I love to make best of my legs and feets for their actual purpose; walking, and yes, also running.
Oftentimes, I kind of flex it out too on my Strava. Just like everybody else too recently. According to Strava’s report in 2024, people’s perceptions of what it means to live an active lifestyle shifted; they favored balance over burnout, moving lifestyle towards more wellness conscious and outdoor activities related. No wonder that many people has turned into an “athlete” nowadays, including myself.
Since 2023, I began to run from couch to 5K. Greatest achievement I had in my life for starting a new activity that turned into a hobby. I guess running becomes something new and rare for myself, because I barely walk everywhere I go. Living in Indonesia, means you replaced your feet into wheels as you go everywhere by a motorcycle or a car or a bus or any other vehicles to reach your destination.
Back in 2022, I didn’t even met my step target every month, regardless that I commute to work everyday in Indonesia. Only on several months when I hit the monthly steps target, and it might be because I was going out for holidays. But still, it only exceeded a little bit of the steps target. Not until 2023, I decided to signed up for a 5K marathon in December 2023. I began to train to run.
At the Q3-Q4 of 2023, my monthly steps target always hit, and it is mostly because I always run after office. I still do my commute to work just like the previous months at the beginning to the mid of the year. However, I never hit the average of “10,000 steps a day” walking average regardless I doubled up my training and endurance for preparing myself for 5K run. Which was okay, I realized it is a gradual process. And I recognized I was (and probably am) still using ride hailing and vehicles everywhere I go.
Because it is fast and practical. But, do we actually need to be fast and practical? I don’t think so, because by means fast in corporate term can be very exploitative somehow.
Moving forward to 2024, I decided to run further to the 10K race in June 2024. A redemption 10K run because I fainted in 2021 because I was unprepared to hit the road as beginner to do the 10K run. But I know that my endurance and fitness has improved, therefore I am more confident to sign up to the same race I was fainted at first; Pocari Sweat Run 10K. In consequence, I recognized that my walking average is consistently increasing compared to when I just started my 5K. The daily steps average has improved 30% compared to 2023.
With the same behaviour, commuting on wheels, going out with a bike for walking distance, and still using public transport, it is such a big achievement for me.
And the plus point is, my fitness age decreased to 2 years younger as my VO2Max improved in 2024. I am impressed on how working out can do so much to my body.
However, this is not the point of the journey. Not until I moved to London and had a thought that I might not be running more often than I did back in Indonesia. It is kind of true, at some point. Well, I still run twice a week, but different commute, different behaviour, and most importantly, no ride hailing anymore. I just walk, everywhere I go. And the result is CRAZY.
I hit 10,000 steps average in a day and my fitness age improved. I have become 2 years younger than I should now according to my Garmin’s statistic. All because I move a lot throughout the year. Who ever thought of that?
Especially in June, I travelled to some of other places than London–from Birmingham, Leeds, Copenhagen, Malmö and Amsterdam– I realized I walked more than I averagely do. Mostly because of I need to save more by walking, but also the facilities and environment are supporting the comfort on walking on the pedestrian way.
But why didn’t I walk a lot in my hometown? Is it really because I was lazy and too comfortable by all the ease and vehicles privileges I had? Or is it because I was not comfortable to walk in this kind of situation? (yep, see the video below)
This is the usual pedestrian walk in Jakarta, yes, it is completely messy and not only totally belong to the pedestrians. It unlikely for everyone to feel safe with just two feet.
And not only that, the pollution and the congestion adds up to the pain. My dust allergy flares up very often when I went out in the street of Jakarta.
Blaming the environment and the people is an endless cycle of cynicism in the development of the Jakarta, as the urban problems becoming more complex and more significant every day. This is not only the government problems, or the people’s problems, a group of pentahelix stakeholder should co-create and together help
Encouraging people to get together and collectively share their aspiration to improve the city required a space in order for them to feel respected, value and supported. Thus, it is important to find a way to circulate the creative impact and energy from people so the development might be accelerated immediately.
Now that spring term is over, so does our lectures this term. Because during the summer, we are going to be on our own and independently researching and testing our question.
Personal check-in as per today 23 June 2025: I am so nervous and excited.
Playing With Your Research
After series of unit 2 lectures from our different tutors, at the end of the week we are connecting the dots on what have we learn so far. We learnt that we have lots and lots of diagrams with similar shapes, triangle and circles, apparently. But that’s not the point. The point is that, every lecture taught us to framing and reframing on every journey we passed on, and make it more concise using diagram visualisation so we can build a better research. Well, indeed visualisation makes the research also more fun and playful. That’s seems to be the framework of this course apparently.
Every week connected to one another and how it shaped the way we do our research. From forming our questions using triangulation, looking deeper to our research’s core and make use of multimodality to spark creativity, be confidence for doing action to proof your question, the importance of data and proof to solidified our curiosity, making the research more playful and fun using service design framework, empathized our stakeholders, funding your work and actually implement your work, removing yourself and actually dive in to your research and last but not least is time management. Well, there is another one but sadly and apologize for not coming, is talking about self management. A very well crafted series to supply ourselves for the independent study!
Like an arcade game, the series of lectures felt like a game that you need to be conquered on every series before you understood the whole games. But the grasp of highlight that I personally gains, also contributed from the BDF 2025 I was attending, is how to make this research playful. The importance of play will allow creativity to immerse and blend in to your work. Therefore, this would not only make the research fun but become a passion throughout the summer. Who knows what kind of person you have become after the summer, right?
Playing with Your People
It’s been really great how the past 2 units has shaped us, and myself personally. Together, we became friends, collaborators, teachers to each others and most importantly new family away from home.
This was taken at Maria’s party on 17th, a day before our term actually ended. MAAI and MAIM courses were, like what Goldaneh said, “collaborated” at the end for having fun and partying together. Treacherous, I must say! We went from peers, team members, collaborators, occasionally frienemies, to actually become friends we often hang out together. The phase in research and friendship can be slightly very similar to each other. Looking at these pattern, I probably should not be worrying to much at the end and should see things playfully and differently.
I will definitely miss my crazy MAAI friends during the summer, because we might not be able to meet as intense as before. But hopefully, we will still be in touch to do our project throughout the summer.
Thank you for all the tutors, course leaders, program director and all my friends in the class. We will rock this summer, shall we?
P.s I am so excited to share my first summer destination for my research!!!
After a weekend of burnout last week—torn between decisions, redefining my direction, and yes, constantly going back and forth between facing and avoiding my research—I’ve come to one clear realization: I need to start talking about my ideas with others.
My interest with urbanism and co-design is still high, as a person who lives from one city to another, I keep on comparing Jakarta with some big cities I’ve ever visited which seems to be unmatched. Not before I talked with Germán and Angélica, both are friends of Simon’s who are the experts in urban planning and architecture. I heard a lot of similarity between Bogotá and Jakarta, especially when it comes to overpopulation, slums, and informal urban sprawl development. Mobility and density are the major issues in Bogotá, which also reflected in Jakarta, but with less air pollution issues due to environmental benefits from the hills that surround the city.
