It is what it isn’t
QD #71 💜 Last chance to join April's Quest - a month where your creativity comes first.
In this weeks edition…
✷ Last chance to join April’s Quest - kicking off in SIX DAYS!
✷ A guest piece and poem about the power of perspective from
✷ A fine selection of illuminating links!
Dear Questers,
Aliena here 👋 ( pronounced ahh-lee-YAY-naa) and I’m excited to be taking over this weeks Quest Digest!
I first joined Creative Quests in 2021 - exploring the theme of colour! I’ve been a Quester and in love with the colour purple ever since. So it gives me great joy write to you on World Purple Day 💜 Quest magic in action! I am known for having a contagious laugh and telling too many Dad jokes. I am a part time spinning instructor and work in communications across the arts, music, sports, education and culture.
I’m looking forward to Questing once more this April!
Speaking of which… have you signed up yet?! Here is my two cents on why is the best thing you can do for your creativity this spring…
To Quest is to open yourself up to the very best life has to offer. It’s like Willy Wonka has come knocking and he gives you the keys to the world of imagination. Only that it’s real. With curiosity at the helm, you unpack a realm filled with creativity, connection, wonder and excitement. It’s a golden ticket for adventure, to rediscover, refresh and rejuvenate.
It is what it isn’t.
Perspective is a funny thing. It shapes us, gives context, meaning, understanding, it makes us do certain things. It’s fickle and fragile, but profound in its power. It can be needed, provided, gathered, offered, or perhaps it’s lacking, new, refreshed, lost.
Put simply, it’s a way of thinking about and understanding something. And I’ve been thinking about it a lot.
We are adamant about everyone else understanding our own perspectives, justifying our decisions and explaining our contexts. We do our utmost to serve it as a basis for others to come around to an idea, to influence, to steer, to sway – to look at something in an entirely different way. We do it to others and others do it to us.
But when was the last time we did it to and for ourselves? When do we ever take a bird’s eye view and contemplate a different perspective on our own situations? Or push for better or different in our own realities?
Too often I hear “it is what it is.”
“It is what it is” says the manager to the employee questioning decisions about salary cuts.
“It is what it is” says the teacher to the student asking why something is a certain way.
“It is what it is” say the parents about their child’s unacceptable behaviour.
I’ll tell you what it really is – a cop out.
And it’s my all time least favourite phrase in the world.
It’s the phrase for the defeated, the excuse for the can’t-be-bothered, the motto for the reluctant. It’s the thing AI is betting on. It’s what’s let us down, so badly.
But what if we decided to always choose to look beyond what it actually is? What if we shifted our own perspective, turned what it is into what it could be?
While taking part in this January’s Creative Quest, exploring the theme of sculpture, my entire perspective of statues, monuments and 3D works of art was shattered when a fellow Quester asked…
“what are statues looking at?”
I couldn’t get the question out of my head.
With lots of sculptures in my periphery over the course of the month, I was suddenly looking at them with an entirely new lens, thinking about what they see, and what the world looks like from their perspective.
Sculptures suddenly came to life, imagination burst and possibilities emerged. I realised that in a world that is constantly on the move, bombarded with images, opinions, headlines, sounds, smells, events, emotions, endless barrages of content and information, sculptures stand still–and watch the world go by.
If we chose to stay fixed to one spot, what would we see? What would we notice? What would we focus on?
And so,
was born – a Substack series of imagined stories that tell the tales of sculptures, their histories, their coming of age, the meetings of their makers, the way they see the world. There have been five stories told so far, and I am blown away by the worlds they reveal, the perspectives they offer, the considerations they bring to light and the imaginations they unlock.
Now, every Tuesday as a story gets published, I consider the life of that sculpture and understand the world from where they stand. And it’s a mighty moment. Being open to considering a different life view, entering a new context, finding empathy – imagine if we all did that with and for each other?
The beauty of the Creative Quest is that it challenges you to take a walk beyond your usual and beyond yourself. Whether it’s in someone else’s shoes or not or the simple act of standing still in a crowd, it encourages you to notice what you notice, re-embrace your surroundings, and look into the eyes, listen to the stories and spend time with those who are unlike you.
Most of all, it reminds me that making change really isn’t something that has to be hard or requires huge effort. Real change comes from moments of illumination and enlightenment. And it all starts with a little curiosity.
Taking the plunge and diving head first into a Quest, we might just find that things aren’t always quite what they are. The different and the foreign might not be so different and foreign. The power is in perspective and it’s out there, available and waiting. Will we let it in?
I walked a mile.
I walked a mile in another’s shoes, down a path I’d never travelled.
It’s not one I’d ever choose, nor seek or want to unravel.
But they led me down pathways, filled with new sights and views,
distant, unfamiliar and foreign, but hard to refuse.
Unnerving and new and wholly compelling,
I knew that there was hidden, a story worth telling.
I let myself get lost, in the scenes and in the sounds, I took a good look at all that was around.
A curious itch began to emerge, amidst the unknown fields,
together with the sudden realisation that I needed boots, not silly little heels.
To walk the path of another is no easy feat, especially when the shoe’s don’t quite fit your feet.
But as I walked and I wandered, my eyes open in wonder, left, right, left, stop – I began to uncover
a world and a context, intricate and complex,
a spectrum of thoughts, my imagination flexed.
As I walked through a new territory of minds unlike mine, with strange opinions and beliefs and tributes to shrines, I was reminded
that although my feet trod a path down a different road, it doesn’t mean mine is laced with gold, or headed the right way or the one of the bold, or the one that is right, the one that has seen the light, or the only one whose story should be told.
Getting out of your lane and into another, is no reflex reaction.
It’s a willingness, a desire – a curiosity-led extraction.
To see through eyes that are not yours, to imagine a world that was never in store, for you, your friends, your family and lovers, it’s a powerful thing when you start to discover, just what it could mean or how it could look, to exist in a way far beyond your nook. What connection you find, what secrets you hear, what stories lurk when you come in near. What questions entice, what answers reveal, what comes at a price, what starts to heal.
I walked a mile in another’s shoes and I’m sure glad I did.
I went out of myself and considered a few, new approaches to life and got rid, of presumptions and untruths, of knowledge deep in the roots.
I found beauty and pain and learned the names of the people and places in this place I came to be,
and I told the story of someone that could have been me.
A round of illuminating discoveries from Aliena’s world….
📰 From headlines to heartlines: Sho Shibuya’s use of the New York Times as a canvas
📸 A World in Common: A gorgeous and thought-provoking contemporary African photography exhibition in Berlin that challenges the western-oriented conception of the world, exploring alternative historical narratives by “thinking the world from Africa.
🤖 Tim Minchin’s thoughts on AI
🚌Why we shouldn’t ban AI in schools – a real perspective shift on the discussion
🗣️ What thoughts do I wish to create? How the language we use everyday affects how we see the world.
💜 It’s World Purple Day (my favourite colour!)
Finally…
Thanks for reading! A lot of time, heart and energy goes into writing these each week. If you enjoy what we do at Creative Quests - you can support by joining a Quest (next one is in April!) or booking us to run a workshop in your community or organisation. If you want to know more - just hit reply on this email!
Sharing this newsletter with a curious loved one is also deeply appreciated.
Quest love,
Aliena
the small print
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Thanks Aliena! What a fun surprise. I can't wait to read the sculptures' stories.