Peer-reviewed article in the journal Arts (MDPI), September 2026, DOI 10.3390/arts15090214.

Arts interventions built around active, embodied making tend to change people more than those built around looking at finished work. They also meet resistance: asked to take part in creative practice, non-artists — especially in higher education — often respond with discomfort and self-doubt.

The article presents ARTFUL, a six-stage framework designed to lower that barrier. It draws on neuroscience research on readiness for learning, cognitive scaffolding and embodied cognition, and pairs cognitive understanding with embodied experience at each stage. The framework was developed iteratively in an exploratory qualitative case study with 24 management students at Inholland University of Applied Sciences, using pre-programme surveys, post-programme interviews, creative diaries and reflective portfolios.

The method is set out in full, for teachers, in the book Connected Creativity.

From Silencing to Listening: Opera-Installation as Cross-Cultural Medium for Afghan Women’s Voices

Paper presented at the Art of Research conference at Aalto University (2026)

Summary

Unknown, I Live With You (2018) was built around a problem: how do you bring clandestine writings by Afghan women into a Western artistic space without reproducing the very structures that silenced them? This paper, written as a member of The Airport Society collective, traces the formal decisions behind the opera-installation — venue, costume, casting, composition, audience placement, temporal structure — and argues that each one was an ethical choice as much as an artistic one.

At the heart of the argument is opera’s fundamental strength: a form where music, staging, dramaturgy, costume, and space are genuinely co-equal, demanding total presence from its audience. The paper asks whether that quality can be turned against opera’s own colonial tendencies — and whether a non-hierarchical working process, from democratic decision-making to shared yoga sessions before rehearsals, can mirror and reinforce what happens on the stage.

The paper will be presented at the Art of Research 2026 conference at Aalto University. It is currently available as a preprint on SocArXiv.

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Links

Preprint: From Silencing to Listening — SocArXiv

Related links:
Unknown, I Live With You — OperaVision · Afghan Women’s Writing Project

Conference: https://events.aalto.fi/en/3X3IKxA7/g/82Z1zDshz8/art-of-research-2026-4a3bQtTRKz/overview

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Citation

Głowicka, Kasia. 2026. “From Silencing to Listening: Opera-Installation as Cross-Cultural Medium for Afghan Women’s Voices.” Preprint. SocArXiv. https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/m2hnq_v1.

The Space In-Between: Creative Skill and Cognitive Transitions in the Age of Prompt-Based AI

Paper presented at the Agency and Skill in Human-AI Interaction workshop, CHIWORK ’26 — the 5th Symposium on Human-Computer Interaction for Work

Summary

Recent neuroscientific evidence is beginning to suggest that prompt-based interaction with large language models reduces brain connectivity and cognitive engagement compared to unaided creative work. For creative practitioners, this is not a peripheral concern — it points to a structural deskilling effect built into how generative AI tools are currently designed.

This paper proposes a practical concept for mitigating that effect: a model of two cognitive modes and three intersections between them, derived from my own compositional practice in algorithmic composition twenty years before generative AI tools became widely available. The framework identifies a single mechanism behind the deskilling effect of prompt-based systems — the elimination of transitions between cognitive modes — and argues that re-introducing those transitions is a teachable, practicable form of resistance.

The argument is grounded historically in Opalescence (2004/5), a piece for three female singers and electronics I composed during my practice-based PhD research at Queen’s University Belfast. At that time, working with algorithmic composition meant something categorically different from what “using AI” means today: there was no prompt field, no conversational layer. To get a system to produce material at all, one had to compose the system itself. Revisiting that practice from a 2026 vantage point makes visible what the prompt-response paradigm has eliminated: the transitions between modes of creative thinking that the cognitive science literature, from Wallas (1926) through to current neuroimaging studies, identifies as the site of creative skill development.

The paper closes with a provocation directed at the creative industry. The same analysis that applies to my own compositional practice applies, with local variation, to advertising, architecture, film, fashion, journalism, design, and the visual arts. What looks today like a productivity gain may, in this reading, be the accelerated obsolescence of an industry’s own workforce. The transition is the skill, and the work now is to make the space between modes inhabitable — in practice, in pedagogy, and eventually in the design of the tools themselves.

