Sarah’s Secret Files

After watching kids fill in test bubbles for a living these last three days, I’m ready for an injection of creativity. And I always have some good sources of inspiration on hand.

Here are some of my recently bookmarked finds:

#1 Destination ImagiNation

Destination ImagiNation is a non-profit group that tries to hit the “refresh” button and nurture kids’ natural creativity.

In one exercise, they give kids a random pile of stuff–plastic spoon, rubber band, tinfoil–and the kids have to construct something. Adults in the room aren’t.allowed to.say.a.word.

(What do you say, Dads and Moms? Could you handle the hush?)

#2. Singaporean film maker Tan Siok Siok

Tan  decided to develop a documentary on the social phenomenon known as Twitter… using Twitter.

The whole thing is developed on the fly from tweets.Everyone from a well known travel journalist to a homeless woman threw in on the project.

You can see a vid about it here.

(Tan  does not, by the way, recommend twitter documentaries. It was actually terrible, she insists.)

#3 The Instructables

Learn how to make or do just about anything. Really.

#4 Nam June Paik, Young Tate and Dave Evans

Video Artist Nam June Paik and crew have put together a really clever digital exhibit where the viewer becomes part of the installation.

Check it out on vid here.

#5 Why Not

This is the website that corresponds with the best-selling book Why Not from Harvard Business Press that I may have mentioned before. It’s tagline is “How to Use Everyday Ingenuity to Solve Problems Big and Small.” That always grabs me because even though I dabble in all kinds of learning and arts, I express my creativity most often by generating ideas.

Being a great list-generator, a good brainstormer, a good how-would-that-work-thinker-outer is a kind of creativity all on it’s own. Hats off to these guys for capturing that.