Lentz Villa, January 29, 2022
Creativity seems to be a concept that is indispensable to culture. Bearing in mind the clarifications of Florian Znaniecki, developed, among other things, by professor Gerard Labuda, distinguishing the idea of culture from civilization, it should be assumed that the former is invariably created by acts of innovation. At the same time, the latter consists of processes of disseminating, popularising and dispersing new discoveries, solutions and works. Popular innovations grow into reality, becoming everyday life and the heritage of humanity; in this form, they make up a tradition which is the necessary subsoil for successive creative acts of culture.
Creativity in culture
If the concept of creativity is considered today, it activates various areas of social life based on associations. Creativity is attributed to the economy (creative industries), city politicians, and demographic changes (the concept of "creative class"). In the beginning, however, it refers to practices originating in the field of art and culture.
The discussion at the Lentz Villa began with a brief outline of the history of the concept of creativity. Reflection on the creative potential of man appears at the dawn of culture. Protagoras of Abdera, counted among the Greek sophists, recognized creativity as a condition of subjectivity. We passively recognize the world; we move from recognizing it to creating, which is synonymous with independent choice.
The world is worth human creativity. This belief of ancient thinkers was negated by the Middle Ages, preceded by the ataraxia of the Stoics. Both of them valued spiritual harmony more than the conquest of the world and made it the goal of human endeavours. Creativity shifted the emphasis to earthly things, away from ultimate and transcendent matters.
The Renaissance restored the sense of creativity. One of its representatives, Marsilio Ficino, a Florentine scholar known as the "second Plato", recognised that only man is not satisfied with the place he occupies. The element of creativity distinguishes us from animals and makes us human. This conviction has accompanied humanity through later centuries until today. Still, individual epochs differed in the development dynamics of creative thought.
The Renaissance was undoubtedly a time of acceleration; it was built by the inventions of printing, harquebuses, and magnets, which translated into the dissemination of science, the development of war and the effectiveness of conquest, and the range of shipping. The next era of creativity, even its explosion, was the nineteenth century with steam engines, photography, mass magazines, telegraph, railroad – all this coupled with a fundamental departure from feudalism towards capitalism.
The time we live in, the time counted from the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries is undoubtedly the moment in history when the imperative of creativity permeates almost all spheres of life and successfully outbids other, contemporary ideological calls. Of course, human ingenuity has gained a vast field of exploration and presentation – the Internet, a global digital information flow network.
How does Szczecin fit in the world of contemporary, global creativity? The discussion, which took place at the Lentz Villa, gathered people from different generations and professional and social activity areas. However, all panel participants were united by the experience of practice in spheres considered constitutive of contemporary creativity: science, culture, and art.
The Szczecin perspective was particularly important for the second part of the discussion. In the first quarter of the debate, the participants were asked to define the relationship between tradition and creativity, referring to their own experiences. How does creativity relate to the past?
Professor Waldemar Wojciechowski, lecturer and co-founder of the Academy of Arts, pointed to the function of art that remains inspiring for other areas. It is a recognised and planned process, as evidenced by the establishment of the Creative Industry Centre by the Academy. In the very process of artistic education, however, the emphasis is placed on familiarising people with tradition; it results from the belief that it can be enriched or verified only by getting to know it beforehand. Finally, the professor pointed to the dynamics of technological development that stimulates creativity in art. The Academy of Art was established in Szczecin over ten years ago. When the academy started operating, multimedia was a secondary means of expression. Today, it is the dominant one. The knowledge of their technical capabilities translates into the creator's potential as an artist in a directly proportionate way.
Grzegorz Czarnecki, an artist-photographer and promoter of knowledge about pre-war Szczecin, indicated a creative relationship with the past. In his view, Szczecin also requires a creative approach to history, particularly the part that belongs to other nations and cultures that contribute to the city. In the area of "incorporating" the German history of Szczecin into the area of collective consciousness, a meeting of "our" creativity with "not our" tradition is being realised.
Creativity, however, requires breaking a certain social conformism and resisting the temptations of opportunism. Patryk Słowiński, a visual artist, saw such threats in the sphere determined by institutionalised culture. The threat to creativity is not so much a burdening tradition as the bliss of self-satisfaction.
Professor Urszula Chęcińska, a literary scholar and lecturer at the University of Szczecin, pointed to yet another relationship between creativity and tradition. By rejecting excessively (self)-critical attitudes, she pointed out traditions of ingenuity that Szczecin can be proud of. Today, the creative potential of Szczecin was reflected in the unprecedented development of higher education in the city in the 20th century, the construction of new institutions and places of art and culture, and social and economic diversification.
In the course of the discussion, the issues relating to the local context were becoming more and more critical. The panellists argued that with its urban ambitions and identity, Szczecin should have its own creative class and take care of its development. The moderator referred to the classic text by Richard Florida, "The Rise of the Creative Class", describing the specificity of the creativity-based economy. Three indicators determine it:
Participants agreed that Szczecin has significantly improved indicators from the third point in recent years and remains deeply distanced, if not opposed, to any political practices aimed at discrimination based on sexual preferences. Andrzej Łazowski, a cultural animator and artist-photographer, often pointed out that municipal authorities' involvement in supporting creators and artists is too little and unsystematic, so it is difficult to talk about a directional policy towards increasing the bohemian index.