Because of this information, I begin to do research more with some books that might be related to the discourse:
What Design Can’t Do: Essays on Design and Disillusion Book by Silvio Lorusso
Invisible Women Book by Caroline Criado Perez
Design, When Everybody Designs: An Introduction to Design for Social Innovation Book by Ezio Manzini
Design Justice: Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need Book by Sasha Costanza-Chock
Like playing an adventure game, these books made me had a new side quest to explore, which are co-design and the importance of play. And guess who is gaining more ideas and directions now? Me!
Talked Out My Ideas With Many People Did Help, Apparently.
Things get a little bit of fun on Monday when I joined the CES Notion Gathering with Notion called “Build Better”. It is a Notion-powered business event designed for students with big ideas and no clue where to begin (yet, or not at all), or want to build better (yep, I literally copied from their Instagram caption, lol).
In the conference, I was able to hear how people manage their project using Notion and making fortune through informal job like freelancers. Although maybe a lot of people has known it, but I guess this is a new thing for me. Which inspired me to take action about it. The gathering also providing us with networking session and un-conference session where we can share and validate our idea. I thankfully was able to share my idea with people and with a validation to “just do it” first without overthinking it. Because, if you keep on having the same idea over and over again, so to speak, it might be the right one.
Facilitating people to imagine their own habitat through design seemed to be a really important playground to play. Professor Bobi Setiawan, an expert and lecturer in urban planning from Universitas Gadjah Mada, told me in our discussion about the essential role of artists and intermediaries in bridging the gap between academic urban planning and the lived experiences of residents, especially in facilitating the expression and appreciation of community imagination through various forms. Since the overpopulation makes the government encouraged their citizen to have autonomy in imagining their own lives, according to Rahul Patel — Course Leader of CCI in CSM— we need to have understanding on people’s lived experiences and its ecology, in order to give the accurate system or design that suitable for themselves.
Narrowing Down The Subject Area to Urban Kampung
I acknowledge that the complexity in using my hometown as the subject area might be really challenging to solve the problem. Therefore, I narrowed down the area to become more specific; urban village or urban ‘kampung’ area. Kampung means village in English, it is a dense-overpopulated area in the city where most of the working class are living. The urban kampung sprawl has become sporadic across the city to the fringe side of Jakarta.
I was actually live closely in the urban kampung where this place is being gentrified with the growth of skyscrapers and modernized buildings. As working class, they are supposed to be the people who flourished the economy of Jakarta but apparently the ones who are suppressed more rather than the low-income society or the higher ones.
People in urban kampung giving the color and variety in the city. Similar to the ‘alley cats’ who live in the downtown of the city, urban kampung residents are striving in the alley with their informal jobs, community bonds and dreams. These people are known to have a stronger bond with each other due to closed neighborhood, and they tend to like ‘nongkrong’ or ‘to hangout’ with their community on their leisure time.
Thus, I took nongkrong to another level; how can this habit become a co-design activity instead of just talking.
Taking My Idea To The Actual Stakeholder: The Urban Villagers
After talking with a lot of experts, I decided to talk to the local authorities in the urban village called Cipadu in Indonesia. It is a district that is located next to my district in Jakarta’s suburban, which is known by textile industry and bedding convection. And what I understood from my discussion with the local authority in Cipadu, the problems spread around waste management, air pollution from self-burning rubbish, youth unemployment and slums. Which is far more complex than I thought this would be. The government had tried many things to employed strategies that could reduce the issue and improve the wellbeing of the neighborhood, but the result still not meet the ends.
Maybe it is the time to frame and reframe the issue using creativity. But, if the problem is too serious, how to make a creative solution out of it?
Additional! A Lesson From Birmingham Design Week
I realized how packed and crazy week I had after talking, discussing, researching and learning from a lot of publication and experts about my project. But, I had signed up for Birmingham Design Festival (BDF) Conference 2025 so it means I REALLY have to go.
I almost feel like cancelling my plan, but turned out it was the best decision I made to show up. The major highlight of the conference’s theme was about “Play” and how it is important in design industry.
Taken from designweek site about BDF, “play is not the antidote to serious design work – it creates the conditions where bold and impactful design gets made.” It is not making serious problem less serious, but how to allow imagination to flow using exploration and curiosity to give creativity a bigger room to solve bigger problems.
My personal favourite is when Chris Clarke from The Guardian giving a talk about playfulness at work. He mentioned how we need to create our “building” so we can paint however we like but maintained the same structure and form. This is a metaphor on how a building can be our knowledge or tools to bridge the gap between problems and creativity.
Cited (again) from designweek site, “Play doesn’t make something less serious,” he said. “It makes it more human, more open, more real.” And without play, Chris Clarke believes, designers “risk mistaking repetition for progress.”
“Play is not a luxury, or a nice-to-have,” he said. “It’s a strategy – a design system for thinking differently.”
Enjoying the process is indeed important, but how to make it a playground is a challenge.
Now that I already understand the gameplay, I kinda need to build the boardgame (or the building as Clarke’s said), the second player and definitely the story.
Spring has sprung, and a warm breeze now dances through the alley of London. For a someone like me, a girl who raised in a tropical country where seasons mean only rain or shine—spring feels like stepping into a dream I’ve only seen in movies, I never had it my entire life. Blossoms blooming, sunlight gently warming your skin, and people smiling more often just because the sky’s finally blue. But this fairytale season comes with a twist: hay fever.
It’s strange that flowers, of all things, could trigger my allergies. I’m used to sneezing from dust and Jakarta’s ever-present air pollution, especially during the 9AM commuting chaos on a packed TransJakarta bus. Back then, I blamed everything—from smog to stress—for my constant irritation over the air pollution, and Jakarta as a whole. Every sneeze felt like a symptom of something deeper, heavier.
But here, it’s different. I still sneeze, but somehow I don’t resent it. Because this time, it’s pollen—a product of nature’s rhythm. And oddly enough, that feels… bearable. Regardless that London might one of the most polluted city, but the green parks and cities managed to make it better.
As a Jakartan, I am honestly feel so envy.
The Real Journey Begins
As spring opened its petals outside, our wild summer term kicked off inside the classroom. We were tasked with completing Project 4 and 5 side by side. Yes, I’ve been as busy as a bee (fitting, I suppose, for the season). But it’s Project 5 that truly demanded I pause and reflect, because it will lead to a bigger project. It’s the one asking us to articulate our what, why, how, and what if—not just as students, but as people with stories.
The term began with an activity led by Carolina—meant to go deeper than simply “unpacking” our ideas. I jokingly called it the Problem Tree, even though she named it The Story I Tell. For me, the activity felt more forensic than reflective. It wasn’t just about tracing identity and experience—it was about interrogating them, or me, digging into the roots of why we care about the things we do.
And what I found at the root shook me.