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Links

Paper (workshop GitHub): Full text HERE

Workshop programme: https://agency-and-skill.github.io

Conference: https://chiwork.org/26/

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Citation

Głowicka, K. The Space In-Between: Creative Skill and Cognitive Transitions in the Age of Prompt-Based AI. 5th Symposium on Human-Computer Interaction for Work, Agency and Skill in Human-AI Interaction Workshop, 2026. https://agency-and-skill.github.io/submissions/Glowicka\_2026\_Creative-Skill-and-Cognitive-Transitions-in-the-Age-of-Prompt-Based-AI\_CHIWORK.pdf

“it’s not only about what humans create—it’s about how creating makes us human.”

The Struggle Is the Point: Why Human Music-Making Matters in the Age of AI

Originally published at journal.crps.ai on September 22, 2025

In this article, Kasia Głowicka explores why the messy, time-consuming process of creating music is not just valuable—it’s essential to our humanity, even as AI can now generate songs in seconds.

Drawing on neuroscience, creativity research, and her own transformative experiences with composition, she makes a compelling case for why the creative struggle itself is non-negotiable.

The Essential Question Explored

As Kasia frames it: “Why endure the messy, time-consuming frustration of human creativity when a machine can do it within few clicks of a keyboard?”

Her answer is clear: Because the struggle itself is the healing, the growth, the essence of creativity. AI can serve as a tool for rapid prototyping and inspiration. But it cannot replace the fundamental human need to process our experiences through creative expression.

Read the full essay on Medium →

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This essay resonates deeply with the philosophy behind works like “Unknown, I Live with You,” where the process of giving voice to silenced stories becomes as important as the finished opera itself.

A fragment from the cycle of short stories written in 1995, published in 2009 in the booklet of the CD Red Sun.

The Glazier

1

Frost. Morning frost awoke me reaching under the covers. Damn window! It wouldn’t have bothered me earlier – on the contrary. Sometimes it is better to have a small hole in the window, rather than a complete one, especially during humid days when you have it open. Even if you open the shutters slightly you need to watch it’s not too much, because it easily turns into a cold draft.

The small hole, which had been serving as ventilation, was like my safety valve. My space was filled with the fragrances and the colors of the nearby trees. Sometimes cicadas’ chords funded me a concert of vespers. The ostinati of their rhythms settled me into lethargy and coupled with the evening’s shadows, urged me to write.

I would sit down on the floor in front of the window and try to transform myself into the softness of this green scent filling the room. The books I wrote in at the time had that aroma. Inside the pages, the privets, birches and pines broke in and would fill the spaces between the lines of ink.

And so the summer went by, full of those evenings when I would be writing intoxicated and I would fall asleep drunk with flavors on top of the scattered papers.

2

But cold and chill arrived one day. The hole became noticeable. It did not bother me that I was forced to continue listening to the cicadas. The piercing frost was what unsettled my peace.

In the beginning I would mock its attempts, hidden like a butterfly in a cocoon of quilts. But the day came to realize that I am not able to defend myself any longer.

So I went to the glazier. He lived on the outskirts of the town. I wondered why he would have such an extensive collection of paintings. His questions would also sound rather strange.

Could you please describe it to me? Is it large, small, with teeth, oval, round, fractured, cracked, narrow, wide, has sharp edges, or is it rather smooth?

I am cold so I would like you to take care of it please…

Those silly questions would make me feel interrogated, and even though my interlocutor would not look directly into my eyes even for a second, I felt like I was being drilled with the sight of unseen, omnipresent eyes.

I left when the moon already seized all the daylight. I passed between the streets where slivers of the moon spilled over to stroke the heads of cobblestones.

3

The moon checked into the windows of homes like a proud Mandarin, only not into mine. He was dissatisfied with it so he glanced into my room filling it in. I covered myself to the top of my head with the blanket, but I could still feel that he was reaching up my skin.

He blinded every puff of the dust. That hole in the pane was his alley. So he unfolded his rays, sharpening them on the glass edges. Lying under the covers I was counting the days to the new moon and thinking about the blissful time when I would be alone again. But when they came, I was restless. The darkness that would fill up my room was even more disturbing. Its paw was now breaking into my life. It was closing its grid on me, and with each passing hour I felt it tightening up, soon to encase the whole world.

