50 years ago the Institut de Beaux Artés (Paris) put artists together for 72 hours to see whether an extended period of intense activity, during which participants did not sleep, might result in enhanced creativity.
We re-created this, with 20 creative practitioners but with 6 hour rest periods every 18 hours for the Artists/Scholars. We wanted to:
- To encourage artists from different cultures to work together, observe, and find out whether there are additional attributes accessed to enable intercultural working.
- To create material that can be used widely to explore global issues.
The ‘Jam’ was hosted in Johannesburg (under the auspices of CIVICUS) and the focus of the 72 Hour Jam was to enrich the practice of the artists and to explore ‘Intercultural Dialogue for the Progress of Civil Society.’ We also:
- Documented the effect of 72 hours intense working to learn more about the creative process.
- Conduct follow-up to track impacts