When the Problem Is Personal
From the email I sent to Carolina, in the middle of my reflection:
A little bit of a background: I am so much engaged with the idea of “give a man a fish, he will eat for a day. teach a man how to fish, he will eat his entire life.” And this idea, driven by how I grew up, seeing both of my parents have to support my mother’s family out of poverty which was by giving them money not the job. Therefore, it gave pressurized both of my parents until they got sick and left me away in my early 20s. The grief made me want to change the way they acted to help people, make people work. Many people I know have a lot of potentials and ideas, but they just don’t know or don’t want to know or don’t have any access to make it work. So, it triggers my mind on how to create an idea bank for people who have a creative idea, so they can realize it.
I see the future will be dominated by the creative people and community — the designers, the artists, the running community, the writers, etc. These are the jobs which, back in my country in Indonesia, are considered as profitable or making slower return compared to the more extractive ones: mining, oil or maybe online lending job. And on the other hand, creative industry still being seen as a privilege job, you need to be wealthy to be ‘sustainable’ and ‘can afford’ to be in the industry, or you need to thrive abroad. Even though making ideas are free and dreaming is easy, realizing ideas is HARD :[ So many factors to consider and that’s why many people I know, end up making it as daydreams.
If dreaming and ideas are powerful, resourceful and massive, I believe that idea can be a form of energy. Moreover, the cleaaanest energy in the history of humanity. It makes people move, only someone can make the engine out of it, to prove the energy can actually be ignited (or maybe you can teach me which energy formula in physics that is actually appropriate to describe the idea). And idea and creativity are also a regenerative one, right?
Through reflecting on the email (thanks Carolina I owe you a lot), grief shaped my dream. I didn’t realize it until now.
Grief, Unpacked
Call me lazy for copying that straight from my email into this blog post, but honestly? Rewriting it took everything in me. When I came to the UK, I carried a backpack full of emotional baggage. But I never really unpacked it—because opening it meant revisiting wounds that still haven’t healed. Thanks for MA Applied Imagination, I spend more time to reflect and analyze. It might ease the job of my therapist, but also ease the way I am healing from my grief.
Losing both of my parents meant losing not just love, but shared dreams. I grieved for what they couldn’t become. For the life we didn’t get to build together. For the “what ifs” I’ve buried in the back of my mind.
But this project… it forced those “what ifs” back to the surface.
Nobody’s Truly Free
As I worked through the reflection, one truth became clear: nobody’s truly free. Our motivations are rarely untethered. Mine are rooted in loss, in anger, in hope. This project isn’t just about generating a new idea. It’s about reclaiming a dream. It’s about redemption.
The grief I thought I had tucked away turned out to be the very reason I’m doing this.
Reframing the Allergy
Earlier, I mentioned how pollen didn’t make me as angry as the smog back home. Maybe it’s because I started to think differently. Pollen is natural. It’s part of life. Annoying, yes—but not harmful in the way that pollution is. That shift in thinking helped me find peace.
But here’s where the metaphor ends.
Because pollution can’t be reframed. It’s man-made. It’s toxic. It’s not seasonal. And that’s the same with injustice, with inequality, with the lack of access and opportunity I saw growing up. These things need fixing—not reframing.
This was written on my tree, saying how many times I hate pollution, it grows my concern in environment and equality for everyone to have fresh air. Especially in Jakarta.
Jakarta, Always
Jakarta—my love-hate hometown—has never really left me. I may be in London now, but I still carry its dust, its chaos, and its energy in everything I do. Being Batavianese shaped the way I see the world. It made me who I am—and gave me the courage to try and imagine what else could be possible for others like me.
Spring, a season that never happened in Jakarta, isn’t just a season of blooming. It’s also a time of sneezing, of adjusting, of confronting things you didn’t expect. But, how can we bring Spring to my hometown, so everyone can experience the same resilience like the spring. And maybe that’s what growth really is: a mixture of discomfort and beauty. Of grieving and hoping. Of letting go and holding on.
In Conclusion
I’m beginning to reshape my “what” into a question that guides my exploration: Can creativity act as a form of renewable energy in cities like Jakarta—an energy that not only raises awareness, but also mobilizes people toward greater change, like addressing air pollution?
This marks the starting point of how I will shape my “why.” It’s not just about creating for the sake of expression—but about igniting action, building possibilities, and reframing how we see creativity: not as a luxury, but as a catalyst for regeneration.
What if the future is not only contributed by the tech-bros and the policy makers. What if they are designed by the artists, the designers, the runners, the cyclist and many other creative communities that might have exciting ideas to shaped the world. That’s the change I want to see—a realistic utopia powered by creative communities and creative practitioners to push creative ideas as a new form of renewable energy.
What Is Happening
On my previous writing, I talked about how Indonesians are facing mixed challenges that stirring the movement of #KaburAjaDulu or “Let’s Runaway First” from people in the country. The complex problem from economic challenges, air pollution, excessive extractivism, and social dynamic added up frustration among people, thus, they are powerful evidences of how the system has failed to offer them a promising future. While the idea of leaving Indonesia first and returning only after achieving success may sound appealing, the reality of migrating abroad is far more complex and have various barriers to make people unable to fleet, according to Chatib Basri, Indonesian Economist.
The paradox is, how can people be able to move abroad if the resources and energy are not easy to obtain. Energy, as explained by US Energy Information Administration, means the ability to do work. And by means of ‘do’ in this writing context, is related to willingness and capabilities from the human themselves. Inaccessible opportunities and financial constraints are factors that makes people’s energy non-transferrable, thus, if the fundamentals cannot be obtain, the potentials are not incapable to be properly invested.
An American ecology professor, Charles Hall, explained the central principle of Energy Returned on Energy Invested (EROEI), it takes energy to obtain energy and the energy needed to run the system won’t be available – if it is lacking or no equilateral with the required investment. He also added, ‘You can’t have an economy without energy. Energy does the work!’ The context is similar on reaching your own dreams in particular, it is easier for people who are equipped with sourceful energy – money and opportunities, rather than people who might have so many dreams but lack of source and opportunities.
If dreaming is taking so much energy and privilege for some people, the bigger the dream is, it might be harder for people to reach it. But what if the energy itself is coming from within, people’s motivation and creativity. This idea validated after my interview with Guri, a musician and creator of In.Inertia. She said while acknowledging the common perception that privilege can provide advantages for creative workers in the creative industries, Guri disagrees that it is the sole determinant of success. She emphasizes the importance of good quality work, effective marketing (especially in the digital age), and perseverance, taking on examples of artists who rose to prominence from less privileged backgrounds.
Why creativity as energy?
Creativity, according to Stanford, can refer to a person, a process or activity, or a product—which may include an idea in someone’s mind, an observable performance, or a tangible artifact. Moreover, creativity is a disposition: a combination of ability and motivation to produce something new and valuable. It involves the exercise of choice, evaluation, understanding, and judgment—an expression of agency (Gaut, 2014a: 273).