Glazier came the next day. I almost did not recognize the man when I saw him in a completely different environment. He however did not lose his inner strength: the all-encompassing glance that I felt that day when we met. He came in and immediately took over each and every thought. He did not look at me at all, immediately approaching the window. Then I saw his hands. These were not the hands of the worker, which would bear traces of splinters, chips and shards. He touched the hole with the same touch with which Klimt endowed a man in “The Kiss”.

Glazier paid no attention to me, but I felt that any movement would not go unnoticed. For example, if I sat down, set the kettle, or even looked at the clock, I would belittle this ritual. However, I found myself in a strange situation. I realized that if I do not interrupt, this visit could take a long time.

But I was not able to bring myself to do that. I prayed for a miracle. If only the moon would drive his grabby hands with his silvery glare …

4

But the day has only begun and the red sun did not want to give up the firmament so easily.

5

I forgot about another devotee, who luckily called in on time. It was the wind, as if casually, that chilled glazier’s hands – a trickster that effectively sobered up his inclinations. Still, not looking in my direction, glazier eventually detached his hands from the pane and his eyes looked somewhere into the distance, beyond the horizon. As if he wanted to say goodbye with his glance, to what has just ended. Only now I noticed that my guest had brought with him a briefcase. It looked old. It was frayed in some places. Enchanted by the sight, I could not move. I did not know how long we stood like that – I only knew that when he left, darkness began to engulf the shutters. I experienced some kind of odd feeling, as if I had not been left alone in the room.

6

I made an appointment for the next day, but I felt a mysterious presence the whole time. The moon again began his courtship to the pane, attending with reverence to her hollows like painful wounds. Writing was difficult today, because his jealous glare was still entangled in the pages as the moon was peeking at them impatiently. The next day I was expecting the appearance of the glazier with angst. The hole has become a nuisance, but I feared most his gaze. I decided that today I will not give in, so I moved the chair and on the table I laid out my writer’s workshop. When he came I pretended to be very busy with work, but he paid no attention. He immediately went to the window and briefly touched the hole and then began to hang the prints around. I tried to focus on my work, but I stood in one spot, continuously writing sentences with meaning I could not comprehend.

I did not realize when I started tapping with my pen. I set water for a mint tea. Glazier worked scrabbling something, doing many sketches and drawings. With the dusk he left me without a word. The work was still unfinished, so I thought he would be back the next day.

However, he did not appear the next day, or the few following. He came finally in a week. He was carrying his briefcase, but this time he had in it many pieces of glass: thicker, thinner, denser, rougher, lighter. I was matching each of them hundreds of times. They had a very precise cut. They would fit into the hole so precisely that they held even without the glue. I watched his efforts. I was surprised, however, when he rejected each of the pieces grumbling unhappy. With every day I got used to the man’s visits. Glazier would come more frequently. I never thought the repairing of one windowpane could take so long.

One day he did not leave. I didn’t ask him any questions. I lied on my bed and just covered myself, as usual, up to the top of my head. In the night I was woken by a strange brightness. Awake, I could not remember where I was. The light of the lunar disc changed the room into a cavern. Glazier was gone. The window was wide open and the cold managed to stay in. Not considering it, I got up and approached the window shirtless. For a moment it seemed to me that the swarms of flies sat there with their silvery wings. But it was the hole, sparkling like a diamond necklace in the glass. I was wondering why it was taking so long and why he left the window open, as if he would like to fly away?

The next morning I watched bolder than usual how the master worked. I devoured every gesture, every twitch of a hand. He was absorbed in his work. I feared one thing – his unearthly precision and majestic movements. He was like a priest celebrating a mass.

Finally, I saw the day when the hole began to fill in with crystal pieces. Precise matching shapes fitted so well, that different parts merged impeccably in one. They differed only with a distinct angle of light reflection. Flashes appeared as a bauble sprinkled with shattered glass. It was as if the moon had lent them his brilliance. At night reflections of the moon passed through the delicate bonds illuminating an intricately woven spider-web of glue. I stared at the pane as if it were a painting. Reflections were littering the bright spots on the floor. But still I could feel somebody’s presence.

7

In the morning I was awakened by a cold gust of wind. I thought it was a just a dream. On the floor something was shimmering like glass beads. Glazier’s intricate design lay in disarray like a torn pearl necklace. Initially, I was seized by remorse. This subtle, unique design ceased to exist. But then again I had a hole in the windowpane.

