2. Thinking Through Making: exploring global challenges through creative practice introducing curiosity, play and imagination

Published by: Innovative Practice in Higher Education

Volume: 7 Issue: 1 Year: 2025

Author (s): Bridgette Ashton Arts University Plymouth, Mel Brown Arts University Plymouth

Corresponding author: melbrown@aup.ac.uk

Abstract: This case study of teaching practice seeks to harness the potential of curiosity, play and imagination as a means to approach and conceptualise global challenges. The UN Sustainable Development Goals are used as a framework to inspire fantastical scenarios for workshops where participants from illustration and design undergraduate courses at Arts University Plymouth are encouraged to generate unconventional and seemingly infeasible solutions. These workshops spark creativity and invite reflection beyond the immediate activities, freeing participants to think optimistically about addressing complex and serious global challenges through the lens of play and imagination. Through workshops focused on tactile exploration, students are encouraged to step away from digital tools to embrace processes of making and imagining. This approach offers insights into how creative problem-solving can open up avenues for innovative thinking where the action of making and experience of imagining are as important as output and outcome.

Art school is a place where curiosity becomes a discipline and imagination becomes a daily practice. It’s a community built around the belief that ideas matter, that experimentation is essential, and that creative risk‑taking is a skill worth cultivating. Students arrive with different backgrounds and ambitions, but they share a desire to make, to question, and to push beyond the obvious. In studios filled with light, noise, and half‑finished work, they learn to translate abstract thoughts into tangible forms—paintings, films, textiles, sculptures, digital worlds, and hybrid creations that defy easy categorisation.

The experience is both demanding and exhilarating. Critiques challenge students to articulate their intentions and defend their decisions, while workshops and collaborative projects expose them to new materials, technologies, and perspectives. Art school encourages independence, but it also thrives on community: conversations over coffee, late‑night problem‑solving, and the shared excitement of discovering a new technique or breakthrough idea.

Ultimately, art school is less about producing perfect work and more about developing a way of seeing—an ability to observe the world closely, question assumptions, and imagine alternatives. It’s a transformative environment where creative identity takes shape and where students learn not just how to make art, but how to think like artists.