“The creative industry is the most flexible and resilient industry when it comes to generating innovation,” said Viandira Athia, Co-Founder of the ASEAN Creative Economy Youth Summit (ACE-YS), during our previous interview. Moreover, even during the pandemic, the creative economy managed not just to survive, but to thrive. An Indonesian government‘s report attributes this resilience to three main factors. First, the creative sector’s natural integration with technological advances and the information-rich nature of the digital era. Second, its ecosystem of stakeholders—ready to collaborate, pool resources, and spark new ideas. And third, the ability to adapt and evolve rapidly in response to external challenges.
In 2015 the Sustainable Development Goals charter are made, but apparently many people have doubted the goals are fully achieved on its due in 2030, because the progress has not yet giving so many progress. We must collectively increase our abilities to face and work effectively with complex challenges, and it can be achieved by individual agency and creativity.
And maybe—it’s time to see creativity as the 18th Sustainable Development Goal. When the current SDGs are struggling to solve complex issues, we need to expand the list—because creativity brings in new approaches, community-led innovation, and regenerative potential that traditional frameworks often miss. I wholeheartedly believe that ideas can become a form of energy, perhaps even the cleanest energy known to humanity.
Inspired by progressive framework to strengthen the SDGs goal; Individual Development Goals, I adapt the framework to my idea of creative as energy framework:
The cycle can happen once it is ignited from the inside as creative fuel, building compassion that made people connects with likeminded people. And as they ripple outward, it created collaboration with community or society and eventually will enabling action for the outside world. This regeneration can help building fundamentals that strengthen ourselves. That’s how creativity can become a regenerative energy, through compassion and connectedness.
Proven by the existence of interest-based community like community running in Jakarta. According Rania, Co-Founder of Heirun Running Club, their collective passion in running has elevate into a well-known community that got a lot of endorsed and helped its member financially. The shared energy future, has already arriving!
If the idea is massive, why is the realization can be so low?
In my personal experience, working as a creative is often being overlooked and not being seen as an actual jobs. Therefore, we were not very much being supported enough in the family and we were hardly capable to realized our ideas and dreams in this field. In a national scale, compensation for creativity is a big problem that both the government and the stakeholders are contributing to.
On my discussion with Eris, Founder of Bogor Illustrator Hub (BIH) a local creative community from Bogor in West Java, he validated that the local government bureaucracy is still the biggest elephant in the room that makes creative funding is so hard to obtain. BIH needed to go to the central, which also took ages to claim and might not be directly to be approved in a short time. The government plan in the creative economy is huge and ambitious, yet not a lot of creatives have benefitted it equally.
The rigid low pricing standards that government projects used, not to mention most of it are time-based prices, can be seen almost as creatives are being punished for being efficient and wanting to contribute to the creative economy. Also by not intervening in the industry practice for pricing and pitching, Indonesian creatives are competing to win as the most suffocating people in the room.
This situation contradicts the concept of Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi—where creativity thrives when skills meet opportunity, supported by focus, clear goals, and immediate feedback. Unfortunately, scattered attention and delayed support break this flow, making it difficult for creative energy to reach its full potential.
To fix this, three key players must step in: the government, businesses, and researchers. As a researcher, I aim to propose initiatives and platforms that give creative communities the space or outlet to channel their creative energy. When creativity is supported properly, it becomes a powerful energy to unlock ideas, drive personal growth, and contribute to wider societal growth.
Maybe People Might Just Need A Little Bit of Push
As Jonathan Haidt stated in The Anxious Generation, spending too much time critically online—disconnected from real-world, physical experiences—can heighten anxiety and emotional distress. So, why not get up, get out, and seize the opportunity? As Taylor Swift wrote on her lyrics:
Believe me, staying indoor, doom scrolling and spending entire day for screen will not only can cause you anxiety, they might harm your brain and body, and apparently to the environment. According to IEA, the emissions generated by watching 30 minutes of Netflix [1.6 kg of CO2] is the same as driving almost 4 miles. So, why do not we just go out and breathe the fresh air.
During the presentation on developing ideas with Joel Gethin Lewis, course leader on the now Vision Pro only Diploma in Apple Development, there is one slide that triggers my ideas: “Demons hates fresh air.” I can second that, because I have been so frustrated to go round and round in my four walled room to think about my project. And to prove that, I casually invited my classmate to get out to a park and get some coffee with me to help me synthesize my ideas and thought.
After going out and disconnect with the virtual reality, I recognized four things: 1. I have more clarity of my work (internal benefit)
2. I feel freshened up after a walking in nature and grabbed a coffee from the local cafe(community benefit)
3. I helped to contribute my idea towards my friend’s work (external benefit)
4. I do not have to charge my phone over and over after I disconnected (environment benefit)
To optimize the experience of combining skills and opportunities, it requires control over what happens in the mind, one can draw upon an almost infinite range of opportunities for enjoyment—for instance, through the use of physical and sensory skills. And as I mentioned in my previous post, coffee is also an energy fuel for creative people to run an idea, to develop the idea, or maybe to contribute to the government. Which somehow related to this Instagram content.
When I did a primary research using Typeform questionnaire, on how might people wanted to do if they have a café, many people said they wanted the get engaged in creative event in their cafe and somewhat interested in cultural exchange.
Consequently, why not making a place or platform to make people willing to establish their flow and creative energy to cultivate more ideas?
So, How Might We…
Well here we are to finally landed on this question, “How might we established creative ideas as renewable energy, and use coffee-talks as catalysts for community-driven innovation, co-creation and regenerative future?”
In regards to this, I plan to create an intervention by inviting people to talk about their ideas over a coffee. Based on my experience on my previous trip on Istanbul, people generate more meaningful conversations, ideas, and maybe actionable ones when they are discussing over the food or over the coffee, and supported by great ambiance or environment. This coffee-talk intervention will make invite people for a coffee, and make them pour up their ideas, and store their ideas into ‘idea bank’ that might be actionable in the future.
The future is actually already arrived. Initiatives like Mother Bank and Neneng Rosdiyana’s community projects in rural areas show how creativity can address complex ecological and economic issues—starting with just one conversation and group support.
If we can cultivate more creative potentials, the dream of making creativity as the new renewable energy might drive us to an actual realistic utopia, where people driving towards a brighter future. So, let’s have a coffee-talk about your idea in Regent’s park soon?
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Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2008). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: Harper Perennial.
Bregman, R. (2020). Humankind: A Hopeful History. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.
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“If you love Brighton and you’re looking for other cities with a similar vibe, here are a few cities—both in the UK and internationally—that share elements like creativity, beachside culture, inclusive communities, indie spirit, and a strong arts or subculture scene:
In the UK
Bristol
Creative, indie music and art scene, progressive values, and youthful energy.
Feels like Brighton without the beach, but with even more street art (hello, Banksy).
Margate
A seaside town turned hip artsy haven, with galleries (like Turner Contemporary), retro charm, and growing creative communities.
Hastings
A mix of vintage, grunge, and sea breeze. Similar to Brighton but a bit quieter and grittier.
Lewes (very close to Brighton)
Quaint, historic, very artsy, with a strong local identity and political activism vibe.
St Ives (Cornwall)
Coastal, arty, and beautiful. More laid-back and small-town, but shares the artsy-meets-nature mood.