So I went to another glazier. That man spat on the floor, pulled out the window frame, smashed glass, inserted a new one, puttied it and took a lot of money. But he fixed it. I was no longer cold, but neither was the moon shining into my window.

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Szklarz

Wersja polska

1

Ziąb. Rano mróz dotarł pod kołdrę budząc mnie. Cholerne okno! Zupełnie kiedyś nie przeszkadzało mi, wręcz przeciwnie. Często lepsza jest mała dziura w szybie niż całe okno, które, szczególnie w parne dni, trzeba otwierać. Wtedy chcąc nieznacznie uchylić okiennice trzeba dobrze uważać żeby nie otworzyć za bardzo, bo nie trudno o przeciągi.

Mała dziurka, która pełniła rolę wywietrznika stała się moim zaworem bezpieczeństwa. Miałem u siebie zapach i kolor pobliskich drzew. Nieraz akordy cykad fundowały mi koncert wieczornych pieśni. Ostinata rymów wprawiały mnie w letarg, który wraz z wieczornym cieniem namawiał mnie do pisania.

Siadałem wtedy na podłodze przed oknem i próbowałem przemienić się w miękkość tego zapachu zieleni, który wypełniał pokój. Książki które wtedy pisałem miały ten zapach. W karty książek wdzierały się ligustry, brzozy, sosny i wypełniały przestrzenie pomiędzy linijkami atramentu.

Tak mijało lato, pełne tych wieczorów, gdzie odurzony pisałem i pijany aromatami zasypiałem nad rozrzuconymi wkoło papierami.

2

Ale przyszły zimno i chłód. Dziura dała więc znać o sobie. Nie przeszkadzało mi to, że zmuszony byłem nadal słuchać cykad. Nie dawał mi spokoju przeszywający mróz.

Początkowo kpiłem z jego usiłowań, ukryty jak motyl w kokonie pod grubą warstwą pierzyn. Nadszedł jednak taki dzień kiedy musiałem zdać sobie sprawę z tego, że nie jestem w stanie bronić się dłużej.

Poszedłem więc do szklarza. Mieszkał na obrzeżach miasta. Zastanawiałem się dlaczego miał dużą kolekcję obrazów. Dziwne wydały się też jego pytania.

– Proszę mi ją opisać. Czy jest duża, czy mała, z ząbkami, okrągła, popękana, z rysami, wąska, szeroka, ma ostre kanty, czy może jednak wygładzone?

– Jest mi zimno i dlatego chciałbym, żeby Pan coś z tym zrobił.

Owe pytania, co najmniej śmieszne, sprawiały, że czułem się jak na przesłuchaniu i chociaż mój rozmówca nie spojrzał nawet na chwilę w moją stronę czułem się jak świdrowany wzrokiem niewidzialnych, wszechobecnych oczu.

Wyszedłem, kiedy księżyc zagarnął już całe światło dnia. Przemykałem pomiędzy ulicami, gdzie rozlewało się srebro księżyca gładząc kocie łby.

3

Księżyc przeglądał się w szybach domów jak pyszny mandaryn. Tylko w moim oknie nie mógł; z tego niezadowolony zaglądał do pokoju wypełniając go. Przykryłem się niemal cały kołdrą, ale czułem jak penetrował moje pielesze.

Oślepiał każdy kłąb kurzu. Owa dziura w szybie była mu sprzymierzeńcem. Porozkładał więc swoje promienie wyostrzając o kant szkła. Leżąc pod kołdrą liczyłem dni do nowiu i z błogością myślałem o tym, gdy będę wreszcie sam. Ale gdy nadszedł byłem niespokojny. Ciemność, która wypełniła wtedy mój pokój, była jeszcze bardziej niepokojąca. Łapsko ciemności wdzierało się teraz bezpośrednio w moje życie. Otaczało mnie i z każdą godziną czułem, że niebawem zaciśnie się zakrywając świat.

Szklarz przyszedł nazajutrz. Niemal nie poznałem tego człowieka widząc go w otoczeniu zupełnie odmiennym. Nie utracił jednak wewnętrznej siły, wszechogarniającego wzroku, który uczułem owego dnia, gdy się poznaliśmy. Wszedł i zawładnął od razu każdą moją myślą. Nie spojrzał w ogóle na mnie, od razu podchodząc do okna. Wtedy zobaczyłem jego ręce. Nie były to ręce robotnika, które nosiłyby ślady drzazg, opiłków, odłamków. Dotknął dziury tym samym dotykiem, którym Klimt obdarzył mężczyznę w „Pocałunku”.

