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 Gothic botanicals, moody petals, stunning depth and ethereal majesty. The mysterious and enchanting allure of the gothic design has swept up aesthetic all the way from Victorian England to the modern and global post-punk sound spheres. Bram Stoker would rise from his grave to witness the beautiful and mind-capturing gothic scene that has grown from the initial idea of night creatures and lust for the dark. One way to harmonise our surroundings with the mental landscape we enjoy is to grow plants that mirror our ideal. For gothic and dark loving people, a fascinating array of plants and flowers are available to add a sense of nature and a dapple of shade to any sunny spot. The natural world is full of inspiration and creative motivation. The slow, gradual, and stalwart ability of plants to push on through and grow tall over time, given the right ingredients, is a lesson for us all. Don’t rush, build little by little, and in time you’ll be a stunning example of your kind. Taking in the appreciation for subtle growth and gradual change that results in a beautiful outcome is something even the gloomiest minded of people can take home. You can try growing any number of these following black and dark foliage plants for your gothic garden. Be it a windowsill, little back yard, or an acre of free-range moor with mist and moonlight, you can create a magical and mysterious gothic landscape all for yourself where you can sip red wine and listen to Bauhaus in comfort. The Ultimate List of Black Flowers & Plants for Your Gothic Garden Mesmerizing Black Blooms
View on Amazon  Black Hollyhock  Tulip Queen of the Night
 Calla Lily 'Black Forest'
View on Amazon  Nemophila 'Penny Black'
View on Amazon  Persian Lily (Fritillaria persica)  Black Bearded Iris Dark Foliage & Gothic Greens
View on Amazon  Black Mondo Grass (Ophiopogon planiscapus 'Nigrescens')
View on Amazon  Elderberry 'Black Beauty' 
View on Amazon  Columbine 'Black Barlow'  Ninebark 'Diabolo'
View on Amazon  False Shamrock (Oxalis triangularis 'Black') Unique & Mysterious
View on Amazon  Black Bat Flower (Tacca chantrieri)  Black Velvet Petunia
View on Amazon  Pepper 'Black Pearl'
View on Amazon  Sunflower 'Moulin Rouge'  ZZ Plant 'Raven' Remember, when you grow plants and flowers, they require the right amounts of sunlight, water, and food. It’s easy when you know how so make sure to read up on the right methods for the species you decide to try. Want to go the extra mile and become one with mother nature? Try these affordable and professional botany courses with experienced tutors. 
Every time I visit The Internet Archive, I’m overwhelmed by the sheer number of options. I could spend hours searching the database for something worth my time, something that fits the mood of the moment. One day I might want classic Windows and Dos games, and another I might want to watch some weird Soviet cartoon I don’t understand. Something we can all appreciate is classic cinema. The way they used to make films was a lot more akin to a theatre production with studios and stages with hand-made special effects. The older the film, the more rudimentary the technology and technique. When we trace back storylines and character development, we can see themes and similarities that still prevail today. When we want to examine the depth of the human imagination and film industry inventiveness, turning to fantasy and sci-fi is probably going to yield a good harvest. The boat is pushed with each fantastical idea, the methods of getting the shot, the costumes and the effects, we can enjoy the production for what it is for its own place in time. So, we love to complain about the modern film with its CGI and AI generated what nots. So why not submerge your cultural imagination in something from a time when computers were counting machines. To save you time and effort, I’ve created this list of some top watch-worthy films from the Science Fiction and Fantasy genre that are completely free and downloadable on The Internet Archive. You can watch the online from the website or select the video file for download and take it with you. There are plenty of others on the site for you to browse if you have time. These selected ones are the titles that have stood out as unusual and entertaining. Fantastic Planet by Rene Laloux 1973 The Revenge of a Kinematograph Cameraman (silent) by Wladyslaw Starewicz 1912 Lady Frankenstein by Umberto Borsato 1970 Satan’s Cheerleaders by Greydon Clark 1977 Inner Sanctum by Lew Landers 1948 House On Haunted Hill by William Castle 1959 Day The Earth Stood Still starring Micheal Rennie (colourised) 1951 Spellbound by Alfred Hitchcock 1945 Gulliver’s Travels (animation) by Fleischer Studios 1939 Kagemusha by Akira Kurosawa 1980 Earth Vs The Flying Saucers by Sam Katzman (colourised) 1956 Cosmos War Of The Planets by Louis Alex 1977 The Lost World by Jamie White 1925 Creature From The Black Lagoon starring Richard Carlson (colourised) 1954 Tarantula starring John Agar (colourised) 1955 Horror Express with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing 1973 Bloody Pit Of Horror by Francesco Merli and Ralph Zucker 1965 Killers From Space by W. D. Wilder 1954 Daughters Of Darkness by Harry Kumel 1971 Grave Of The Vampire by John Hayes 1974 Nosferatu 1922 Waxworks by Conrad Veidt 1929 Invasion Of The Body Snatchers by Walter Wanger (colourised) 1956 The Deadly Mantis starring Craig Stevens (colourised) 1957 It Came From Outer Space Starring Richard Carlson and Barbara Rush (colourised) 1953 Kronos by Jeff Morrow (colourised) 1957 Destroy All Planets by Masaichi Nagata 1968 The Golem starring Paul Wegener 1920 The Crawling Eye starring Forrest Tucker (colourised) 1958 Silent Night, Bloody Night by Theodore Gershuny 1972 Alice In Wonderland by W.W. Young (silent) 1915 The Monster That Challenged The World starring Tim Holt (colourised) 1957 First Spaceship On Venus by Hans Mahlich 1960 Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter by Brian Clemens 1974 In The Year 2889 by Larry Buchanan 1967 When Worlds Collide by Rudolph Mate and George Pal 1951 The Yesterday Machine 1963 Haxan (silent) 1922 Attack From Space Koreyoshi Akasaka 1969 Nightmare Castle by Carlo Caiano 1965 Beat The Devil starring Humphrey Bogart 1953 Revenge Of The Creature From The Black Lagoon by Jack Arnold 1955 Driller Killer uncut by Abel Ferrara 1979 The Terror by Roger Corman 1963 City Of The Dead / Horror Hotel by Ben Arbeid 1960 Curse Of The Demon starring Dana Andrews (colourised) 1957 White Zombie by Edward Halperin 1932 Utopia by Raymond Egar 1951 I Eat Your Skin by Del Tenney 1971 Attack Of The Monsters by Masaichi Nagata 1968 The Monolith Monsters 1957 Evil Brain From Outer Space starring Ken Utsui 1964 The Creature Walks Among Us by John Sherwood 1956 So, there are plenty of titles here for you to enjoy, and it’s just a select pick from the massive list on the archive. I’ve done my best to ignore things that are well-known or not on theme. Here are some fun and creepy, sometimes fascinating, films to download, play, put on over parties with the volume down, or whatever you want. Have fun. PS. The Internet Archive is a crowd funded resource much like Alterative Fruit. Once you’ve tipped this journal, make sure to give them a little something too. If making films and the art of film making is a subject you’re interested in, there’s nothing quite like learning from professional tutors, with experience, reviews, and the human touch. Browse today. Immerse Yourself In The World Of Academic Literature With These Free Professional Playlists29/5/2025 
If you’ve ever taken a literature course at school, then you’ll likely have been struck by how much in-depth application of thought goes into the simple act of reading. In the early days, reading in class was just about getting used to the words and enjoying the story. We might have gone into some depth when it comes to structure or storytelling, but the main exercise was to enjoy the writing. Moving on to academic literature was like opening a door we didn’t even know was there until someone pointed it out. There is a universe of depth beneath the best stories and if we know how to open the door to it, it gladly lets us walk around.