International Cities
Portland, Oregon (USA)
Progressive, weird, creative, full of independent cafes and shops. Like Brighton, but inland and woodsy.
Melbourne (Australia)
Art, coffee, culture, LGBTQ+ inclusive, and by the ocean (in some suburbs). A Brighton of the Southern Hemisphere.
Barcelona (Spain)
Beach meets culture meets nightlife. Big city version of Brighton with a Mediterranean twist.
Copenhagen (Denmark)
Clean, design-focused, liberal, bike-friendly. Feels like if Brighton grew up and got really into Scandinavian minimalism.
Amsterdam (Netherlands)
Canal-side instead of seaside, but super free-spirited, diverse, and youthful with strong subcultural vibes.
Why It Matters?
I went to Brighton with my friends, longing for a beautiful natural vitamin D after long season of winter. That was my first time actually, and I was so excited with all of the blue and the blasting array of colors that stimulated my happiness during my visit.
My friends and I went to visit Lucy and Yak on our way back from the beach. The boutique was impeccable with a lot of beautiful prints, colorful dungarees and summer outfits that will shines bright on the beach. But what caught me in the eye was, they also accept their own second hand products from their customer to be sold again. Because apparently they adopted circular economy or regenerative approach to their concept.
Source: Lucy and Yak Website
After a long beach walk, strolling around the captivating Brighton Pier, hopping to one and another colorful gift shops and spending pennies for trinkets what-nots later, I went home to arrange my gifts from Brighton into my gift box. While searching through my postcards from my previous trip, popped up a ‘postcard’ from my previous Arup visit with MA Innovation Management students two weeks before;
Such a coincidence (or maybe not) that it unfolds my deepest thought in my subconscious. The generation of tomorrow has moved from sustainability to more radical concept of regenerative, which today people are honing the knowledge on creating more sustainable materials. But however, we also need the rotors, the machines, the enabler, the people to promote this narrative. And I believe the creative community, especially those rooted in subcultures, hobbies, music, and the arts, can play a transformative role in promoting a regenerative future within urban development.
Imagine how a creative city and vibrant city like Brighton can works because many creative store concepts, creative community and youth are running the city, and it makes you want to go back more or find any similar cities like Brighton.
As stated by smartcitiesdive.com:
“At first, it might be odd to imagine that a city may be dependant on something so intangible as creativity. In fact, it is not so much the creativity itself, but the reputation of creativity which it invokes. The entire character and physique of the city is hinged and perpetuated by this reputation. Without it, Brighton would find itself having to refocus and reorganise. A pier and pavillion are not, and haven’t been for some time, enough. Margate showed tourism is not an infinite resource, but luckily Brighton has already built its defences.”
And going back to the ChatGPT prompt above, I realized none of the cities above are mentioning any cities in Indonesia, not even Jakarta, not even Bali.
Regardless that Indonesia has (according to Chat*PT again):
Thousands of unique cultural expressions across 17,000+ islands
700+ languages
3,000+ dances
Hundreds of songs and music styles
None of these would contribute to the country’s growth or to the narrative.
Therefore, it unlocked my question “Can a creative community contributes to build regenerative future of urban cities like Jakarta? If it does, can the progressive movement starts from the creative community?”
Because, given that the creative community involved in the participative action to develop their cities, the narrative of the city can be altered and the future of the cities can be more progressive. This idea celebrates how everyday people shape urban futures through creative action, echoing the populist spirit of reclaiming power for the people.
Sultan Abdul Hamid II, an Ottoman ruler who reigned from 1876 to 1909, was famously known for his love of coffee. In a corner of the antique furniture display at Dolmabahçe Palace’s museum, there is a story engraved about his daily habit of drinking seven cups of Yemeni coffee. His passion underscored the mark of the first coffee trading that influenced the Turkish coffee culture in the present time. To make the experience becomes more rich in culture, they were also initiated to import an Egyptian sand to be used to brewed their Kahvesi in a fancy pot.
The influenced of aristocracy in shaping this culture, becomes more than just a luxury afternoon snack for upper-state individuals. In the alfresco of Karakoy and in the grove of Sultanahmet, from touristy café to coffee kiosks have already provided this type of coffee luxury, brewed in a copper pot using the same Egyptian sands. The people in this café are varied, from students to entrepreneurs, from locals to tourists and from middle class workers to upper higher state people, they are all gathered under the same roof to be served a hot cup of Türk Kahvesi.
As a person who has been living for years to grab a coffee in a paper cup and go, in hustling busy street of Jakarta to work, or in a long queue of Hermano’s in London to catch up for the afternoon class, the tiny cup of a bold Türk Kahvesi confused me.
A barista in Sultanahmet told me, “It ensures the coffee stays warm and allows for a slow, deliberate sipping, which is crucial for the ritualistic and social aspect of drinking Turkish coffee and engaging in conversation. The better the quality of the conversation is, the longer it lasts. That’s why a cup of Turkish coffee is meant to encourage social gathering and meaningful conversation. It is nodded by an article from National Geographic, highlighted a famous Turkish saying: “‘Eat sweet, talk sweet.’ If you just want to chat, we drink sweet tea. If you want a serious talk, then we have coffee.”
“A cup of movement”—that’s how coffee is seen nowadays in the northern part of Istanbul, especially in Beşiktaş. After a temporary pause in the Taksim Square protests due to the Eid holiday, Istanbulites found a new way to express dissent toward the government: by boycotting their beloved coffee.
The sound of protest rang loud across Beşiktaş, a district known for its predominantly left-wing, secular residents, more so than in any other part of the city.
‘They’ve been boycotting the big coffee chains here as a protest against inflation and the government. That’s why we haven’t had as many customers as usual,‘ said Fatah, an Indonesian coffee shop owner at Envai Café in Beşiktaş.
‘But some still come to boutique cafés like ours. Most of them are loyal customers and part of the community,’ he added.
Unlike any other café in Istanbul, Envai provided more modernized and globally known type of coffees — from latte to cappuccino, all imported from Colombia and Indonesia. ‘Istanbul is pretty much late when it comes to the modern coffee style and coffee chains. They are practically new in this kind of coffees.’ Said Fatah, who were started his coffee career as a barista, to a known coffee judge competition in Istanbul. ‘That is why, many people come in here on the evening after work or school, they found lattes are less stronger and makes the conversation last longer.’
People in Istanbul are indeed a great conversationalist, they love to talk about everything. From touristic recommendations, entrepreneurship 101 until political discussion, they have you on the brewed copper pot — hot and intriguing. The longer the night, the more traditional the music is changing, the colder the coffee is becoming, the more interesting the conversation will be. That’s how, most of the movement and actions are initiated in a small coffee shop of Istanbul.
It’s fascinating to see how the aristocratic ritual of drinking coffee has, in recent days, been turned against the very institutions it once symbolized, echoing resistance in every sip the people take. The meaning of coffee has evolved from a tradition steeped in copper pots to a statement brewed in paper cups. Once, Turkish coffee was cherished not only for its rich taste but also for the fortunes told in the grounds left behind on the cup. Now, with a closed paper cup in hand, people choose to face an uncertain future—fortune to read, just the quiet defiance of modern protest.
