I speak on the mainstage of TEDGlobal 2017 held in Arusha, Tanzania on the need to recognize the creativity and dynamism of the micro-entrepreneurs who are the engine of social and economic value creation in much of the world.
Co-founder Niti’s visual essay on blending knowledges presented at the STS-CH 2023 conference at University of Basel, Switzerland on 31st August 2023
This past academic year, however, was a mind-opening learning exercise in exploring the boundaries of the western knowledge system (WKS) and its scientific method, in
Solarpunk is a literary and artistic movement that envisions and works toward actualizing a sustainable future interconnected with nature and community.
There is a pattern to the universe and everything in it, and there are knowledge systems and traditions that follow this pattern to maintain balance……
Creativity
is the heart and soul
of our philosophy
Ymmärrys ry believes that creativity is an innate quality of every human being, which can be expressed through experimentation and practice. Given the right tools and the right encouragement and guidance, one can develop and cultivate the ability to use this innate quality. We collaborate with groups and communities to nurture and harness their own capacity and agency for creative expression, by engaging with storytelling practices, oral histories, narratives of change, intangible heritage, and local knowledge. All of the different ways of knowing, making, doing, and creating can be manifested tangibly through participatory and inclusive activities informed by art and design. All we need is a little helping hand to uncover and make visible our own stories and share them in various creative ways.
Explore Further
Co-founder Niti’s visual essay on blending knowledges presented at the STS-CH 2023 conference at
Ymmärrys ry co-founder Eline’s Master’s Thesis from Aalto University’s Programme in Visual Cultures, Curating
This past academic year, however, was a mind-opening learning exercise in exploring the boundaries
Agency
Agency is the motive driver of our collective creative practices: we believe that experiencing a sense of our own capacity for creativity and innovation fosters agency for self-determined changes. Through our projects and activities we are motivated by the experience of sharing the creative spark and energy of collaboration; collaborative sensemaking guides and directs the roadmap of our transformation journey, while exploration and discovery of our creative selves in a safe space brings to light our own stories.
We are the agents of our own transformation journeys.
Explore Further
Between 1992 and 2016, forest cover in Nepal almost doubled, from 26% to 45%
Indigenous Knowledge is making a comeback. It is being promoted by development organisations
We’re actively seeking out collaborators and cooperators to codesign novel and impactful social interventions
Innovation
We conceptualize sustainability as collective social change (Aguilera et al., 2007; Hargrave and Van de Ven, 2006), and have developed social processes that are place-based and community-centric. In our projects and activities we aim to introduce creative practices for collaboration and cooperation to foster capacity for learning and experimentation. Our aim is to accelerate our capacity for transformation in a resilient and sustainable manner on an individual and communal level, through custom-designed methods and tools, to bridge the knowing-doing gap.
Explore Further
“…if the planet is our mother, not an opportunity––then we will treat each other with greater respect.” ~ David Suzuki
How do we facilitate shared understanding for the project and process for societal initiatives?
The creativity of design practitioners responds to surprises with an iterative process that repeatedly reformulates a problem to find its core and then analyses possible
“We have deliberately sought to devise and place ourselves within a ‘context of discovery’ rather than a ‘context of proof’” Gouldner & Peterson 1962 In
Futures
In building a positive future, art and design plays an integral role in social harmony and innovation thinking. Our collaborative and cooperative creative practices and innovation methods provide the social infrastructure for self determined roadmaps for transformation.
Cognitive Justice: the right of different knowledges to coexist so long as they sustain the life, livelihoods, and life chances of a people. (Visvanathan, 2021)
Creative practices allow us to manifest the unseen and the unknown, the embodied and experiential knowledge, the senses and the emotions: they make visible and tangible a narrative of change that meets our deepest needs and reflects our own, self-determined vision of a better future.
Explore Further
Ymmärrys ry offers a diagnostic toolkit that blends science with arts and innovation for a structured approach to resilient transformation and sustainable futures.
We need motivation in the face of replacement, redundancy, or reduction.
Solarpunk is a literary and artistic movement that envisions and works toward actualizing a sustainable future interconnected with nature and community.