LETTER FROM HEAD OF SCHOOL

Creative Allies: So what difference does it make?

The MACMAG 48 team have chosen to explore creative allies, a subject both appropriate to the here and now but one that will probably have re-occurring resonance with anyone involved in creative practice.

Thinking about now, we find ourselves post-covid in a contact both familiar but different. We have got used to looking at work, structuring our time and dealing with each other in different ways, some productive and enjoyable, others limiting and obtrusive - awkward even.

Over this year we have moved closer to understanding how to work beside each other once again, and to understand how we see the potential in the connections co-operating, collaborating and finding our creative partners can have, and what is missing when these are not there.

For me as a Head of School, this has meant meeting, yes actually meeting, colleagues I have known again, and recognising very quickly the gaps that opened up when talking and sharing ideas and problems with these supportive partners was not possible, and when these allies were not part of my regular head space and practice space. But then I know I’m fortunate, to have what I can consider to be creative allies forged over time. For many students who have had their education disrupted during covid, these allies are only just beginning to form.

So looking ahead and into the pages of MACMAG 48, there are some simple obvious things worth saying. There is no single model for a creative partnership, (as the articles and interviews you will read show). They involve all sorts, operating in many different ways and contributing different things to the creative process. Architecture is seldom realised by a lone person, so the sooner you find the people that compliment your thinking and skill set the better. Not necessarily your tribe only, but a wider ecosystem. Allies work both ways as do supportive communities, we learn from each other even when we are in competition.

The context and circumstances we operate in now and in the future will need us to imagine and bring to life, forms of allies we haven t thought of before, to answer problems we don’t yet understand.

Enjoy seeking out those partnerships, alliances and allies.

Make new friends, but keep the old.

Sally Stewart