Struggles has been an universal language for most of the people around the world, not to mention for the people who living the title of a middle class. The discovery of this realization emerged when I watched a video of two Indonesian academicians and economists; Chatib Basri and Gita Wirjawan, talking about the middle class struggle among the uncertainties.
In their conversation, Basri and Wirjawan discuss the struggles faced by the middle class in the context of global economic and political challenges. Basri highlights that governments in many countries tend to focus policies on the poor, while the wealthy benefit from development, often neglecting the specific needs of the middle class. He uses the concept of the “elephant curve” to illustrate the income growth patterns in Indonesia between 2019 and 2023, where the poorest and the richest experienced positive income growth, but the middle-income deciles (5th to 8th) experienced negative growth, indicating a decline in their economic well-being.
Drawing a parallel with the “Chilean Paradox,” Basri explains how a country with strong economic growth, high income per capita, and a good Human Development Index still faced significant social unrest because the middle class felt left behind and without specific policy attention. This underscores the importance of addressing the needs of the middle class, not just the poor and the rich.
Among the rising topic of #KaburAjaDulu as I mentioned on the previous post, many young Indonesian seems wanted to have a better option to getting away from the struggles immediately to seek for an ‘asylum’, including the middle class themselves.
Paradox of #KaburAjaDulu for Middle Class in Indonesia
Having grown up in an upper-middle-class family in Jakarta, I find myself fitting squarely into the category described by Basri, making this sentiment feel all the more personal and relatable. The systematic inequality making middle class far away from the privilege of having security, education and mental stability. This peaked when I got a message from my niece from home, as she is currently anxious about her future in the country:
Translation:
“Lately I’ve been looking for student exchange scholarships (high school) because I really want to go abroad.” “The more I see the news about this country, the more scared I get—I just want to leave.” “I don’t even know anymore what I’ll become if I stay here too long.”
The fact that many young Indonesians—our future human capital—are now seeking to escape and live abroad out of fear and frustration is a powerful reflection of how the system has failed to offer them a promising future.
While the idea of leaving Indonesia first and returning only after achieving success may sound appealing, the reality of migrating abroad is far more complex. Various barriers—such as legal regulations, limited opportunities, educational requirements, and financial constraints—make it a difficult path to pursue. Financial constraints is the biggest challenge for most of middle class to pursue their dream, education or work abroad because most of the language tests, preparation tests or transportation to reach most of big cities are particularly very costly.
As the result, based on the video above, Indonesia still lacks a strong presence in the global diaspora. Gita Wirjawan pointed out that while countries like India and China each have nearly 400,000 students studying in the US, Indonesia has only around 8,500. The gap is also evident in the UK, where China is represented by 200,000 students, compared to just 4,000 Indonesians across all campuses.
Culture as A Bridge of Nations
When we move abroad, we may become distanced from our geographical roots, but our values and cultural identity often remain with us. According to the Citywide Culture Strategy 2023–30, culture is the way we express who we are, our values, ideas, aspirations, and thoughts, through creativity and the arts. It shapes our way of life and reflects the attitudes, beliefs, and ambitions we hold in common. And culture is the wealth that we can carry everywhere we go.
I have a habit of introducing my cultures to my peers in the university through various range of Indonesian dishes in London, because I know it is much easier to do as foods connect most of the people. I loved how they were reacted when they experienced it on the first time.
To my surprise, I received a DM from my friend a couple days ago, they told me that they saw this video of a koplo singer popped out on their social media and they said that were very much liked it.
I was astounded that this song went through their algorithm, in fact that they are Scottish and lived in London, I never expected they would hear this kind of subgenre, and they liked it. Moreover, this type of song is niche and mostly being listened— as far as I experienced— by older generation in Indonesia. I myself, may barely listen to this kind of songs.
Koplo or dangdut, according to Wikipedia, is a subgenre of dangdut, Indonesian popular dance & folk music, that originated in East Java and popularized in the early 2000s. The genre gets its name from the slang term “koplo” which refers to a hallucinogenic drug that is sold cheaply in Indonesia. In addition, In 1995, Secretary of State, Moerdiono declared that dangdut is ‘The Music of the People’ making it is seen to be more populist music.
Thanks to social media, more people have become exposed to intercultural exchange, allowing various cultures and traditions to gain greater visibility on a global scale. Platforms like TikTok, in particular, have played a major role in introducing new trends to wider audiences through viral sounds. A recent example is the global popularity of the ‘Velocity‘ dance trend, which features koplo music as its backing track—bringing this uniquely Indonesian sound to the attention of international viewers.
Therefore, enhancing global cultural awareness can be done easily through social media which also unlocked the barrier of becoming more exposed to the global world.
Synthensizing The Middle Class Constraints with Creative Culture
I might be one of the lucky few who has the opportunity to pursue academic goals in London, at one of the world’s most respected art schools. Yet, I’m fully aware that many others are still struggling just to make ends meet, let alone dare to place their dreams on a higher pedestal. Still, that doesn’t mean middle-class individuals—especially Indonesians—are unable to experience joy and fulfillment in life. This sense of enjoyment can be nurtured through culture and creative resilience.
In fact, Indonesia’s culture, creativity is deeply rooted in its rich multicultural traditions and arts. Making creative industry a significant contributor to the creative economy, because it is able to employ around 19.39 million people and contribute about USD 82 billion to the Indonesian GDP. Boosting the creative economy with an integrated plan can drive Indonesia’s economy for the better.
From this exploration, discussion and analysis of my question, it sparks an idea about the change I want to see, which is “How can creative industry and culture can generate economic resilience, sustainability and global connection among Indonesian middle class.” This question doesn’t just highlight a desire for economic growth, but also emphasizes the role of creativity and culture as drivers of empowerment, identity, and long-term progress.
In a rapidly globalizing and technological advanced world, I believe that nurturing creative ecosystems and cultural capital can equip the Indonesian middle class with the means not just to survive, but to thrive—economically, socially, and creatively. This question will based from Indonesia as the example, and hopefully can also be implemented to many other countries.
Welcome (back) to Unit 1, after a month of diving into our collaborative project in Unit 2.
In this phase of Unit 1, our cohort begin paving the way toward our future independent research project through Project 3: “The Change I Want to See.” At this point, we’ve started to narrow down our uncertainties and have identified a specific area of interest, something closely tied to our personal agency, stakeholders and our drive to make a change in the world.
The word “change” itself feels frightening, well at least for me, not just because this is a summative project that will be graded (albeit that’s certainly part of it), but more so because of the weight of responsibility it carries. As someone who’s received government funding, that sense of duty feels even more amplified. However, Cecilla, my tutor, told me to weigh it down and not seeing this as a responsibility but instead see this as a “calling”. Hence, I began to unpack my box of uncertainties to find my calling again.
