The Creativity Workshop in Singapore

Program Overview

• The Creativity Workshop in Singapore will help you become more creative in your personal and professional life; the creativity training we provide uses the tools of creative writing, memoir, art, photography, storytelling, mapmaking, and guided visualization.
• Participants come from many different countries and professional fields, including business, education, psychology, the sciences, and the arts.
• Many people who have taken the Workshop say that it was a transformative experience, helping them to write their books, start new companies, complete long overdue projects, transition to rewarding retirements, and change the way they look at life.
  
  

Program Details

• This intensive long weekend Creativity Workshop meets for 4 hours a day, from 9:30 AM to 1:30 PM. You will have the rest of the time free to sightsee.
• Class will take place on the campus of The Singapore Management University, located in the city center.
• For accommodations, we recommend the Oxford Hotel, which is within walking distance of the Workshop location.
  
  

Why Singapore?

• This pristine city-state is home to several different cultures, making this the perfect spot to excite your imagination, as creativity flourishes in places where different traditions and histories converge.
• Opportunities for inspiration and discovery abound in this thriving international city, whether you use your free time to visit the historic Chinese Heritage Museum, go to the beach, share breakfast with an orangutan at the renowned zoological gardens, or have a proper Victorian high tea at the elegant Raffles Hotel.
• The techniques we explore in this creativity course will sharpen your appreciation of Singapore, and the sounds and sights of this multicultural city will surely feed your creative work in class.
  
  

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  What Will You Learn?

  The Creativity Workshop is an experiential workshop of doing and experimenting. Our exercises and instructors’ talks focus on helping you:

  • Learn practical techniques to stimulate your imagination and innovative thinking.
  • Explore the process of creativity, rather than simply focusing on the product.
  • Discover how to find inspiration in the world around you.
  • Get over creative blocks and the fear of failure.

  
  More on What You Will Learn

  • Work with many different mediums to develop your creativity in your chosen medium more deeply.
  • Use your memories to trigger your imagination.
  • Engage your curiosity every day and make it work for you.
  • Establish a 15 minute a day creativity practice to accomplish your goals after the Workshop ends.
    

  
  

Daily Schedule

(Order and kinds of exercises and instructors' talks may vary. Some exercises are done individually while others are collaborative.)

• Introduction to the hows and whys of The
  Creativity Workshop.
• Relaxation: Exercises in relaxation techniques to help your imagination flow.
• Guided Visualization: Calling forth the vocabulary of your imagination using the myth of the hero's journey as a framework.
• Automatic Drawing: Finding our hidden imagery.
• Show and Tell: Retrieving and sharing childhood memories to spark new ideas. This exercise will sharpen your storytelling skills.
• Instructors' talk: How some famous writers, scientists, and artists found their inspiration, and how you can use some of their methods to find yours.

More on Daily Schedule

Second day of workshop

• Relaxation.
• Guided Visualization: Mapmaking as a way to find, chart, and communicate your creative process and projects.
• Automatic Writing: How automatic writing (also known as “free writing”) can help you create in new and surprising ways. How you can use automatic writing to outrun your inner judge, get over creative blocks, and discover new ways of developing and editing written work. How alternating between writing and drawing can help you develop creative flexibility and mental dexterity.
• The Interview: Listening to and experiencing a life outside your own. How listening is as important as doing in creative work.
• Writing in Cafes: an exercise that will continue to take place over the next 2 days.
• Instructors' talks may include:
• How to do ongoing creative work in short modules of time.
• How to use luck and coincidence to jump-start creative projects.

Third day of workshop

• Guided visualization: Letter writing as a way to express voice, character, and audience.
• Miniature Theatre: Storytelling with found objects.
• Automatic Writing: Writing in Groups. How writing and/or drawing with others can stimulate your imagination and expand your point of view.


• Instructors' talks may include:
• The importance of play in creative work.
• Valuing creative process over product.

Fourth day of workshop

• Guided visualization: The Myth of the Other.
  Imagining yourself living a parallel life. What would you do that you aren't doing now?
• The Sand Mandala: Making an Illuminated Manuscript.
• Final Group Exercise.
• Instructors' talks may include:
• The Gift of the Amateur.
• Creativity is a Muscle: Use it or Lose it.
• Making your home and work environments inspiring.
• How to stay creative after The Creativity Workshop ends.