Monika Szpener, an artist sculptor, recognised that the problems also concern the recognition of competencies and knowledge as key in decisions relating to public matters. Creativity understood as creating something completely original is not at all recognised by the local political and bureaucratic class. As a result, there is a lack of confidence in knowledge and the courage to create something truly your own. Instead of acceptance, openness and encouragement to innovate, an inventor, innovator, an artist often hears: "Has he ever done something like this before", "has it been tested in another city"? It is not a creativity-friendly approach.
This remark triggered a reflection on the ambivalence of Szczecin, which, on the one hand, places itself as the centre, and on the other, fears peripheral status. The latter can be geographically objectified to some extent, and then it is not an insult but an advantage. Sometimes, however, it happens that, more or less consciously, the peripherality emerges from the mental sphere and manifests itself, for example, in the "fear of the unknown new".
The Richard Florida mentioned above, followed by many analysts of creativity in contemporary cities, indicated that creativity is unthinkable in a narrow field: art, education, culture, and economy. A creative attitude must be present everywhere, in every social area, to translate into the status and potential of a city. According to the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA), three components are distinguished in the creative economy:
It is not enough to offer jobs with good wages to people who show creative potential. The surroundings, aesthetic value, greenery, and space for recreation are essential. The entertainment and cultural offer, available in the afternoons and evenings, also plays an important role. As pointed out by actor and director Zura Pirvell, this is a big problem. The city cannot die out after 18:00. It must be exciting and attractive, stimulating and inspiring. It is imperative in the context of the specificity of creative, precarious professions, in which the boundary between working and spending time "in the city" is fluid.
The positives of creativity in the social dimension are known, and the negatives are also increasingly discussed. Even though they do not concern Szczecin today, one cannot make the mistake of ignoring potential threats. In stimulating creativity, a sustainable policy must also be pursued, drawing villages out of the neglect of other European cities in the West. Betting on the creative class often resulted in the cult of competition, chronic and pathological precarity, gentrification and classism, which pose a health hazard. One should also not forget about the persistent gender imbalance in creative industries, unfavourable for women.
At the beginning of the panel discussion, the director of the Lentz Villa, Jagoda Kimber, said that her goal was not to come up with a conclusion that everyone would sign up for; it is more about showing the complexity of the phenomenon in its Szczecin context. And this effect was undoubtedly achieved, apart from the common belief that creativity is an essential value for Szczecin, requiring daily work and care.
(-) Jędrzej Wijas, PhD
The discussion at the Lentz Villa began with a brief outline of the history of the concept of creativity. Reflection on the creative potential of man appears at the dawn of culture. Protagoras of Abdera, counted among the Greek sophists, recognized creativity as a condition of subjectivity. We passively recognize the world; we move from recognizing it to creating, which is synonymous with independent choice.
The world is worth human creativity. This belief of ancient thinkers was negated by the Middle Ages, preceded by the ataraxia of the Stoics. Both of them valued spiritual harmony more than the conquest of the world and made it the goal of human endeavours. Creativity shifted the emphasis to earthly things, away from ultimate and transcendent matters.
The Renaissance restored the sense of creativity. One of its representatives, Marsilio Ficino, a Florentine scholar known as the "second Plato", recognised that only man is not satisfied with the place he occupies. The element of creativity distinguishes us from animals and makes us human. This conviction has accompanied humanity through later centuries until today. Still, individual epochs differed in the development dynamics of creative thought.
The Renaissance was undoubtedly a time of acceleration; it was built by the inventions of printing, harquebuses, and magnets, which translated into the dissemination of science, the development of war and the effectiveness of conquest, and the range of shipping. The next era of creativity, even its explosion, was the nineteenth century with steam engines, photography, mass magazines, telegraph, railroad – all this coupled with a fundamental departure from feudalism towards capitalism.
The time we live in, the time counted from the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries is undoubtedly the moment in history when the imperative of creativity permeates almost all spheres of life and successfully outbids other, contemporary ideological calls. Of course, human ingenuity has gained a vast field of exploration and presentation – the Internet, a global digital information flow network.
How does Szczecin fit in the world of contemporary, global creativity? The discussion, which took place at the Lentz Villa, gathered people from different generations and professional and social activity areas. However, all panel participants were united by the experience of practice in spheres considered constitutive of contemporary creativity: science, culture, and art.
The Szczecin perspective was particularly important for the second part of the discussion. In the first quarter of the debate, the participants were asked to define the relationship between tradition and creativity, referring to their own experiences. How does creativity relate to the past?
Professor Waldemar Wojciechowski, lecturer and co-founder of the Academy of Arts, pointed to the function of art that remains inspiring for other areas. It is a recognised and planned process, as evidenced by the establishment of the Creative Industry Centre by the Academy. In the very process of artistic education, however, the emphasis is placed on familiarising people with tradition; it results from the belief that it can be enriched or verified only by getting to know it beforehand. Finally, the professor pointed to the dynamics of technological development that stimulates creativity in art. The Academy of Art was established in Szczecin over ten years ago. When the academy started operating, multimedia was a secondary means of expression. Today, it is the dominant one. The knowledge of their technical capabilities translates into the creator's potential as an artist in a directly proportionate way.
