat provides a space, and also symbolises the need, for a different kind of connection with ourselves and others. We connect with people on the High Street in many ways: through conversation, co-design, experiments, scheduled events and activities (on- and offline), and social media. However, retreat offers another way to connect through introspection and reflection. Through frequent pausing and retreating, physically and metaphorically, we allow the time for our learning to work its way through, for insight, for rest, for illumination. It helps us evaluate how we connect, why we connect, and what is missing — by connecting with ourselves, each other, and the work we’ve done and are doing. Retreat allows us to review, reflect, and re-evaluate.
The High Street is a busy place. It can be noisy and dirty and fast. Cars pass up and down all day, there are lots of people around, and there aren’t many places to retreat. The Retreat provides a space to relax, reflect, regroup and rejuvenate in amongst all the hustle and bustle.
It’s a place to sit and read, to pray, to stretch, to contemplate, meditate and breathe. It’s a place to get away from the noise. The world can be loud.
The global pandemic is magnifying the inequalities and pain that exist for many, and have existed for too long. We are seeing them more clearly now in the mainstream. They are no longer so hidden. The psychological costs of the events of 2020 will be, and are, colossal. People, families, communities and services are already at breaking point. Communities are stepping up and attempting to fill the gaps. There is so much work to be done in response to the agony of the collective traumatic bereavement we have all experienced, the impact of which is likely to permeate through the rest of our lives and through future generations.
The Retreat symbolises our acknowledgement of how challenging the world can be. It’s a small, unassuming little room, but it’s powerful. It clearly states that we get it. We see you. and us. Our work to create a more connected High Street means we have to provide space, physically and metaphorically, to trauma. By embracing trauma-informed design of our whole space we acknowledge wholeheartedly that living is hard sometimes, and those that are wounded are welcome. We’ve thought about you and think about you in our physical space. We make space for you. Our connections with the High Street are careful, considered, kind and trauma-informed. Connections matter.
Leave your shoes at the door, if you want to.
Come in and get comfortable. Come as you are. Come in and be.
The space can hold you. It’s built to contain you.
Bring your stuff.
Take a moment, or as long as you need. You won’t be disturbed.
It’s quiet, even if what you bring with you is loud.
The space will hold it all.
Snuggle into a blanket. Put your feet up.
This is your space. Your time. To be. Use it as you will.
Welcome to your retreat.
