What is the power of creativity?
Picture the scene. It’s a hot august day, and you’re standing in an empty shopping centre retail unit which you’ve turned into an art exhibition space, ready to launch it to the world. You’ve plastered local businesses with your flyers; you’ve pinged a homemade press release out to any media email address you could get your mitts on; you’ve sent an invitation to everyone you know and their dog. There’s bottles and bottles of Prosecco (6 cases). But you have no idea if anyone’s going to turn up.
That’s where I found myself in August 2019, getting Motion Sickness Project Space off the ground with my two pals Denise Kehoe and Ary Hilfiker. An hour before opening, local photographer Keith Heppell arrived to take photos of us for next week’s paper. We smiled, peeking out from the gangly limbs of an artwork by artist Will van Boesschoten. And the unspoken question on our lips was - what if this is all for nothing?
We smiled, peeking out from the gangly limbs of an artwork by artist Will van Boesschoten.
Allow me to pause here and introduce you to Will. He was one of the first people I met through Motion Sickness - even before we opened the space. He attended an early talk of ours and was drawn to get involved. Today, when I ask Will to reflect on the power of creativity, he comments on how it “sort of creates the web that underpins a lot of creative communities.”
He goes on to talk about important connections he’s made through his creative practice. “For me, collaborating with my friend Ryan was huge. It had huge implications on my practice as well as forging this really important friendship, this connection.
“And then of course Amy [Will’s partner] and I met as a result of being two creatives looking for a studio, having that space nearby and bonding over shared interests or a sense of wanting to be creative and expressing ourselves.”
The human aspect of creativity is echoed by Theo Sayers, a Cambridge-based musician who I also met through Motion Sickness. Reflecting on his approach to creativity, he tells me: “I suppose my philosophy is to just be very open to collaborating with anyone who might be interested. Basically all my songs are collaborations in some way.
Theo Sayers DJing at a Motion Sickness event in Cambridge.
“Me and Alex are a great example. We met at Motion Sickness when he was DJing, and now we’ve recorded music and done several gigs together (in Cambridge and Sheffield). Performing at the Blue Moon also connected me with a lot of people, including Jasmine [Theo’s longtime friend and collaborator] - that’s where she first saw me perform.”
Alex, one of Theo’s many musical pals and collaborators, reached out to be part of Motion Sickness in the height of the pandemic, when the team running it were suffering burn out. Looking back at how his creative practice has developed through different stages of his life, he says: “It was interesting in the pandemic - the creativity was still there for me…but I liked the people aspect of things. I realised how much I miss connecting with people.
“For me the pandemic made me realise that I’m really not in the business of creativity for my love of creativity, I’m in it for the community and connecting with people. What originally attracted me to creativity is no longer my main driver.”
Alex is currently involved in various music projects including his current band, Los Vastardos. Looking to the future, he imagines a time in which he can continue to connect with people through creativity. “I’ll join a choir. You get to chit chat and practice your singing. So that’s me in the future. Some proper old fashioned Bach, holy tunes!”
Will van Boesschoten (far left) and Ellie Breeze (third from left) at the opening night of Motion Sickness Project Space.
Time travel with me - we’re back to that balmy august evening in 2019. At 6pm the doors officially open, and - breathe - people start arriving. I see faces I recognise, and faces I don’t. Each and every one has their own story, threads that are being woven together. Almost four years down the line from that launch party, I realised that what made it special was the gathering; greetings exchanged, connections formed, new friends made. And I suppose that’s the real power of creativity - the potential for human connection.
This summer, Together Culture is gathering a community of people to build a collaborative creative practice together. We’ll write our own story - the Story of Us. We’ll connect, laugh, and learn along the way. And, step by step, we’ll build Together Culture.
We’d love you to join us on this journey. You can become a Founding Member here.