Of course, the main element of why we read stories is for the enjoyment of it. If we didn’t take pleasure in the art of writing, then we’d not bother to read it beyond the necessary. Many people prefer the pages of a book to the flickering screen or the scratchy radio. Most of us are content with a variety of the three. Why bother to go any further than this? Why do people apply theory and rationale to stories that go way beyond the contents of the page? Reading stories that are true to life in certain aspects can help us to understand these truths in a way that transcends the usual observer. Being involved with the story puts us in the shoes of the culture and its behaviours giving us a true awareness of the experience we wouldn’t be able to access otherwise. We can get to grips with social situations that might be alien to us and we can learn what it’s like to be one of the group before we’ve even met them. The complex and inventive storytelling architecture can become influential across genres and scopes. A style, a method, and a progression can all be translated into other scenarios with completely new backgrounds. Often, it’s the appreciation of clever ideas that provide us the motivation to have our own or to mirror what we like into our own working projects. It’s not just our projects that benefit; a good story can become a real-life motivator for home and work. By learning about people and their virtues, we can be truly influenced by someone completely fictional. Have you ever felt for the people in the story? Empathy is something we all have to practice. Our imaginations can only perceive the emotion in someone else if we can appreciate where it comes from, the thinking that accompany it, and the kind of mental picture it creates. If we’ve not been in a person’s shoes before then we are severely limited in how to appreciate someone’s humanity. Everything becomes dry and intellectualised which, in the real world, often results in lost rapport. When we learn from literature, the facts might be made up but the people in the story are represented in a true-to-life way. That’s why we enjoy the stories and it’s why we want to find out what happens next. We relate to the people that we feel the most affiliation to. This is why the best stories have vivid and colourful characters who artfully represent the reality of our lives. The way we learn language as children is by listening and repeating. We build the pictures in the mind as we learn how phrases are used. The words themselves come later, with expressions of sound being our first attempt. Babble is a baby's first attempt at replicating human speech. By the time we’ve learned to read, we know a lot of words and their phrases. But we don’t stop there. The process continues. Reading gives us instant access to ways of speaking that we might not be exposed to in our local environment. The writing from around the world and from across the centuries can enrich our vocabulary beyond what any illiterate life could provide. The more we can say, the more we can achieve. Perhaps the most valuable part of studying literature at an academic level is the ability to think critically. When we critically assess a story, we don’t just judge the people are villains and heroes, we look at them as human beings or complete creatures with rich and valid emotional lives. The systems the story purveys and the relationships between characters invite us to think about the validity of what’s going on the reasons why things are this way, and what, if anything could be done to affect the world. A make-believe scenario gives us a playground to be politicians and lawyers, historians and warriors, so we can learn about how to apply genuine power in the genuine world. Dive into academic literature for free with these YouTube playlists. Various Sources – English literature over 200 videos Paul H. Fry – Introduction to the Theory of Literature Amy Hungerford – The Amercian Novel Since 1945 Various Sources – English Literature lectures 50 Videos Langdon Hammer – Modern Poetry Bob Ahlersmeyer – British Literature Dale B. Martin – New Testament Literature John Rogers – Milton Harvard – Shakespeare After All Refaat Alareer – English Poetry Merin Simi Raj – History Of English Language and Literature Klasify Academy – Literature in English This covers a lot from a wide variety of people and backgrounds. Naturally, the content on YouTube is changing all the time and more great literature courses might appear or become findable on search over time. Once you’ve sifted these, do keep your eyes open for anything else the algorithm suggests. Comment with your discoveries. If you're one of those people who like to keep professional courses forever and go the extra mile with your learning, you can find affordable and professionally tutored literature courses here. 
It seems that everyone is talking about how Generative AI is putting jobs at risk. The ability of computers has always changed work and skill requirements, and yet there is always someone operating them. There is always someone designing new ones and maintaining them. This time, with Gen AI, the human hand is being replaced at another level. Is it like the printing press, where one person’s words were enough for everyone? This reduced the need for scribes yet created need for printing operators, paper makers, and ink producers.
