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Learn to master your own creativity

Sem01 (2024-2025) Mastering Creativity

The course Mastering Creativity offers an interdisciplinary approach of creativity, which will help you understand it and be creative in your own life.

Why Creativity?
Our future is an open question. More and more people struggle to find an adequate orientation on our reality, exposed to powers as climate change, digitization and migration. The elusiveness of the future asks for tools that help us in our understanding of the world around us, that enables us to imagine possible consequences of current developments and qualifies us to shape society. Tools that teach us how to translate our visions, values, principles and ideals into action. Creativity is of high importance, if we want to be able to imagine these possible alternative worlds and to actually realize innovation in thinking, learning and living.

Next to this problem-solving way of thinking about creativity there is the value way of thinking. Creativity in art, play, personal life (think about finding your style, your way of living and interaction with others) is of great importance to a human being. In a way, we are all creative in everyday live, just by choosing what to wear or which beauty we take in by looking at films, listening to music or choosing the colours on our wall.

What are we going to do?
The course has three pillars:

  1. Theoretical lectures that offer different perspectives of creativity,
  2. Reflection sessions with a practical approach and
  3. Direct observation of Creative Masters – leading creative figures within several professional fields.

The lectures will serve as input for a broad understanding of the concept of creativity, the reflection sessions will give you the opportunity to question the discussed ideas and to connect them to your personal life. Besides this, you will learn how to apply and combine several theoretical concepts. In the meetings with your creative master you will discuss her or his work, observe and use the experiences as inspiration for your own creative process as practical counterpoint of the offered theories.

Course details

  • Practical information

    Academic year
    2024-2025

    Semester
    1

    Period
    1, 2

    Day(s)
    Monday mornings and Wednesday evenings

    Time
    Mondays: 09:30-12:30
    Wednesdays: 18:00–21:000

    Number of meetings
    28

    Dates all meetings
    2, 4, 9, 11, 16, 18, 23, 25, 30 September
    2, 7, 9, 14, 16, 28, 30 October
    4, 6, 11, 13, 18, 20, 25, 27 November
    2, 4, 9, 11 December         

    Location
    Vrije Universiteit, De Boelelaan 1105, 1081 HV Amsterdam

    Room

    Mon Sep 02 202409:3012:30NU-4A67 
    Mon Sep 09 202409:3012:30OZW-7B01 
    Mon Sep 16 202409:3012:30NU-3B05 
    Mon Sep 23 202409:3012:30OZW-7B01 
    Mon Oct 07 202409:3012:30OZW-6B04 
    Mon Oct 14 202409:3012:30OZW-7B01 
    Mon Oct 28 202409:3012:30OZW-7B01 
    Mon Nov 04 202409:3012:30OZW-6A04 
    Mon Nov 11 202409:3012:30NU-4A67 
    Mon Nov 18 202409:3012:30MF-A611
    Mon Nov 25 202409:3012:30OZW-7B01 
    Mon Dec 02 202409:3012:30OZW-7B01 
    Mon Dec 09 202409:3012:30OZW-7B01 
    Wed Sep 04 202418:0021:00HG-16A00-Kerkzaal 
    Wed Sep 11 202418:0021:00HG-03A10 Agora 4 
    Wed Sep 18 202418:0021:00HG-03A10 Agora 4 
    Wed Sep 25 202418:0021:00NU-4A25 
    Wed Oct 02 202418:0021:00NU-4A25 
    Wed Oct 09 202418:0021:00HG-03A10 Agora 4 
    Wed Oct 16 202418:0021:00HG-03A10 Agora 4 
    Wed Oct 30 202418:0021:00HG-03A10 Agora 4 
    Wed Nov 06 202418:0021:00HG-16A00-Kerkzaal 
    Wed Nov 13 202418:0021:00HG-03A10 Agora 4 
    Wed Nov 20 202418:0021:00HG-16A00-Kerkzaal 
    Wed Nov 27 202418:0021:00HG-16A00-Kerkzaal 
    Wed Dec 04 202418:0021:00HG-16A00-Kerkzaal 
    Wed Dec 11 202418:0021:00HG-16A00-Kerkzaal 

    Credits
    12  (VD)

    Lecturers

    • Marijn Moerman (Philosopher and theatre maker)
    • Emma Heijdeman (Social Creative entrepeneur)
    • And many many guest lecturers
  • Learning objectives

    After finishing the course

    • You are capable of defining a theoretically substantiated vision on creativity.
    • You are able to reflect on ethical, social, cultural, scientific and personal aspects of creativity and on your own (future) societal roles.
    • You are conscious of your own creative potential.
    • You are able to use your creative potential in concrete ways. You will find new ways to solve solutions and new ways of cooperating. You will create the perfect circumstances for your innovative and imaginative capabilities and discover how to translate them into solutions and decisiveness.
    • You are able to take ownership over your education by drafting, follow and evaluate your personal goals.
    • You are able to work together with and for others and give and receive constructive feedback.
  • Working formats & structure

    At the beginning of the program you choose your creative master within the tracks of politics and activism, entrepreneurship or art. Together with other students from the group, you are supposed to research creativity within the specific field. This is called ‘the master track’ and will take place outside the two weekly contact moments of the program. The first weekly lecture on Monday will cover the theory offered by several academical and practical experts, the second session on Wednesday is for practical reflection. Within these sessions there will be exercises such as visualization, creating a Gesammtkunstwerk, find solutions with The Pressure Cooker and practicing with different expressive media, such as writing, digital tools, performance, visual design.

    Who will guide this course?
    Thematical teachers, whom are expert within a certain theme and guarantee the quality of the substantive coherence of the components of the program:

    • Eugene Sutorius (judge and lawyer)
    • Dick Swaab (brain scientist)
    • Anna Snel (economist and founder of the VUCA Academy)
    • Jeroen Lutters (lector Art and Education, writer)
    • Aynouk Tan (identity philosopher)
    • Rita Kucinskaite (creative director of DEPT digital agency)
    • Eva Bartels (multidisciplinary artist) 
    • Reina Ovinge (slow fashion entrepreneur)

    Theorethical subjects
    Creativity and neuroscience, philosophy, entrepreneurship, literature, sociology, art, psychology and politics

    Mastertracks (based on the previous course, we will try to include them again)

    The creative masters of the course will be:

    for politics and activism:

    • Matthijs van Neerbos (former spindoctor)

    for art:

    • Bas Kosters (fashion designer)

    for entrepeneurship:

    • Dionne Schulf  (international marketeer)

    Workgroup teachers
    The workgroup teachers are responsible for the practical assignments, reflection on the thematical teachers and the guidance of expression.

    • Marijn Moerman (philosopher and theatre maker)
    • Emma Heijdeman (social creative entrepreneur)
  • Assessment methods

    There are three assignments:

    1. A flipped classroom: you teach your peers what you have learned in your track
    2. A personal work: you show your peers your personal fascination with the subject through a specific expressive form (film, dance, poetry, photography etc.)
    3. The final result of this course, a vision on creativity based on all discussed fields, will be ‘materialized’ and presented during an end event or product (f.i. a film, a website, an actual thing etc), that will be fully produced and created by the students of the course.

    Important note: this course is not graded. We work with attendance, contribution and the execution of the assignments to give you a pass or a fail.

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