Nie zwracał na mnie uwagi, ale czułem, że nie mogę zrobić żadnego ruchu, który by nie był zauważony. Gdybym na przykład usiadł, nastawił czajnik, spojrzał na zegar, zlekceważyłbym tą celebrację. Znajdowałem się jednak w osobliwej sytuacji. Zdawałem sobie sprawę, że jeśli nie przerwę, to wizyta może potrwać jeszcze długo.

Ale nie byłem w stanie tego zrobić. Modliłem się o cud. Gdybyż księżyc przegonił jego łapczywe ręce, swoim srebrzystym wzrokiem…

4

Lecz dzień dopiero się zaczął i słońce za nic nie chciało zrezygnować z firmamentu.

5

Zapomniałem wtedy o jeszcze jednym wielbicielu, który odezwał się szczęściem w porę. To wiatr, jakby od niechcenia zmroził ręce szklarza, spryciarz skutecznie otrzeźwił jego zapędy. Ciągle nie patrząc w moim kierunku szklarz oderwał w końcu ręce od szyby, a jego oczy patrzyły gdzieś w dal, poza horyzont. Jakby chciał wzrokiem pożegnać to, co przed chwilą się skończyło. Dopiero teraz zauważyłem, że mój gość przyniósł ze sobą teczkę. Wyglądała na starą, była przetarta w wielu miejscach. Zaklęty tym widokiem nie potrafiłem się ruszyć. Nie wiem jak długo staliśmy tak, wiem tylko, że gdy poszedł, mrok zaczął ogarniać okiennice. Doznałem jakiegoś dziwnego uczucia, jak gdybym nie został sam w pokoju.

6

Ze szklarzem umówiłem się na następny dzień, ale czułem jakąś tajemniczą obecność. Księżyc znowu zaczął swoje zaloty do szyby, opatrywał z pietyzmem jej zagłębienia, jak obolałe rany. Pisać dziś było mi trudno, bo jego zazdrosny blask wciąż plątał się po kartach zaglądając w nie niecierpliwie. Nazajutrz oczekiwałem z niepokojem pojawienia się szklarza. Dziura stała się dokuczliwa, ale najbardziej bałem się jego wzroku. Postanowiłem, że dziś się mu nie dam, dlatego przestawiłem krzesło, a na stole rozłożyłem mój pisarski warsztat. Kiedy przyszedł udawałem ogromne zapracowanie. Szklarz nawet nie zwrócił na mnie uwagi. Od razu podszedł do okna i dotknął przelotnie dziury, po czym zaczął rozwieszać w koło reprodukcje. Próbowałem skupić się na mojej pracy, ale ciągle stałem w miejscu zapisując zdania, których znaczenia nie potrafiłem się doszukać.

Nie wiedzieć kiedy zacząłem stukać piórem o biurko. Nastawiłem wodę na miętową herbatę. Szklarz pracował, coś kreślił, robił masę szkiców i rysunków. Z nastaniem zmierzchu opuścił mnie bez słowa. Robota była jeszcze nieskończona, więc pomyślałem, że przyjdzie na następny dzień.

Nie zjawił się jednak ani nazajutrz, ani przez kolejne dni. Przyszedł dopiero za tydzień. Miał ze sobą swoją teczkę, ale tym razem znajdowały się w niej kawałki szkła: grubsze, cieńsze, gęstsze, chropowate, lżejsze. Dopasowywał każdy z nich setki razy. Były bardzo precyzyjnie wycięte. Pasowały do dziury tak dokładnie, że trzymały by się nawet bez kleju. Obserwowałem jego wysiłki. Dziwiło mnie jednak, gdy szklarz odrzucał każdy kawałek, marudząc niezadowolony. Z każdym dniem bardziej przyzwyczajałem się do wizyt tego człowieka. Szklarz przychodził coraz częściej. Nigdy nie przypuszczałem, że naprawienie jednej szyby może zająć tyle czasu.