People are frightened, things are being done for us on levels we are not used to. Generative AI can create art, it can write scripts, stories, and make films. It can even write website code. I’ve tried it, it works. So why bother learning how to code anymore if the computer can do it for us? It’s not quite as simple as that. It helps if we think of Generative AI like a Star Trek replicator. The engineer might need a replacement gasket and so asks the computer to create one. The engineer has to first know what to look for, what to ask for, and how to implement the fix. Your website is much like a starship, only it shuffles users through information rather than outer space. If you asked the replicator to make an entire starship, you’d be totally useless as an engineer. When you build a website, you’ll likely know that it has an engineering element and a creative element. In order to create the whole product, you need an holistic understanding of the language the internet reads so you can produce the webspace necessary for all the required functions. This is a work of art much like building a house or a car from scratch. The sheer pleasure of creation from nothing is something people are not going to give up easily. You might ask the Gen AI to come up with a piece of fixing or a certain switch mechanism, to fulfil a purpose. How do you know what to ask for and how would you insert the generated code into your project? Do you know what you’re doing or not? Give a novice painter a series of paints, brushes, paper, and instructions, but no practice, will you get a valuable painting? Probably not. Ask the Generative AI to produce the website, according to all specifications, will it work properly? How will you know? And what if someone asks you to update it or change one of its processes? Where will you start? You’ll need to know exactly what you’re doing. What kind of coding courses are people interested in, bearing in mind they know all about Chat GPT and Microsoft Copilot? These are all highly lucrative skill sets that prove you to be a cut above the rest in the age of laziness and AI. When it’s easier to fake it, and blag basic knowledge, those of us who go the extra mile will go the extra mile indefinitely. Let’s have a look. Please note that Alternative Fruit gets funding for every signup. These are permanent course, so when you do sign up, you get full access forever. The Web Developer Bootcamp 2025 What you'll learn The ins and outs of HTML5, CSS3, and Modern JavaScript Make REAL web applications using cutting-edge technologies Create responsive, accessible, and beautiful layouts Recognize and prevent common security exploits like SQL-Injection & XSS Continue to learn and grow as a developer, long after the course ends Create a blog application from scratch using Node, Express, and MongoDB. Create a complicated yelp-like application from scratch Deploy your applications and work with cloud databases Create static HTML and CSS portfolio sites and landing pages Think like a developer. Become an expert at Googling code questions! Create complex HTML forms with validations Implement full authentication from scratch! Use CSS Frameworks including Bootstrap 5, Semantic UI, and Bulma Implement responsive navbars on websites Use JavaScript variables, conditionals, loops, functions, arrays, and objects Write Javascript functions, and understand scope and higher order functions Master the "weird" parts of JavaScript Create full-stack web applications from scratch Manipulate the DOM with vanilla JS Write JavaScript based browser games Use Postman to monitor and test APIs Use NodeJS to write server-side JavaScript Write complex web apps with multiple models and data associations Write a REAL application using everything in the course Use Express and MongoDB to create full-stack JS applications Use common JS data structures like Arrays and Objects Master the command line interface Use NPM to install all sorts of useful packages Understand the ins and outs of HTTP requests Create your own Node modules Make a beautiful, responsive photographer's portfolio page Create a beautiful, responsive landing page for a startup Implement user authentication Create a beautiful animated todo list application Create single page applications with AJAX 100 Days Of Code: The complete Python Bootcamp What you'll learn You will master the Python programming language by building 100 unique projects over 100 days. You will learn automation, game, app and web development, data science and machine learning all using Python. You will be able to program in Python professionally You will learn Selenium, Beautiful Soup, Request, Flask, Pandas, NumPy, Scikit Learn, Plotly, and Matplotlib. Create a portfolio of 100 Python projects to apply for developer jobs Be able to build fully fledged websites and web apps with Python Be able to use Python for data science and machine learning Build games like Blackjack, Pong and Snake using Python Build GUIs and Desktop applications with Python Java Script - The Complete Full-Stack Web Development Bootcamp What you'll learn Build 16 web development projects for your portfolio, ready to apply for junior developer jobs. Learn the latest technologies, including Javascript, React, Node and even Web3 development. After the course you will be able to build ANY website you want. Build fully-fledged websites and web apps for your startup or business. Work as a freelance web developer. Master frontend development with React Master backend development with Node Learn professional developer best practices. Ultimate AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner CLF-C02 2025 FULLY UPDATED FOR CLF-C02: Pass the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner Certification Full Practice Exam with Explanations included! Learn the AWS Fundamentals (EC2, ELB, ASG, RDS, ElastiCache, S3) All 300+ slides available as downloadable PDF LLM Engineering: Master AI, Large Language Models & Agents What you'll learn Project 1: Make AI-powered brochure generator that scrapes and navigates company websites intelligently. Project 2: Build Multi-modal customer support agent for an airline with UI and function-calling. Project 3: Develop Tool that creates meeting minutes and action items from audio using both open- and closed-source models. Project 4: Make AI that converts Python code to optimized C++, boosting performance by 60,000x! Project 5: Build AI knowledge-worker using RAG to become an expert on all company-related matters. Project 6: Capstone Part A – Predict product prices from short descriptions using Frontier models. Project 7: Capstone Part B – Execute Fine-tuned open-source model to compete with Frontier in price prediction. Project 8: Capstone Part C – Build Autonomous multi agent system collaborating with models to spot deals and notify you of special bargains. Compare and contrast the latest techniques for improving the performance of your LLM solution, such as RAG, fine-tuning and agentic workflows Weigh up the leading 10 frontier and 10 open-source LLMs, and be able to select the best choice for a given task. Summary - Having AI on hand to help with your coding is a good thing, using it to build your entire site is not so good. A professional is always able to show their working, improvise, and implement novel and ad-hoc techniques according to specific circumstances. Your AI script will look a lot like the other person's version and if you ask for the change, it'll do it the same way each time. Don't give away your power and your pleasure, add value to your own. 
When studying creativity as a scientific subject, the idea is to create data that shows patterns and predictabilities we can draw on for ourselves. This is not an easy thing to do because the creative process is often subjective and emotional. Truly creative people who naturally gravitate towards creative pursuits without outside motivation often do so because it is emotionally rewarding. They enjoy the process and the outcome as well as have an affiliation for new and interesting ideas. This is where our first scientific stumbling-block manifests because emotions create subjective experience rather than objective facts. A qualitative approach is the only appropriate way to assess emotions and any attempt to quantify the answers for scientific purposes risks losing vital nuances within the data, forcing certain attitudes and conclusions without considering the differences within.