The Backpack
Looking back at what I wrote during “What’s Inside My Backpack” workshop honestly made me laugh. I might’ve taken the prompt a bit too literally—thinking about my actual backpack, that’s why I actually drawing my own backpacks. However, a few months before coming to London, I swapped out my trusty, 8-year-old Kånken for a minimalist Timbuk2. At first glance, not much seemed different: both are attached with colorful bag charms and packed with everything I need. But the change actually reflects something deeper—a quiet transformation in myself. Letting go of my old backpack, a symbol of comfort and familiarity, was my way of stepping out of my comfort zone and embracing something new.
Nonetheless, my backpacks have always carried more than just belongings—they carry stories, like a perfume to receipts that filled with memories, silently witnessing every step of my journey. They’ve seen how far I’ve come in facing my fears and how much I’ve grown into a different version of myself. So while they may hold my fears, hopes, and dreams, they also hold the quiet proof of my courage—the kind that keeps showing up, no matter how heavy the load.
My First Inquiry
Going back, I realize that my real “Box of Uncertainties” has always been my scholarship essay, the heaviest load I’ve been carrying in my backpack. In that essay, I wrote about how creativity and design can bridge the gap between various sectors; from art to economy. But beyond that, I questioned how creative thinking could contribute to something bigger: to sustainability, to making people feel safer and more comfortable, or simply put, to creating a better world.
On the other hand, in my “Box of Uncertainties” project, everything I placed inside was tied to a common thread: the anxious generation. We live under immense pressure, facing external forces, uncertainty about the future, and unresolved anxieties from the past. In Indonesia, for example, the hashtag #KaburAjaDulu (“Just run away first”) has become popular among young people, especially after the government’s inability to lead effectively following the recent presidential election, which leads to failing in many aspects in the country. Moreover, only 15% of Indonesian youth feel optimistic about the country’s political direction. This reflects a growing sense of a loss of hope in seeing their home as a place of belonging.
In the slice between anxiety and power, there is something called counterfactual thinking—the psychological process of imagining alternative outcomes to events that have already happened. This could also be a reason of why the Indonesia youth are possibly wanting to fleet away, at least temporarily, from the country. Instead of being in the frightening circumstances, they’d rather leave home in search of better possibilities, distancing themselves from what they fear might happen.
The Mapping of Change
Connecting my role as a creative practitioner, the struggles of this anxious generation and the vision of a better future, a hypothesis began to form: what if we could make cities or a place feel like home again? What if creative thinking could help transform fear into familiarity, and uncertainty into a sense of belonging?
I began exploring ways to bridge these gaps by delving into urbanism, aiming to better understand how people interact with their environments or envision alternative lives through a different city, career, or identity. My focus on urban areas stems from having spent all 27 years of my life in city neighborhoods—from Jakarta to London, urban living has always been my reality.
Then I develop the idea further using the mind map from “Mapping The Change” layout to map out keywords, key texts and key thinkers that surrounds this topic idea. However, I feel like these words are to shallow and very broad to be narrowed down into a single topic. Thus, I keep on changing the key words back and forth to actually dissect what a better home we could imagine, and what problems should we be prioritised first. I realized that there are so many complex problems that happening in the city, especially in Jakarta, whereas it can’t all be fixed with just a simple hope.
But hope can be a spark to show a courage, a leap to somewhere than where we are now. Eventhough, the connotation of courage, according to Hannah Arendt, now feel to be an indispensable quality of the hero, is in fact already present in a willingness to act and speak at all, to insert one’s self into the world and begin a story of one’s own. And courage can be simply risking yourself to get off of your comfort zone.
During the alumni session, I was inspired and empowered by the alumni who were encouraging me to directly take an action research to justify the topic I would like to emphasize. Because of them, I tried make a courageous move to made an intervention on my TikTok to target the people who move away from home using one day paid targeting, by asking them on what they miss the most about home.
The result was not really satisfying, in two days only 3 people comments out of 890 viewers to date.
On a surface level, the two audiences answered that what they miss the most are the sentimental elements in their home; the area and the loved ones. Which almost similar to what I have encountered. However, this might not giving the best justification about the problems, thus, the questions and the intervention may need to be adjusted into more narrowed topic afterwards.
Evaluation
In this part of discovery, I might already have the direction to where I’m heading to but still stuck in the intersection between reality and things I wanted to see. I know that I want to use my expertise and concern in the creative economy as a tool to see changes in improving people’s live. But how will I achieve it in the middle of the uncertainty of my country is the challenge. Therefore, I will say that this will be a long discovery to address my calling and this is going to have a part 2 in it.
In this story, I will take you on the journey of how we redefine the word compromise while collaborating together as a team to reimagine the organization we are choosing. The rollercoaster experiences can only be explored in every scene of this story while finding out the impossibility of having every imagination narrowed down into specific ideas. This collaboration project might have altered our team dynamic but also changed us individually.
How We Started
The shift from Unit 1 to Unit 2 of MA Applied Imagination felt like being caught in a sudden storm— intense, and completely unavoidable. Just as I was beginning to settle into the rhythm of the course, I was thrown into an unexpected challenge: a cross-disciplinary collaboration with MA Innovation Management students. Thus, I have to compromise with the unknown. Regardless, the concept of the collaboration project itself was thrilling because it could be an opportunity to merge perspectives and rethink how organizations within the Knowledge Quarter could be future-proofed with our combined ideas. But as we were teamed up, an unshakable feeling settled in—I knew this collaboration would change us, but I had no idea whether that transformation would lead to something remarkable or unravel into chaos; however, one cannot rationally proclaim that they know everything about everything, or even everything about their own fields (Miles, 1989).
Our various backgrounds and gaps filled in each other’s puzzle: the planner, the strategist, the researcher, the brainstormer, and the finisher are assembled into a team of the ‘Power5Girls.’ Although we might switch roles and try to expand our boundaries by doing something we were not before in this team, this made us really hopeful for our team in the future and made us become more understanding to one another. During the forming stages, much of our time was spent defining our values and mission, carefully crafting our team charter.
So, what values did we choose to make this creative collaboration work? We call these values the ‘X-Factors’;
Through all of these shared values, this collaboration sounded promising—practical, even. But as any good baker knows, the real challenge begins once the cake is in the oven.
Going Right Down to the Rabbit Hole
As the reality began when we were required to decide which organizations to choose, this is when we were actually sailing the uncharted waters. We wanted so much—the ideas, the authenticity, and definitely the perfect ones—until choosing made us stretch more time than we required. It was also challenged by our consistency to obey our charter until one of us was getting too loose and too tight to stick with it; hence, this was when our true color started to emerge. It did not become clearer before we started our first tutorial in the British Library.
We addressed our variety of interests to our tutor: arts, fashion, marketing, and technology that made us stuck in inertia. And all of a sudden, “¿Por qué no los dos?” our tutor said. Our eyes twitched in confusion because none of us understood. “I mean, why not do both?” he translated to us. Henceforth, the words become our mantra to realize our choice, a space where everything is possible to be established—a theater. This is when we compromise to choose the New Diorama Theatre as our organization.