Pewnego dnia nie wyszedł. Nie pytałem go o nic. Położyłem się tylko na łóżku i przykryłem jak zwykle po same uszy. W nocy obudziła mnie dziwna jasność. Rozbudzony nie mogłem przypomnieć sobie gdzie się znajduję. Światło tarczy księżycowej zmieniło pokój w pieczarę. Szklarza już nie było. Okno było otwarte na oścież i chłód zdołał się już zagościć. Nie zważywszy na to wstałem i półnagi podszedłem do okna. Przez chwilę wydawało mi się, że usiadły tam roje muszek ze srebrzystymi skrzydełkami. Ale to iskrzyła się jak diamentowy naszyjnik moja dziura w szybie. Zastanawiałem się dlaczego to tak długo trwa i czemu zostawił otwarte okno, jakby przez nie wyfrunął?

Rano przyglądałem się bezczelniej niż zwykle pracy mistrza. Chłonąłem każdy gest, każde drgnięcie ręki. Był pogrążony w pracy. Niepokoiło mnie jedno – jego nieziemska precyzja i majestatyczność ruchów. Przypominał kapłana celebrującego mszę. Wreszcie doczekałem chwili, gdy dziura zaczęła wypełniać się kawałkami kryształów. Precyzyjne kształty dopasowane tak, że poszczególne ich części zlewały się doskonale w całość. Różniły się tylko odmiennym kątem odbijania światła. Błyski pojawiały się jak w bombce posypanej tłuczonym szkłem. Tak, jakby księżyc użyczył im swego blasku. Nocą refleksy księżyca przechodziły przez delikatne spojenia rozświetlając sieć misternie utkanych pajęczynek kleju. Patrzyłem na szybę jak na obraz. Na podłodze rozścielały się prześwity jasnych plam. Ciągle jednak czułem czyjąś obecność.

7

Rankiem obudził mnie zimny podmuch wiatru. Myślałem, że to koszmarny sen. Na podłodze coś mieniło się jak szklane koraliki. Misterna konstrukcja szklarza leżała w nieładzie jak rozerwany naszyjnik z pereł. Początkowo ogarnął mnie żal. Ta misterna, niezwykła konstrukcja przestała istnieć. Znowu miałem dziurę w szybie.

Poszedłem więc do innego szklarza. Człowiek ten splunął na podłogę, wyjął ramę okienną, rozbił szybę, wstawił nową, zakitował i wziął masę pieniędzy. Ale naprawił. Już nie marzłem, tylko księżyc przestał świecić w moje okno.

Connected Creativity — How the Arts Can Develop Your Creative Skills, written with visual artist Maritha van Amerom and edited by Belle Jansen. The manuscript is complete and in review; publication is expected in 2026.

The book sets out the ARTFUL method in a form a teacher can pick up and use: twelve chapters across the Self, Other and World domains, each with facilitator scripts, exercises that work in an ordinary classroom, and a plain account of the research behind them. It is written for people who teach creative skills to students who do not consider themselves artists.

The framework and the wider programme are described under the Connected Creativity project.

How can artistic methods contribute to research and innovation without losing the qualities that make them artistic in the first place?

The publication gathers what researchers and teachers across the CoECI network see as the real strengths of artistic practice — exploratory, agenda-setting, iterative, situated, embodied — and where those strengths run into the goal-oriented habits of innovation funding. It was written as CLICKNL’s Ontwerpkracht and Key Enabling Methodologies agendas, the New European Bauhaus and the NWA’s Kunst route were all turning toward the arts at once.

Launched on 3 March 2025 at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, CoECI’s partner institution.

The full publication is free to download as a PDF.

Esteemed Polish publishing house “Krytyka Polityczna” (Political critics) has published, together with festival “Sacrum Profanum” a new book, with among others interview with Kasia.

“We called it utopia” - initiative of Sacrum Profanum and publishing house Krytyka Polityczna. Edited by Jan Topolski.

Here link to the book.

A consortium project asking what happens to human creative agency when the tools of creative work begin to generate. The question is not whether the output is good, but who is deciding — and what a maker loses when the decisions move upstream into a model.

Głowicka initiated the consortium from the Creative Business department at Inholland University of Applied Sciences, and it is being built out across institutions where creative work is taught and practised differently, so that a method tested in one setting can be challenged in another.

Partners under discussion include TU Delft, the Amsterdam University of the Arts (AHK), the Royal Conservatory The Hague, Leiden University and the Gerrit Rietveld Academie.

Funded by the ZHIA Impactfonds.