Our emotions are thought to be an archaic information system, designed by evolution to present conscious experiences we can act upon from non-verbal information. Our verbal minds give us another layer of thought that overlays the emotional information and these work together. Animals without language are much more reliant on their emotions to put their mind’s ideas into conscious thought. Because of this background to the purpose of emotion, it can be effectively stated that emotions act as mind-body responses to stimuli in the mind and in the world that promotes action. Emotions therefore provide the motivation to carry out activity and creative pursuits can be included in this. It is the interaction between our linguistic or flow-chart-based mind and our chaotic and non-localised subconscious mind that results in intelligent creativity. The kind of things we are drawn to create can be determined by our mood. To be creative requires a mood, or a prolonged emotional state, and the emotional trigger for the mood is often associated with the enjoyment and excitement of bringing the imagination to life. Moods and emotions are subjective because the information about them we can express is determined by many surrounding factors and influences that span across several social dimensions. The kind of action response our moods and emotions motivate are dependent on many factors also, with various individuals and cultures experiencing things and events with different mentalities and learning. This makes the initial process of creating something new difficult to manage in a scientific way. Understanding the psychological processes that bring about creativity can also help to prepare environments and settings for the optimum creative output. Emotions don’t just govern how and what we create, and when, they are integral to the uptake of the new idea or product by the world at large. Creativity in scientific terms is important because innovation and adaptation are necessary for social and economic growth. This means that when we create something for the world to use that improves lives and makes things more enjoyable, easier, or more valuable, the idea may not be accepted for uncertain and unpredictable emotional reasons. Because emotions are subjective and related to previous experiences and personality differences, we can’t control the emotional response, or the amount of desire people express towards what we have made. What we can do is use data and insights that help us to choose presentation and methods that encourage desire and acceptance. Used in combination with value and interest, this can ensure the creative output is given the best chance to make a positive difference. However, when using data to drive our choices we can lose out on individual selling points and unique attributes that are not represented on the large number models. Creativity is notoriously difficult to predict. We cannot tell from a person’s main attributes whether they are creatively inclined or are naturally inventive and experimenting. There are patterns in society that can help us understand creative social settings however the individuals involved are as varied as the contents of any municipal building. It’s also difficult to predict the outcome of creative exploration, this is because the process involves the abstract and loosely connected subconscious mind. Not only is this unavailable to the conscious mind, it also can’t be explored with tools. One method of shortening the odds of what people create is to offer a subconscious priming. Primed creativity occurs when subconscious influences are offered that lead a creative person down one path or another. This can be accidental or purposeful, self-initiated, or initiated by an outside entity. Scientific processes rely on predictability and an understanding of the complete process. This means that the priming of creative thinking must be considered when determining the environment. The objective study of a subjective phenomenon must be able to handle the divergent thinking which results from data gathering. In most scientific arenas we are expected to think convergently, with all members agreeing on one answer for any given problem. Innovation requires new ideas and novel concepts which means convergent thinking can’t produce the result we need. When thoughts do converge, it is in the attribution of purpose. Perhaps we need a bridge or a best-selling novel. We can agree on the principle we are aiming at, the way we get there is not so clear-cut. Divergent thinking is tricky ground for scientific assessment because the quantification of the data loses coherency with the human influence. We can’t plan and replicate the divergent thinking that spans from one moment in time to another. We can only plan for it and replicate the environment in which it happens. Data driven creativity is nothing new. Before we can create something, we must understand the materials we have in a way that related to the purpose we can envisage. An appreciation for the way the world works is also vital as moving parts and predictable responses are all part of the creation of new processes and tools. Even with artistic creativity, the artist knows how their tools work and what they want to result in upon use. Artists also understand what their audience is looking for and can create for this ideal. Because creativity involves creating something new from things we already have, it often requires some form of interdisciplinary knowledge. The science of the situation is of natural importance because it is how we predict and appreciate the physical real-world effects of our work. The other subjects we need to appreciate are dependent on the field in which we are creating for and the fields in which our motivations and materials come from. When data is abundant, it can be limiting in the way it defines what should be divergent thinking. By creating convergent ideas in places where creativity allows change, data can become limiting and persuasively design friendly. Sometimes we must ignore the data when it means opening the scope of what’s possible or experimental within the process of producing the desired and convergent ideas. Creativity by nature applies unusual or uncommon ideas to known phenomena to allow a new purpose, an easier process, or a stronger ability within the original design. This means that the tried and tested results can’t provide the expression we need. The creative element is not something we can always go to previous experience for. There is a part of the creative process with intuition and spontaneity taking the lead. Apart from primed creativity, mentioned earlier, the results of these lightbulb moments are seemingly random and related to the infinite resource of experience and memory that people carry. If something is in the mind or has recently made a strong impression, this is likely to manifest somehow in the expression. The subconscious mind is the source of our instant ideas, preformed and only a verbalisation away from being explained to oneself. This part of the mind does not work in the same way as our scientifically trained and linear thought processes the conscious mind is known for. We can’t ask the subconscious to provide the working, and if we did, it’d not make a lot of sense to us. It’s like a dream that’s playing out all the time behind the waking mind. In large scale information gathering, we can create databases of intuitive and instant ideas that appear. We can take the results of this hidden process and look for patterns. It has been shown that people who have unusual ideas more often are also more likely to experience poor mental health. Serious mental health problems are thankfully rare however minor issues like an uncontrollable depressive mood, or a sense of underlying nervousness can be managed with help. When the individual is prone to uncommon thoughts then there is a stronger chance of them having challenging or unwanted thoughts. These can create difficult internal environments that can become instigators or inhibitors of creativity. Another link that can be shown is that people who have unusual or uncommon ideas are usually more intelligent. We know that expensive sports cars go wrong in the engine more often than standard family ones. Perhaps it’s the same for the brain. When solving a real-world problem, a scientific approach to creativity can be highly useful. Data-driven responses to data-driven problems often make the most sense. However, sometimes people have clever ideas that ignore the data and find new ways of doing something that solves the problem in a novel way. This artful creativity is done by using non-scientific thinking to result in a scientific response. Hunches, intuition, and experimental changes can always be applied, however sometimes someone can look through all of that and see a brand-new answer as if it was there already. This is the kind of creativity that is motivated by emotion and care, principles that are notably difficult to scientifically explore. You can find out more about this fascinating subject with this book: Explaining Creativity: The Science of Human Innovation 
What life means can be different for all of us, with various cultures, religions, stories, and personal backgrounds determining how we view the world, the universe, and our place in it. There are a few universal core elements of being human that connect us all. Our experience of the world may be shaped by our upbringing and our own innate perspectives, however on a deeper level we all have the same basic make-up. All of us are on the planet, we exist among one another, and we experience each other’s outward expressions of life. We’re in the web of humanity and now the internet has made the web global, we’re more connected than ever before.
