Beautiful Questions - February 2022
Inter Continental Virtual Residency
From February 18th to 26th, 2022, four cohorts in four cities (Berlin in Germany, Denmark in Western Australia, Budapest in Hungary and New Delhi in India) embarked on an inter-continental and experimental virtual artist residency identifying and exploring “beautiful questions,” questions which preoccupy each of us in our artistic and creative practices.
Cohorts or individuals in each jurisdiction worked independently on the topic according to a schedule set by respective facilitators from each city, spending the week in thematic exploration with their local group and within their local communities, and then reconvene online to share learning across the different regions of the world.
The goals of the program were:
To engage one another in exploring the ‘beautiful questions’ which inform each other’s respective creative practices
To create space for creative play for each participant to enrich their artistic practice and generate insights that could profoundly inform those practices.
To inspire one another through sharing and connecting our stories, our individual artistic processes, and our communities in hopes of exploring potential future collaborations both with one another and within our local communities.
What then is a ‘beautiful question’? A beautiful question is one that challenges us to think deeply about the world around us, and inspires us to engage more beautifully with the challenges of our times. More often than not we find ourselves asking questions that are not helpful, but rather self-defeating or destructive. What would it look like to engage these questions from a new perspective, a perspective that could elicit hope and possibility rather than despair. These are questions we ask ourselves about our families, our communities, our work and creative practices, the questions we ask ourselves when we do not understand, when we are frustrated or disappointed. Is the question that we are thinking of, is it the question that we are really wanting to ask. Beautiful questions inform our personal lives, our ethos, and our interactions with others and our environment.
A beautiful question is often simple, yet has the effect of getting to the heart of messy challenges. It may find a ‘bulls-eye trigger point’ - but gently - so the truth doesn’t run away to hide in the shadows.
Beautiful answers elicit a sense of ‘ahah’, a settling, a coalescing, or a fruitful distillation of ideas that propel us forward in our artistic practice and broader interactions.
Beautiful questions often imply a sense of agency, inspire actions (large or miniscule), and inform (and are informed by) our value systems.
Logistics| How was it done?
Coming together locally: Over the week participants and facilitators met independently in local cohorts in their respective cities—as well as with friends, family, and community to think, share, and develop ideas around the theme “Beautiful Questions.” They explored what these questions could be, examined how these questions play into their art practices, and considered how they could elicit “play”, an often ignored aspect critical to the creative process.
Coming together internationally: Even as they worked on the theme independently and in a local context, participants met with the larger international cohort multiple times over the duration of the program to share thoughts, findings, progress, and related questions. These sharings and shared experiences not only explored the ideas in an international context but also fostered valuable new relationships and possible collaborations.
Why this program? In this experimental artistic residence, the theme challenged participants to think in new ways about their role in society and their practice. The process was designed to be revelatory, fostering artistic growth. The unique opportunity to share with artists and peers across the globe took forward our collective aspiration to create valuable multi-cultural experiences. Through these experiences a community was fostered that supports and inspires one another.
End Goal: While the program aimed to encourage conversation valuable in and of itself, we hope to ultimately document the conversations, findings and artwork to present it as a collective study, a virtual exhibition if you will of process-driven findings to the prompt of asking ‘beautiful questions.’
Outcome: Some of the ‘beautiful questions’ that were shared and explored were: ‘What would a world without money be like?’ (Konstantine, Germany) ‘How do we "Go play"?’ (Christopher, Germany), ‘How do we reflect our inner world to the outside world?’ (Sony, India), ‘What is the seed spring of life? (Sylvia, W.Australia). The experience was so rich and stimulating that the participants are planning a second version to be held in October 2022 which will include a cohort of artists in Japan and possibly other regions. A desire has been born for this ‘questioning’ community to both grow in reach and grow in depth in engaging with each others’ explorations and experiences.