Connected Creativity — How the Arts Can Develop Your Creative Skills, written with visual artist Maritha van Amerom and edited by Belle Jansen. Developed through a Comenius Senior Fellowship from the NRO at the Creative Business department of Inholland University of Applied Sciences in The Hague. The project covers the framework, the classroom programme, the book, and the materials that go with them.

The ARTFUL framework

The book sets out ARTFUL, a six-phase arts-based method for teaching creative skills to students who do not think of themselves as artists. Its argument is that cognitive and embodied work have to advance together: each phase pairs a way of thinking with a way of doing, rather than treating reflection as something that happens after the making. Working through the phases in sequence is not the same as working through them as pairs, and the pairing is where the learning sits.

Twelve skills are organised across three domains.

Self — mind wandering, creative flow, intuition, resilience, curiosity, and the inner critic.

Other — collaborative creativity, entrepreneurship, creative courage, creative vision.

World — dealing with uncertainty, creativity and technology.

Each chapter carries facilitator scripts, exercises that can be run in a normal classroom, and a plain account of the research the exercise rests on — Csikszentmihalyi on flow, Fredrickson on positive emotion, Porges on safety and the nervous system, Damasio on feeling and reasoning, Dane and Pratt on intuition, Sarasvathy on effectuation, Beaty on the creative brain, Magsamen and Ross on the arts and health. The science sections are written for practitioners and say plainly where the evidence is thin.

Beyond the book

The programme also includes a companion game and a series of short instructional videos, so that a facilitator can run sessions without having read the whole book first. Course materials and updates are at connectedcreativity.nl.

Imagining Creative Future in Virtual Spaces

COIL Project Overview

Project Context

A Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) initiative between Inholland University of Applied Sciences, Amsterdam, and the Latvian Academy of Culture, Riga. This innovative project is hosted at the Urban Leisure & Tourism Lab Amsterdam and supported by VIS grant [link to VIS grants].

Project Members

• Dr. Kasia Głowicka (Lead) senior researcher at Inholland University of Applied Sciences
• Esther Bouw lecturer at Urban Leisure & Tourism Lab Amsterdam, Inholland University of Applied Sciences
• Dr.oec. Ieva Zemīte Associate Professor at Latvian Academy of Culture
• Avinash Changa founder of WeMakeVR creative studio, specialising in immersive storytelling and cutting-edge virtual reality experiences

Project Description

This international collaboration explores creative practices and cultural understanding through virtual reality environments. The project integrates innovative technology with cross-cultural creative exploration, focusing on developing empathetic design approaches in digital spaces.

Key Components

• Virtual reality-based learning environments
• Cross-cultural creative practice exploration
• International team collaboration
• Digital space creation and modification
• Cultural empathy development through technology

Technical Innovation

The project utilises VRChat and MeetinVR as its primary virtual environment, complemented by digital collaboration tools such as miro. The VR component allows for embedded interaction and movement while also stimulating imagination and technological literacy of the students.

Learning Outcomes

• Understanding of cross-cultural creative practices
• Virtual collaboration skills
• Empathetic design competencies
• Digital space and storytelling
• Technological literacy

Project Duration

February 28th – April 14th, 2025

Institutional Context

This project represents an innovative approach to international collaboration between Inholland University of Applied Sciences and the Latvian Academy of Culture, demonstrating the potential of virtual reality in cross-cultural education and creative practice.

Support and Funding

This initiative is made possible through VIS grant, supporting international collaboration and innovative educational practices in higher education.

https://vimeo.com/1072651048?fl=pl&fe=sh

Research project funded by a grant from the ARC Research Group at Inholland, and the work that led to Connected Creativity.

The question was narrow: whether short pieces of sound could do something that a worksheet cannot. Business students are asked to develop personal and creative skills, but the usual material is written, and reading about attention is a poor way to practise it. Sound asks for a different kind of attention. It arrives in the body before it is understood, and it takes as long as it takes.

The project produced a set of audio-based interventions — short recordings designed to be used inside personal development training rather than listened to as music. Each one does one thing: settles a room, opens a period of unfocused thinking, marks a transition, closes a session. They are meant to be played, not studied.

Its limits are what pointed towards the next project. Sound on its own could shift the state a group was in, but it could not carry a curriculum. That took a fuller framework, which became the ARTFUL method and the Connected Creativity book.

The project concluded in 2021. The recordings will be released on Spotify.