The UK is delivering an exciting, informative and educational six-month events programme at the UK Pavilion Expo 2020 Dubai. The programme invites global audiences to address a series of questions starting with ‘In the Future….’ 

‘In the Future ….. How will we Create?’ took place from 9 November to 14 November 2021. The Royal College of Art is the Heritage Partner of the UK Pavilion, having a 170-year history of shared heritage with world exhibitions going back to the first Expo, The Great Exhibition of 1851. The RCA’s contribution to the UK Pavilion at Expo 2020 will bring together a wide range of interdisciplinary projects from staff, current students and recent graduates. As Head of Programme of Graduate Diploma in Art and Design at the RCA, I developed and delivered the ‘A City in a Day’ project as part of my ongoing research. Four local schools with approximately 20 students participated in an hour’s workshop, each hour a different age of the city’s development. 

The ‘city’ as a vehicle or model for creative engagement was first developed and delivered over six days at FutureLab, Shanghai, in 2019, initiated by my ongoing creative thinking and learning research. The workshop investigates how creativity can be enabled through action-based teaching and learning approaches to embed and encourage creativity in the curriculum for primary and early secondary learners. The project’s basic premise is based on the creative and imaginative potential of the humble cardboard box, focusing on proven alternative approach models to creative and trans-disciplinary engagement to provide an immersive experience and critical takeaways from skills-based teaching of art and design. 

The ‘How will we Create?’ week culminated in a summit. The summit sessions brought together thought leaders and industry icons to explore creativity in addressing global issues:

HOW CAN CREATIVITY AND TECHNOLOGY BE HARNESSED FOR GOOD?

“I HAVE A DREAM” A VISION MOVES PEOPLE… BREAKING THE PROBLEM-CENTRIC CONSCIOUSNESS

CREATING THE CITIES OF THE FUTURE – A MULTIDISCIPLINARY APPROACH

I was a panel member of:

WHAT IF CREATIVITY HAS BECOME TOO LEFT-BRAINED?

Chair: Austin Tanney, Head of Digital and Data Strategy, Strategic Investment Board Northern Ireland 

Panellists:

Gary Clough, Head of Programme, Graduate Diploma in Art and Design, Royal College of Art

Meredith O’Shaughnessy, Founder, Meredith Collective 

Orlando Wood, Chief Innovation Officer, System1 Group 

Lorna Hawtin, Disruption Director, TBWA Manchester

The session explored the risks of too great a preponderance of left-brained thinking for culture, society, humanity and global sustainability and what to do about it. Panellists delved into neuroscience and the complex phenomenon of creativity as a multi-layered, ever-changing process that cannot be captured in an isolated part of the brain. They also discussed how new research demonstrates that most creative people have many connections between their brain’s hemispheres.