New Diorama Theatre is an independent theatre in the London Borough of Camden, situated in the prime office area where most of its demographic are high earners and well-educated. The plays are mostly made by the independent writers and producers; therefore, the shows are more experimental compared to the West End theatre. It also has a functioning cafe-bar on the front side of the theater, which is more lively in the daytime with the young working people who spend their time with their own laptops in the cafe. These facilities seemed to back up their financial growth aside from the government and investor funds.
We visited the theater three times, two times for the experience tour and once to watch the show after a 10-day gap. Its limited space also created a sense of exclusiveness to its certain community only; therefore, the shows were less appealing than the mainstream. The visit made us come to realize that some of our experiences here did not validate our initial desk research, that most of the theater audience is similar to the cafe customers, or the demographic of the Camden borough itself. Apparently, most of the audience who came to the ‘Lynn’s Faces’ show that night were the total opposite of what we knew—they were middle-aged, mainly retired, and had a relationship with the artists. On that account, we are questioning the belonging of the theater and which community should it be focused on.
Is There Any Way Out There?
Apparently, our attempt to secure an interview with the general manager of the New Diorama Theatre was met with rejection—not only were we denied a conversation, but we weren’t even given a recommendation for someone else on the management team to speak with. On top of that, many potential interviewees either didn’t respond to us either way. Without a clear path forward, we found ourselves stuck in a loop—returning to desk research while simultaneously searching for alternatives.
And we found out more from the article given by the Arts Council through email, that apparently, the institution is encouraging the creative industry to be immersed with technology. It appears that technology is driving the future of creativity by funding and supporting artists who experiment with emerging digital tools, enabling new forms of artistic expression, global exposure, and economic opportunities in the creative industries (Arts Council, 2024). This opportunity may be a good decision for the future of New Diorama Theatre, but in fact, they may not have the capacity due to its financial constraints.
Not all decisions turn out to be the right ones, no matter how much data we gather. Some missteps are minor, while others can have more serious consequences, yet we continue making choices based on perceptions of the world that may not always be accurate (Sinek, 2009). In relation to that, we tried to identify our ‘Why’—a guiding purpose that could prevent us from being overwhelmed by excessive information and constantly shifting directions. However, as promising as this approach sounded, our storming phase was anything but smooth.
Bounded by both external setbacks and internal conflicts, the tension within the team gradually eroded the sense of fun we had initially valued. Conflicting desires & thoughts happen everyday in the project and we are helpless to keep them in line (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997), and that was exactly what happened to us. This became evident during our formative assessment, where the jury pointed out that our research lacked a clear big question—further complicated by the pressure of time constantly ticking away.
Compromising Our Way Out
“The best way out is through”, quoted by the poet, Robert Frost. During the first months of my master’s degree, navigating intense research under tight deadlines, conflicting ideas, and differing approaches to re-imagining the organisation often made me wish the process would end sooner. But an ending wouldn’t mean much if the problems remained unresolved. Instead, we went back to our core value of communication—coming together, sitting down as a team, making use of the traditional post-it ideation and assembling our thoughts to find a way forward.
Taking into account, we agreed that the future of technology is unavoidable, meaning this is the hypothesis we considered. As AI advances we are leading to The Synthocene Era, where humans use AI as a tool for growth rather than control. This shift will push brands in entertainment to create unique and differentiating moments that wow consumers (Future Laboratory, 2024). But, does fringe theatre really need advancement in technology while their actual backbone comes from the community and bonfire experience? The answer is maybe. Therefore, we draw the lines on our hypothesis– is the future actually very human? Knowing no superficial technology can empower the collaboration experience, even in the team. The touch of humans actually still matters the most.
During our session with Jamie Brasset, ex-Course Director in Innovation Management, he stated that envisioning the future shapes our present, as speculating about a specific future influences our current actions. In addition, adjusting our behavior today in response to future expectations, we ultimately reshape the very future we envisioned. Therefore, to compromise both of the hypothesis and the anti-thesis, we synthesised them into “Humanising The Tech” to bridge the best of both worlds. Thus, our question narrowed into speculating “How might we enable a deeper connection between theatre enthusiasts and the art form by integrating technology with tradition, allowing NDT to grow its audience and community despite limited rebranding funds?” This question brought fresh air as if we were out of the woods.
Out Of The Woods
Openness can drive innovation but beyond that it poses coordination challenges, impacting individual and organizational search efforts (Salter, Ter Wal, Criscuolo, & Alexy, 2015), henceforth, we maintain our ideation strictly to our question while proving our idea through an intervention using a fake website project. The purpose of this intervention is to prove whether people actually wanted to immerse their show with technology, or remain conventional.
Apparently, the result showed that people were interested and clicked on the immersive theatre but, they finally added the conventional one to the basket more. The data from the intervention is aligned with what our experts said and what we found from the survey we distributed to 53 respondents. From the survey, it is also proven that many people enjoy conventional experience the most but not stopping themselves to try something new.
In addition, experiencing immersiveness in a conventional performance might be something they are looking forward to in the future of the theatre.
Thus, “¿Por qué no los dos?” – we compromise the needs of the consumer and also the future of the theatre. Our expert in theatre producer, Franny Anne Raferty, validated this “It’s all about creating a more dynamic relationship with the audience. And let’s face it, with everything happening digitally these days, people want to feel involved in something real, something they can touch and feel, not just watch on a screen.” And from that, this is how we reimagining New Diorama Theatre:
We future-proof the theatre using two streams of ideas; altering the current business model through marketing, and proposing new services that are directed to the people and the product.
First, we developed a membership plan that not only rewards our audience but can also strengthen a long-term connection with NDT and enhance the sense of community.
Onto the proposal to people services, we bring the idea of stage is everywhere or blended spaces, a concept-driven cafe where theatre extends beyond the stage, offering immersive storytelling through themed dining, projection mapping, and interactive art. This experience-driven approach shifts passive waiting time between shows into an engaging journey, maximising space efficiency and deepening audience connection. By aligning the cafe’s ambiance with running productions and integrating storytelling techniques, we create a bridge between its consumers in cafes and consumers in theatre.
And lastly an immersive theatre remix, where audiences become co-creators and influence classic plays in real-time through interactive the concept of Event Cinema. By partnering with larger theatres and inviting emerging theatremakers, we blend Event Cinema techniques with traditional theatre, offering an experimental platform for interactive, hybrid performances. This not only enhances audience engagement and content accessibility but also positions New Diorama Theatre as a pioneer in the future of theatre, creating a win-win for larger theatre seeking experimental formats, emerging artists needing a platform, and audiences craving immersive engagement.
Finale
Learning compromise is the biggest lesson throughout the journey. Compromising our own ideas and ego as a mixture of our collaboration spirit until compromising the feasibility of our ideas that might work or not to our organization. We were finally able to present our idea on the first schedule list, and it left not only feeling relieved because it is done, but realisation that we won the game as a team which is more rewarding than ever. The concept of compromise has changed for me personally, it is no longer about how to give in for peace, but actually stitching all minds together to make things work.