We are all in this together, no matter if you have a plank of wood or a beautiful yacht. We exist alongside each other and maintain our shared society. This is something each of us have in common and can attribute to a degree of purpose in our own lives. Getting on and getting by, it’s something we can all agree on. We all have our own stories, backgrounds, and deeper causes for the things we do based on psychological, learned, cultural, and creative reasons. It is the creative things we do that drive change, in little adaptations over time new concepts and ideas can be built. Because we’re connected in so many ways, it’s nearly impossible to create or be creative in complete isolation. Someone somewhere will see your idea and learn from it. They might put it into practice for themselves, especially if they share a trade or interest with you and can make instant use of it. Other times, they might simply file the knowledge away somewhere and then apply it in their own way sometime later when the concept is seen to be useful. This adaptation of concept from one arena to another is an important part of being creative. It’s not always about inventing something completely new, we can invent a new use for something we already have. When we see creativity realised in matters that interest us, we are often inspired to begin thinking creatively for ourselves. To act of witnessing something being shown to be done can help us to find the motivation to begin thinking about what we can apply for ourselves. It’s in our nature as social and learning beings to imitate and abstractly reflect what we see around us. It can even happen by accident, how many times have you misunderstood, mis-seen, or been misinformed and ended up doing something useful? Not often, but it can happen. The things we produce from the inner depths of our imagination can speak to and inform others about their own imaginations. It can become a cue for a process that results in something creative for themselves. This subliminal communication between creatives occurs naturally, as new concepts, emotional and psychological relevancies, and methods filter into the conscious awareness of those who are within their sphere of influence. Something that many of us aspire to be is personally involved in some sort of mission or adventure that solves our problems and those of others. Sometimes we do it artistically by watching dramas or being part of a band, other times we do it in our work. People with professional careers are often highly motivated to continue because of a sense of passion within their field. Other people have a much more unorthodox lifestyle to satisfy this deep need for what some might call the hero’s journey. A creative lifestyle is often the way these can manifest. People who want the excitement of bringing their ideas into reality either for themselves or for the betterment of society are often drawn to it for reasons that touch on this desire. There is a spectrum of utility and desire that most creative people can fall on with their project motivation. Most of the time, creative people fall in between the two opposites. The art of creating usefulness is important for practical reasons, the art of creating for desire is for aesthetic or emotional reasons. If emotions are to be considered a valid part of human existence, then this too can be deemed as useful. If, on the other hand, a creator designs purely for their own enjoyment without a care if others like it or can find pleasure in it, then it truly is on the desire end of the spectrum. Then people who create for utility would likely put a lot of thought into the way their creations look and feel, once the problem of engineering has been satisfied. If they simply create something for purpose without a care for how it looks or feels, then it really is on the polar end of the scale. Both needs and desires are intrinsically linked to happiness. Happiness is defined by whether we have our needs met and some of our desires in moderation. What do we desire apart from sweets and savoury treats? Most of us want to find meaning in life, akin to the hero’s journey, in which our emotional and cultural cues are satisfied with our choices and actions. It’s partly psychological, as in from the brain itself, and partly cultural, from our stories and education. What we decide to do and who we aspire to be or be like can dramatically affect our happiness and that of those around us. We all have slightly different brains, some are empathic, some are intelligent, some are mathematical, some are linguistic, some just think in jokes and colours. Without standing over one another in judgement, the people suited to finding purpose in creativity are those who enjoy learning, enjoy being challenged, and don’t mind being the outsider. It takes courage to implement new ideas and to handle the reactions of those who don’t understand them. Creativity is perfectly suited to people who love to do an activity. When we are passionate about something it can inspire us to think about it in ways that go beyond the normal thoughts people have. In these trails of ideas and concepts, we are often able to build networks across branches of thought to bring about new perspectives and understandings. Intelligent meditation on our preferred subject is how we get to grips with the larger concepts and techniques that bring about the excellence we desire. This love of our activity is what drives our thinking and the depths of our dives into understanding. What is the opposite of love? We could say it is fear, and this has been shown to stifle creativity. People who experience anxiety are not as creative; the thoughts that fuel the fear are like Black Knights not letting anyone pass. You need to channel your inner King Arthur. Pressure, stress, judgement, social apathy, rejection, call all put an end to your creativity by zapping you of your passion. Having a strong mind and a thick skin is what being a King (or Queen) is all about. If you genuinely care about the betterment of the world and the emotional well-being of everyone you inspire, your armour ought to be stronger than diamonds. If you have the willpower to learn and adapt your thinking according to the reality and not your dream, your sword can defeat any shade. The reality fuels the dream, not the other way around. You’re creating for the real world now. In the changing environment with shifts in technology, fashion, people, laws, and more, we are always being called upon to adapt our routines and techniques so that we can make the best use of what there is. We gradually change from one software to another, one set of rules to another, one style to another, and so on. It all requires a subtle creativity with every instance. Perhaps we can follow suit and simply carry on the way someone we trust is doing, however more of us are the kind of person who wants to be an individual and do things slightly differently. We might choose an alternative shop, a different colour, a novel path, we might go retro and choose to not upgrade at all and make do with the drawbacks. With every social change that happens locally and more widely, the differences between us expand as we all go about the navigation in our own way. All this information and decision making goes into what happens next as part of the global subconscious creative conversation. If we want to tap into this movement and become a moving part in the mechanics of creative culture, we must be prepared to listen to and connect with others as well as actively partake in the joint responsibilities of those around us. Connection and belonging are essential for social fulfilment and a strong aspect of our overall happiness. The culture of creativity is much akin to any other culture. When children grow up, the environment and the education instil key foundation ideas in their personalities that can help or hinder novel and unorthodox thinking. A culture of creativity is taught by inspiring learning independently and the application of new skills on one’s own initiative. It requires a skill for listening and understanding so we can draw on relevant feedback and sort the right from the misinformed. Feedback based creativity is where reality meets our dream and the two must clash. If the dream wants to be dominant, then the idea may never be socially acceptable. We should be able to set our dream to one side and let the reality of the situation move in, and then we can fill in the gaps with our worthy ideas. The ones that remain. It’s possibly the most difficult part, we generally all love our own illusions. They’ve been with us for years. Creativity is about bringing the imagination into reality, and our illusions make up a huge part of this. However, the imagination is not always compatible with the real world. We have several laws and rules that prevent certain things, and the universe has a whole lot more. Not only do we obey the laws of the land, and the world at large, but we also obey the laws of physics. Finding the gaps is where the creativity happens. What is possible in between the Newton and the Affidavit? It’s completely up to you. IF you listen to what people have to say, sort through the useful and non-useful feedback, decide for yourself how to move forward, and keep going, perhaps that would be just enough meaning for you. Most often, our best creative ideas come while we are relaxed and enjoying ourselves. A semi-hypnotic or sleepy state is when our dreams and subconscious mind can come to the surface. Known for being inspirational to creative thinking and novel idea forming. If you enjoy drinking good wines, here's a quality supplier that cuts out the supermarket. Alternative Fruit gets a reward when you order some. 
Recent visitors to the high-class Chelsea, New York, venue Kurimanzutto have been treated to a collaborative effort between Patti Smith and the Soundwalk Collective. Over the past ten years, Soundwalk Collective founder Stephan Crasneanscki has been working with the American folk singer to isolate some of the world’s most intriguing modern dystopias and tragedies. Visiting poignant locations that carry stories rich in emotion and human meaning, Stephan and Patti have recorded the scenes and then layered in incredible verse as an artistic response.
At the arts venue, eight short feature films were exhibited alongside sculpture, drawings, and collage to demonstrate some of the planet’s most heart-moving scenarios and stories. Themes of death, chance, and rebirth permeate starkly different aspects of human situation that demonstrate nature holds all the cards and we only have the illusion of holding our own. If we ask politely then nature plays the cards we want and if we’re rude and demanding nature can play a few new ones to teach us a lesson. Will we ever learn? The recent exhibition was called Correspondences and explored the polarity between the romantic culture imagination and the reality at our feet during the pivotal 20th Century. A documentary of failure and a human spirit that endures, real life recordings of ambient surroundings merge with captures of voice, response, and exclamation. Among the several videos presented, Children Of Chernobyl was one of the most talked about. The political situation in Ukraine is in the headlines a lot recently and it’s all one way. There is an entire community of people in that country who have difficult lives and their stories go beyond the battlefield. In the devastated and abandoned areas of Chernobyl, where the nuclear accident made the land radioactive, it’s not only wildlife and rare plants that have made a re-appearance. People, too, have unofficially moved in and begun to live as squatters on the unwanted plot. What draws them there and how do they live in the utter emptiness of the wasteland? This story is explored with a 15-minute video accompanied by Patti Smith who recites poetry as a response to her emotions. You can listen to the soundtrack on YouTube. 
