'Ideally, every student should be required to take a course like the Broader Mind Course', says Thijs Biersteker. 'The idea that the younger generation can develop as a person and not just as an academic—that is the key to establishing a scientifically-minded society.' A successful collaboration between renowned climate awareness artist and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam resulted in an inspiring redesign of assignments in the Broader Mind Course, with a greater emphasis on the creative expression of students.
For Thijs Biersteker, founder of Woven Studio, science and art are inextricably linked. With his interactive art installations Biersteker makes the climate crisis, one of the biggest social problems of our time, tangible and accessible to a wide audience. 'I know a lot about the power of imagination, but I’m not in a laboratory. So, when I used to talk to scientists about the climate crisis, I often thought, ‘Why don't I know this?’ From that frustration, a collaboration with science was born. The idea was to translate data so that it can speak to the human imagination. And in this way to build a bridge between scientific insights and culture. The goal was to get people to talk to each other about this.'
Broader Mind Course
Biersteker believes that sharing knowledge should be an integral part of science. 'Scientific knowledge must be shared. What use are facts if they don't reach us? But it works both ways, so I also feel an obligation towards science. That is why, as a Fellow at the VU Association, I was involved in the Broader Mind Course to help students find their own voice through creative exploration.'
In the Broader Mind Course, students connect academic knowledge to their own personal opinions in a challenging and creative way. They are given the space for all kinds of expression—artistic, political or entrepreneurial ideas. Thijs Biersteker has made an important contribution to the content of the course by providing workshops and lectures, by making videos with tips and tricks on expressing personal learning goals in a creative way, and by redesigning the assignments.
Creative Accelerator
'I thought it would be cool to see if I could make a difference in getting students to communicate in a more creative way. For me personally, the challenge was in the rapid pace of the course. How can I develop tools to quickly get to the heart of the matter? This is how the Creative Accelerator, among other things, came about. It is a wheel with various societal questions and propositions. A spin of the wheel provides a proposition that students then have to think about. The wheel makes students think about many different points of view. That is what I like about the Broader Mind Course—different solutions for various societal problems are discussed. The Creative Accelerator is a good tool to take the conversation to a higher level.'
(Photo: Benning-Gladkova)