Poltimore Sandpit Sessions, Sept 2010: Reflections and Questions

Reflections and questions from Professor Anna Craft, Graduate School of Education, Exeter University
and Svanborg R. Jonsdottir, doctoral student, University of Iceland and research assistant in the
Graduate School of Education, Exeter University. Anna’s research focuses on creativity and futures,
and in particular the use of the arts and culture in the creative transition from what is to what might
be. Svanborg’s research focuses on innovation education. See PDF of Svanborg’s notes for detailed
observations and reflections of Day 2; also film material put together by Luke While, and still images
captured by Luke While and Margo Greenwood across the two days. For more information on the
process of documentation please contact Professor Anna Craft A.R.Craft@exeter.ac.uk1

During the course of the Poltimore Sandpit sessions, emerging from the various processes (data
streams, drama, imagery, creative writing, discussion, Monday morning planning) was a powerful
sense of collective care and compassion and of this group both operating as and planning a
community around Poltimore. Poltimore House emerged as a place for potentials to grow, a place
where aspirations can be made real, where the house itself is both the heart and the catalyst of
what can happen. There was a strong sense of The Poltimore Way – with heart and soul, ethics and
sustainability. The house itself was presented and developed as a greenhouse for ideas,
conversations, collaborations; and heartful futures; for collective as well as individual growth.

In further developing this prototype we offer the following provocation questions:

Nature of the Process

How does intuitive work with drama, imagery and fiction help to emerge collective ‘what if’
and ‘as if’ planning? This might be explored in terms of:
o How possible futures are embodied and played with
o How open the creative conversations are (i.e. how possible is conflict)
o The role of discomfort / risk
o The significance of immersion over two days (and use of weekend gap)
o The relationship between intuitive and explicit; meta- and operational
o How actual and possible are integrated and what if anything is missing

Reach of the Process

How do participants in the Poltimore Process engage with added potentials of the creative
work they take part in? These potentials may enable some things to be visible/clear; how
important is the Other in this (drama specialist, visual art process, creative writer)?

Producing Innovation
Does/did use of knowledge (from participants and through data streams), together with
skills, participation, engagement, engagement and creativity, produce innovative results
(innovations)? These might be explored in terms of:
o Methods/processes
o Insights and understandings
o Practical questions and ideas (from broad to narrow possibility)
1
Informed consent was obtained from all participants whether Trustees, speakers, facilitators or documenters; the research process was approved by
Graduate School of Education Ethics Committee. Further analysis will be undertaken in due course, exploring the co-emergence of ‘possibility thinking’.