The world is a lot different today than it was in the past. Perhaps it was the invention of the microchip or perhaps it was the advent of mass media communication, people in general are expected to behave and think in ways that are repeatable and predictable. Our systems are created to a regime that suits the goal of its leadership and the people within it are expected to behave in the way provided. Deviation from the routine is often seen as detrimental to the process and with today’s methods and perspectives, it’s often true. Because of this homogenisation of the social construct across the planet, the subtle differences between us are not only more apparent, they are also more problematic. In a system designed for narrow and controlled and therefore most productive action, of course the people who don’t thrive in this kind of order don’t thrive at all.
We are all different and the ways we do things are increasingly more the same. Compatibility across society is better than ever because everything is connected and leads on to its counterparts in the big picture. This has created a specific and guided routine that citizens must follow to get the most out of their lives. In this scenario it becomes ever more obvious than some of us are not best designed or set up to be of benefit to this kind of system. The system is not designed or set up to be of benefit to them, either. This is a problem that has become significant in several social, financial, and political levels of decision- making. Our system was designed for an industrial world, our systems of attainment are based on the same steps taken by the Victorian middle classes when it was the factory and the mill that made you wealthy and prosperous. This is the 21st Century; the factory and the mill are nearly completely automated. The homogenisation of industry was possibly the first aspect of society to be made uniform since the religious upheavals of the middle-ages. Suddenly everyone involved was expected to repeat themselves all day with very little room for intuition and initiative. It was just a matter of making the machine work. Now even this is automated and it’s usually a matter of computer input somewhere in another room. Is it any wonder that our innate character differences are amplified and problematic when we’re all expected to think in the same way? This global automation of craft and manufacture has somewhat shut out the sunlight on the diverse and divergent aspects of the population. In a way, the problems we face today are a real-life example of why human beings are not always a font of wisdom. Our seemingly good ideas are not always as good as they may appear. It takes a diverse and divergent set of minds to truly test out whether something that feels and looks good on the front is the same all the way to the back. We’ve done our best, and although there is the occasional evil genius who doesn’t care, most of humanity has valiantly strived to make a better, fairer, and easier world. The capitalisation of the ideas that make the most in regards to investment return has been the main cause of the narrowing problem. People who don’t naturally grow in the narrow path are not the problem; the path is too narrow. One the main quests for innovative culture in today’s modern world is to expand the path to allow more of us to make the most of who we really are. It will result in much less depression as we can be truer to ourselves and much less stress as we’re not forced to behave in strange and sometimes unnatural ways. Having the ability to identify the harm or the pain-point in any situation is a valuable skill. Executing the process of litigating the response is another. It’s not easy to fix problems with the tools that created it and it’s often that we have to think of novel and inventive ways to manage the real-life problem situation that’s so-far caused by necessary action. In the scope of necessary action, is it the outcome we are looking for. The process of getting there is less important. Being aware of this provides fuel to the methodology of creativity and provides reasons to look beyond the conventional in order to bridge the gap. Innovation is always a team effort, we can have a good eye for problems and an inventive character, but getting something into the world as a valuable instrument of change and empowerment takes more than one person. It takes a community. Our post-industrial setting has shown us that our humanity is valuable for our differences and imagination. The heavy lifting, the repetitive actions, the intricate handiwork, it’s all taken care of. We don’t have value for our ability to do those things like we used to. It’s our thinking power and our decision making that gives us the edge. The modern world makes use of information networks and knowledge silos in order to make the most effective decisions. We, as people, can be sources of information and carriers of information to varying degrees and in doing so, add value to the systems. Identifying the value and placing it in the correct market is also a valuable skill. We can hold, communicate, arrange, and create information in ways that are unique and valuable to open-minded and interested systems. Using the available information with the resources given can be a difficult task. It’s clear that the value must be extracted and purified in a way that benefits the whole system so that the pain-points are always avoided. It’s not a simple matter of adding a few ingredients, everything has to be done according to the way preferred by all parties. Creating new stories and presentations for the information can help others to find new ways of using it and to identify new problems and anomalies that can be addressed, studied, and solved as necessary. The more diverse thinking and new perspectives offered to work with the available information, the more scope and thinking power the rest of us have to progress the whole picture in our own way. Invention and innovation spur from the process of critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity. It’s a repeating cycle that is maintained by the constant shifts in the wider world and the changing habits and needs of the people involved, both in the production, service, and use of the procedure or product. Collaboration can be self-guided in which we research what others have had to say and what others have already tried, or it can be group guided in which we draw in real people to work in real time with the feedback and idea forming process. A collection of both styles of collaboration is likely to be the most effective, provided you can rely on the genuine basis of what you’re told. Where people differ in views and versions of what is best for themselves and others, the creative aspect of problem-solving can be applied. Making a path that leads in both directions without leaving the field is an important part of managing diversity and difference. Rather than magnifying situations by forcing adaptation and aesthetic, it’s clear we need to make room for all types and all emotional states before we can successfully benefit them and create cohesion for the future. Critical thinking, communication, cultural understanding, and creative thinking, are all necessary skills for the modern-day as many more jobs are automated each year. Playing a vital role in this network of machinery and technology is about becoming a kind of spider, connected to it all with one mind in the centre giving it purpose. Our webs and networks connect with those of others and that’s where we have to learn to put things together. How do spiders do it? They often build their webs on something stable, like a wall, and it gives the appearance of a blanket. That stable element is our human motivation and desire for positive change. A passionate person is a motivated person, they think about their subject, they study it, they create new ways of looking at the world through the eyes of their subject, and they can go on to invent new ways of putting it into action. In the past, we were often on the edge of hunger and exposure. In these extreme situations, our minds become more attuned to possibility and inventive ideas. Having the ability to nurture this same psychology in today’s comfortable world is a genuine challenge. Being in the position where you don’t need to think of a new thing because life’s pretty good, then you’re not always the one to do the work. If you are truly passionate about the problems of other people then it might tip the balance. If finding the answer to your own problems is just as important as finding the solution to the problems of others then the motivation might be a lot higher. For those of us who thrive in problem solving environments where our ability to discover and think up new ways to get things as they should be, it can be difficult to co-exist with a society which wants to give everything to us and have someone there to pick up the loose ends. Some of us are not mentally suited to being domesticated to this degree and need something else to stimulate their mind and to give them a sense of purpose and meaning. Rather than turning to drugs, which can provide the illusion of these things, becoming a creative person with a desire to make a living from it when you’re not in a position to sustain it indefinitely is possibly the most empowered