Grzegorz Czarnecki, an artist-photographer and promoter of knowledge about pre-war Szczecin, indicated a creative relationship with the past. In his view, Szczecin also requires a creative approach to history, particularly the part that belongs to other nations and cultures that contribute to the city. In the area of "incorporating" the German history of Szczecin into the area of collective consciousness, a meeting of "our" creativity with "not our" tradition is being realised.
Creativity, however, requires breaking a certain social conformism and resisting the temptations of opportunism. Patryk Słowiński, a visual artist, saw such threats in the sphere determined by institutionalised culture. The threat to creativity is not so much a burdening tradition as the bliss of self-satisfaction.
Professor Urszula Chęcińska, a literary scholar and lecturer at the University of Szczecin, pointed to yet another relationship between creativity and tradition. By rejecting excessively (self)-critical attitudes, she pointed out traditions of ingenuity that Szczecin can be proud of. Today, the creative potential of Szczecin was reflected in the unprecedented development of higher education in the city in the 20th century, the construction of new institutions and places of art and culture, and social and economic diversification.
In the course of the discussion, the issues relating to the local context were becoming more and more critical. The panellists argued that with its urban ambitions and identity, Szczecin should have its own creative class and take care of its development. The moderator referred to the classic text by Richard Florida, "The Rise of the Creative Class", describing the specificity of the creativity-based economy. Three indicators determine it:
- Technology – focusing on knowledge in public policy; concentration of knowledge and the industry based on it;
- Talent – it is measured by the number of educated inhabitants;
- Tolerance – the scale of openness, diversity and friendliness towards others (bohemian index – the percentage of artists in the city, gay index – the percentage of sexual minorities in the city).
Participants agreed that Szczecin has significantly improved indicators from the third point in recent years and remains deeply distanced, if not opposed, to any political practices aimed at discrimination based on sexual preferences. Andrzej Łazowski, a cultural animator and artist-photographer, often pointed out that municipal authorities' involvement in supporting creators and artists is too little and unsystematic, so it is difficult to talk about a directional policy towards increasing the bohemian index.
Monika Szpener, an artist sculptor, recognised that the problems also concern the recognition of competencies and knowledge as key in decisions relating to public matters. Creativity understood as creating something completely original is not at all recognised by the local political and bureaucratic class. As a result, there is a lack of confidence in knowledge and the courage to create something truly your own. Instead of acceptance, openness and encouragement to innovate, an inventor, innovator, an artist often hears: "Has he ever done something like this before", "has it been tested in another city"? It is not a creativity-friendly approach.
This remark triggered a reflection on the ambivalence of Szczecin, which, on the one hand, places itself as the centre, and on the other, fears peripheral status. The latter can be geographically objectified to some extent, and then it is not an insult but an advantage. Sometimes, however, it happens that, more or less consciously, the peripherality emerges from the mental sphere and manifests itself, for example, in the "fear of the unknown new".
The Richard Florida mentioned above, followed by many analysts of creativity in contemporary cities, indicated that creativity is unthinkable in a narrow field: art, education, culture, and economy. A creative attitude must be present everywhere, in every social area, to translate into the status and potential of a city. According to the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA), three components are distinguished in the creative economy:
- creative clusters – i.e. interconnected enterprises and people participating in the production of innovative goods (culture, but not only);
- creative staff – theorists and practitioners of innovative culture and art;
- creative community – the social environment of creative people and entities (e.g. local authorities) that recognise creativity as a value and understand its essence.
It is not enough to offer jobs with good wages to people who show creative potential. The surroundings, aesthetic value, greenery, and space for recreation are essential. The entertainment and cultural offer, available in the afternoons and evenings, also plays an important role. As pointed out by actor and director Zura Pirvell, this is a big problem. The city cannot die out after 18:00. It must be exciting and attractive, stimulating and inspiring. It is imperative in the context of the specificity of creative, precarious professions, in which the boundary between working and spending time "in the city" is fluid.
The positives of creativity in the social dimension are known, and the negatives are also increasingly discussed. Even though they do not concern Szczecin today, one cannot make the mistake of ignoring potential threats. In stimulating creativity, a sustainable policy must also be pursued, drawing villages out of the neglect of other European cities in the West. Betting on the creative class often resulted in the cult of competition, chronic and pathological precarity, gentrification and classism, which pose a health hazard. One should also not forget about the persistent gender imbalance in creative industries, unfavourable for women.
At the beginning of the panel discussion, the director of the Lentz Villa, Jagoda Kimber, said that her goal was not to come up with a conclusion that everyone would sign up for; it is more about showing the complexity of the phenomenon in its Szczecin context. And this effect was undoubtedly achieved, apart from the common belief that creativity is an essential value for Szczecin, requiring daily work and care.
(-) Jędrzej Wijas, PhD
