All parts of the same thing: Dispatches from the Creativity Everything Lab

Abstract

We established the Creativity Everything lab at Ryerson University in 2018 as a place that would support and unlock ‘all kinds of creativity for all kinds of people’. In this article, we detail the transdisciplinary roots of our work, and outline some of our activities and the thinking behind them. As a team of researchers developing projects and experiences that embrace a wide range of creators and creative practices, we are fashioning the lab to facilitate the actions of doing and making in a range of spheres: in everyday life, professional creative practice, and in learning and research. Three case studies – our ongoing efforts at supporting learning for students, a research project on platforms for creativity, and the community outreach of the 2019 Creativity Everything FreeSchool – explore how teaching, research, events, and collaborations in multiple media intersect in a multifaceted system for relating to and engaging with creativity. Our studies suggest that creative practice-as-research helps people make connections that fuel curiosity and experimentation. We argue that engaging in multiple perspectives of the “everything” of creativity better equips our students, university, and public to reap its benefits and rewards.