place to work from. Calm and persistent growth in the directions governed by ethic and feedback can be extremely useful in giving a person a sense of being and purpose as well as creating social cohesion, solving problems, and building communities. Innovation that enables others to become better at their chosen activities and give them easier ways to complete the necessary ones is how we create great social cohesion and more value for the community. Enabling others to produce, contribute, think, experience and report on all kinds of available activities and thought process to enrich and qualitatively build on the available foundation. The more sense we can make from the world, the more we can understand other people and their perspectives, the better place we will be in to prevent social and political catastrophe. Communication and effective story-telling are therefore vital in the process of transmitting information from one set of people to another. The way that different cultures and sets of professionals view various parts of society can differ greatly and before using these as cues to think and feel a certain way, we need to know what they are associated with to them. We can imagine ourselves in their shoes and test to see if something is unfriendly or unkind and we can learn about their background and their group psychology to appreciate the red areas we should avoid or be tactful with. The ability to do this well and to an acceptable level of value is based on our ability to imagine, feel, and empathise. These are human powers and are based on the nervous system. This bodily organ, when working properly, is sensitive to all kinds of problem in the manner of a fear or stress response. What working properly means for the nervous system is when it’s not causing a problem unnecessarily. Obviously, having a nervous system that is not working properly is a traumatic, and sometimes humiliating experience. Critical thinking is not just about finding problems out there in the world that we think we can solve. It’s about looking within and critically assessing our own thoughts and even emotions. Now, we can't control our emotions but we can control how we respond to them. I’m sure most of you have felt angry before but how many of you went out and did something about it? Doing something about the cause of the anger is something else and involves examination of the emotion and process of being triggered to explore the root cause. This can then be calmly addressed, creatively if necessary. It’s often just a matter of identifying an immature or unhelpful thought buried within the grown-up and solid thinking we rely on and usually have. We can apply criticism to all manner of things, both inward and outward. Once we have identified the problem, we must be able to at least try to see a solution as well. If there is no solution, perhaps the problem is just a chore. Will you quit and stop experimenting? Are you too comfortable? Problem solving requires an in-depth and consistent effort to learn about the whole situation. This means we need to account for perspectives and concepts that might sound alien or counter-intuitive to ourselves. Having an open mind and an imaginative area we can play out this information within is imperative to holistic appreciation. Learning about the technical and social side of the situation gives us the best perspective to solve the problem and act upon it with progressive ideas. Collaboration is vital as these systems count for people who require stability and psychological safety. By taking charge of old wisdom and new ideas, we can combine the two and form a working solution to the modern issues and boundaries that prevent us from thriving in our own way. Further reading: Empire of Normality- Neurodiversity and Capitalism Study for Free with FutureLearn. How about -Inclusive Education: Essential Knowledge for Success, Queensland University of Technology
Mental health problems are not fun, not only do you miss out on things that would otherwise be available, you also create extra work for the people around you which can make you feel worse. Being fully able to recognise the unhelpful thoughts and feelings is one thing but navigating them during daily activity is another. Creativity is something that many people gravitate towards who have mental health problems. Is this related to type or is it a chosen source of relief? The answer is probably both. What’s going on and why is it often helpful?
Being creative and having the ability to build upon things to make new things, or change the way a thing is used, is a culture that is learned through activity. We each have varying degrees of creative reach on our own, the imagination works differently for each of us, but with the help of others we can build much bigger pictures from the combined ideas of the group. Allowing people and encouraging them to be a member of these creative groups in problems solving, games playing, and role-play mind experiments, helps people to exercise their creative muscles. A culture of innovation and creativity provokes creative thinking and intelligent appreciation. The creative and innovative mindset has to learn to utilise both progressive and conservative attitudes towards the world and their work. Disruption without value is useless and value without change is stagnation and uncompetitive. A free-thinking and open environment is essential for effective problem solving. Putting restraints on appropriate thought and reasonable methods will only hamper the creative ability of the whole. What is considered reasonable and appropriate can be discussed in terms of harm and emotional relevance. In mental health problems, the appropriate and reasonable limitations may be much wider than usual. One of the biggest fuelling agents of creativity is change. When new problems arise, we have to find new ways of solving them. Often, if things are stable and we have a well-greased operation already, the desire to change and create is less imperative. The world doesn’t really work like this and things around us are always changing. Even people change. When it becomes a problem for us, that’s when we choose to use creativity and innovation the most. If we have a creative job then the problem is always there as we’re responsible for creating new things all the time. Creative and competitive environments require a continual output of new ideas that fit the pattern that people want. It can also be said that one of the biggest causes of mental disorder is change, too. This means that when we’re forced to adapt or think about something in a new way, when something unwanted happens, we are more susceptible to experiencing problems with our mental health. The way the mind completes the grieving process is different for all of us, and the sadness part of it can be prolonged and detrimental. Depression has a tendency to appear even when there is no immediate source of grief. There may be more subliminal and subconscious reasons behind the melancholia that if unattended can mature into long-term depression. Our perceptions of the world and the rules we feel are important may be hiding the causes behind ethical or intellectual boundaries. When we find new and disruptive creative enterprises, we can navigate wider change in a positive and intentionally forward-facing way. Clearly, we might need to accept our human frailty when handling personal loss and changes that require some sort of emotional adjustment however new technology, new politics, new discoveries, they can all help to improve our creative and problem-solving toolkit. Mental health problems often find people thinking in unconventional ways, the depressive or manic mindset often results in peculiar thoughts and strangely magnified feelings. It’s this ability to think and feel in sensitive and far-reaching ways that can make creative projects more relevant, more disruptive, and more valuable. Instead of using the screwdriver to twist your feelings, use it to fix the circuit. It’s been a common-sense association since times before scientific investigation became the go-to place for value in reasoning. People who are mentally unwell tend to be more creative. Perhaps this is because from a sane and well person’s view, the mentally unwell person seems creative with their speech and actions. They might not be deliberately acting creatively. The career choice phenomenon can be studied in modern times with statistics. It can be shown that people who work in creative industries are more likely to express mental health problems of some kind. What kind of mental health problems are there and how to they relate to creativity? Psychologists have for a long time been able to determine two types of mental health disorder that can then be branched into many other varieties. There is the depressive branch and the bipolar or manic branch. Depressive disorders are susceptible to finding problems and flaws, they struggle to see the good side of things and are often drawn to the worst-case scenario. When applied to quality control and finding problems in the everyday things that can be improved upon, this kind of focus is really important. Using the negative eye to pick at the things you’re charged with improving or feel you can improve is a much better use of the energy. Bipolar disorders tend to swing from lethargy and depression to spontaneity and hyperactivity. Racing thoughts and eternal trains of emotion can swing to absolute withdrawal and broken self-esteem. It can be like a balancing act to stay somewhere in the middle and if you end up falling in one direction it’s almost certain the backward motion will be equally as challenging. Finding a purpose for the creative and abstract mental patterns that expresses itself artistically and beneficially is a skill that can be learned. Music, writing, painting, or any other form of projected expression is a useful tool for managing this mental process. It’s not to be stated that work done by the mentally ill is any good for the sake of the illness. A person must be willing to learn their craft and their mental process has to be trained in order to fully utilise the mental energy. Being able to do the things first and then applying the mental energy to the thing is how it can be successful for the benefit of more than simple relief. Getting the value out of the chaos can be therapeutic and empowering instead of traumatic and self-destructive. Even people who don’t have a skill or the ability to learn one can communicate their intuitive ideas in a constructive way when bringing up their thoughts. Putting the information into the world so it can be used in a proper way is a useful and valuable contribution. Remembering to keep things based in reality is a challenge, so learning to accept questions and facts that eddy the flow of mental energy as beneficial is essential. It requires a calm mind which is also an essential skill for managing mental health problems. An uncalm mind in any kind of mental illness can be highly traumatic and even dangerous to the self and others. It’s a sad fact that suicides are also more common in creative people. This is an example of out of the box thinking that if used productively could likely have solved a lot of problems. The issue was the focus on the negative that combines with the desire to resolve a problem. Self-worth is therefore an essential nourishment for all people who struggle with their mental health, not too much and not too little is how to get it right. We often shower ourselves in it or refuse to give any at all in a way of coping with how we feel about ourselves and our place in the world. If we feel we are owed something then we might be more susceptible to overdoing it, leading to being easily pulled down, and if we feel we are not achieving enough we may underdo it, meaning that one more step down is a step into hell. It’s important to keep it in the middle. The prominent form of mental illness in the creative industry is the mania branch. People with manic thoughts and emotions are more likely to express creative ideas because mania is associated with abstract thinking and loosely connected flows of concept. In some cases, manic thoughts can be three or four steps ahead of the reality with assumptions holding the ideas together like cards, and when one is taken away it can be distressing. This means that once again, staying calm and considered is a key skill in both utilising the creative output and maintaining a healthy state of being. A therapy for the condition and a way of using the condition work together to make effective thinking. Manic ideas are often funny and inventively comedic, and this has been shown again and again with various comedians who openly struggle with mental health problems. The emotional reward that the manic idea creates is the impulse that creates a feedback loop which can be dangerous if left unchecked. However, if used properly, it can be used to create engaging stories and exciting new concepts that can be highly valuable to the wider world. It has been shown that those of us who excel at language and music are the ones who are more likely to express mental health problems later in life. These subjects point towards a sense of inner awareness that might not be available for others. The ability to find and use words and the ability to appreciate and academicise the subject of music is a pointer to a depth of inner awareness that goes beyond the initial primary thoughts and feelings that we usually have. Rumination and deep thought are more likely to be associated with mental health, possibly because those who are able to express it are the ones who do and those without those skills find it more difficult to express or perhaps, they simply don’t find the problem at the same rate. The same symptoms of mental health problems, when used professionally and with mindfulness, can be useful. Problem finding, problem solving, fresh ideas, cheaper methods, and risk taking are all highly sought after skills in the creative industry and beyond. Even a shopkeeper needs those skills as they create communities and loyalty. Being a person with the type of personality that is likely to have mental health problems means that a creative output might be a great way of exercising those parts of you that need work. Finding appropriate and reasonable ways to put your thoughts and feelings into the world that can benefit other people is a great way of finding worth in the things that might otherwise be problematic. Learning creative skills is a brilliant way of training the mind to learn coping mechanisms and safe routes for expression. You might even benefit others with what you produce. The better you get the more this will be the case. The well person with the mental capability to think and feel abstractly with limitless range is a true asset to any organisation or cause. So, it is in the interests of all to stay well and learn to appreciate who you are by seeing the good side of what your mind finds natural and easy. If you struggle with mental health, you don’t need another person to tell you about it. Looking for mental health problems when there are none is a pointless activity, look for the skills you need to succeed creatively instead. Further reading: Robert Lowell, Setting the River on Fire: A Study of Genius, Mania, and Character Study for free with FutureLearn - How about Understanding Anxiety, Depression and CBT, University of Reading
Citra Sasmita Barbican Curve Gallery via CNN
We all seem to be scrolling these days, through electronic information layered in a fluid lists much like the old-fashioned scrolls people used before books. Around the world, in archives, vaults, libraries, and hidden compartments, ancient scrolls are kept meticulously for future reference or for secretive safety. When we think of scrolls, especially in Britian, we probably think of monks and politicians. History tells us these were nearly always men. It’s likely that in many other cultures, the male scribe has the share of celebrity among historians where-as the women are probably seen as caregivers and homemakers. It’s how things were a lot of the time. Feminism, then, is the cultural and political process of realigning the balance. It’s not about taking anything away from men, who many are and were rightfully remarked on, it’s about making space for women to flourish and be highlighted for their achievements too. Making sure that women have not only the opportunity to get involved but the tools and education to succeed has been a process that began at various times in different cultures. In some places women are seen as secondary to men even to this day.
Blending feminism with scroll making is something unusual yet hindsightedly vital for the art world. The cultural imagination is strongly weighted towards the masculine when thinking of scrolls, from the Bayeaux Tapestry with its knights and kings, the scribes of religion with their priests and literati, the scribes of kings with their scratchy feathers and candlelit tabletops, where are the women? Here is one. Citra Sasmita, a Balinese artist, reimagines her heritage with an anti-patriarchal reflection. The mirror universe to the traditional artistry of her culture, vibrant feminine figures present themselves as mythical and luminous beings who bring the myths and folklore to life. Citra Sasmita is able to recreate the same atmosphere and aesthetic from the historical pieces with her contemporary ideas. With today’s enlightened mindset, seeing female images in the style of Balinese mythology might be seen as normal however for the style, it’s actually controversial and unusual. Unapologetically putting women in their rightful place as equals in the story of humanity, even in the fantastical stories that put people in the guise of the gods, if a man can do it then so can the girls. Using the natural magic of rebirth, transformation, and new life, Sasmita’s artistry depicts iconic and metaphorical fascination pieces that brighten our dreams. Currently on display at London’s Barbican Centre, the venue’s 90m Curve Gallery is hosting a host of scrolls that revitalise the meaning of feminism in today’s world. Her first UK showing, the beautifully presented scrolls hang from the walls and ceiling in a three-part journey that explores the culture of Bali and the rejection of Dutch colonialism. Citra Sasmita: Into Eternal Land is open until 21st April. Via CNN 
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CategoriesAuthorAlternative Fruit by Rowan B. Colver 
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June 2025
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