Artistry, Sensemaking and Dialogue Projects by John Oliver
"Studio 3-2-1"
Artistry Residencies
SW France (30 min from Toulouse Airport)
1 - 3 week studio experience, with facilitation
Redefining the arts as an immersive and "embodied inquiry" that is open to anyone...at any level of creative practice
The Studio 3-2-1 Concept
This residency offer brings the arts into practical application for facilitators working in emergent, hyper-object type contexts.
The studio has at its heart the concept of the liminalities of the arts, sciences and faith traditions, where "Artistry" relates to the dynamic, the flow between the fundamental truth domains of the human condition - otherwise referred to as The Good, The True and the Beautiful.
We are looking to the arts not just as self-expression or for therapeutic interests, but how they can be a critical dimension for our consciousness, our sensemaking, our biographies and our ethical engagement. Artistry is therefore about integrating the movements between creativity and dialogue, between the intuitive and the rational, between all the polarities, contradictions and paradoxes that make up our worlds.
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Expand into the freedom of your own studio environment (1st person)
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with professional artist's facilitation
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Capture your personal and dialogical narratives on film (biographical portrait witnessing film (2nd person)
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with the www.InteriorTruth.com method
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Be part of a sensemaking collective experience, exchanging and integrating knowledge; engaging with the symbols, signifiers of our analytical frameworks (3rd person)
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with experienced complexity sensemaking practitioners
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Art work by Tyler.World "Hold me" - 2022
The Studio 3-2-1 concept draws on the vast wealth of cognitive and sensemaking frameworks available to us. As a high level view, below is one way of representing the process 'map' that will guide the immersive environment and facilitation themes. As a Theory U (Scharmer) representation, the primary lenses might be represented in the order of 1st, 2nd then 3rd person. True to the holographic nature of reality, the Studio name of 3-2-1 evokes how the experience will be flowing across in multiple iterations and cycles of such lenses.
Artistry as Cognition
In acknowledgement of thought leaders in sensemaking, participatory inquiry and cognition, such as John Heron and John Vervaeke, it is worth highlighting how the arts can provide a crucial bridge between the dichotomy of our everyday experiences and our efforts to theorise life with "propositional" knowing. The arts, in the words of Heron and Vervaeke, offer us forms of "presentational" (or perspectival) knowing, that offers us deeper 2nd personal, interpersonal forms of meaning making - that artists such as the poet David Whyte refer to as the "conversational nature of reality".
"If we agree that presentational symbolism* is indeed a mode of knowing, then we can no longer conveniently distance ourselves from its use by delegating it to the artistic community. We need to bring it right back into the mainstream knowledge quest."
*Presentational knowing referring to how all our experiences in the world have meaning and can be expressed by metaphor, abstraction, image etc.
John Heron (1992). Feeling and Personhood. Sage: London. (P. 165-168)
Residency Practical Details
In contrast to a training course, seminar or workshop, the Studio 3-2-1 experience offers the quality of presence of being an artist, in your studio.
The facilitation process will lead a dynamic between our intuitive, our rational and collaborative narrative sensemaking.
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Leveraging the arts as "breakdown by design", to access the consciousness afforded through the "Theory U" cycle.
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We offer a space for the unique qualities that the arts offer for deep listening, and for integrating our knowledge and wisdom (vs. acquiring).
Take-aways:
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Personal narrative video portrait (using the www.interiortruth.com method)
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Your personal and collaborative combination of art work / art performance / art curation project and developmental journaling
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New horizons for your professional complexity facilitation skills.
Pricing:
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1 to 3 week Residencies: Use of the studio and workshop space, selection of creative materials and a combination of remote and in-person weekly coaching with facilitators*
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€650 per week including self-catering accommodation (at the farmhouse)
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Ideal for combined remote working time
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Max 3 residents concurrently
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The narrative and portrait filming process is on request, with additional fee of €1850 including editing
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Hosted at the Le Pigné, near Toulouse, SW France
- Art Exchange Hub Project Location
Our Facilitators
Nicola Powys
Artist, Expressive Arts Facilitator, Writer
Nicola is an artist, activist and writer using words and paint. She is a veteran arts facilitator, running immersive experience for corporates, and business schools. For Nicola, the process is often more important than the result.
Play, rule-breaking and trying to keep open to different approaches and materials, focuses the mind
and challenges limits, becoming a problem solving and sometimes, existentialist experience.
Discover her artworks here:
John Oliver
Artist, Portrait Filmer, Complexity and Sensemaking Facilitator
John founded the organisational development consulting brand Human-Equity Ltd in 2008, integrating his corporate and engineering background (in aerospace and satellite technologies) with his social sciences background after working in Africa and Nepal for an NGO.
His consulting work for 10+ years was based on narratives sensemaking, applying complexity principles thanks to close collaboration with Dave Snowden (a relationship that began with Dave as his MBA lecturer in 2000), and John's certification in developmental psychology (with Lectica.org).
Since 2020, John has committed to both a broad artistic practice (painting, sculpture, performance), and a continuation of his narratives work with an unconditional video witnessing approach pioneered by Nic Askew.
Flavio Fabiani
Complexity, Arts and Biographical Facilitator
Flavio is Co-creation Designer and Partner at the Italian organisational development consultancy PeopleRise, and Member of the Faculty at the Dutch visionary educational foundation, Knowmads. Flavio has extensive experience in complexity facilitation for corporate clients and in executive coaching, grounded in multi-disciplinary practices from narratives sensemaking, the arts, energetics, through to the social sciences.
Flavio is studying with the Biographical Institute, Holland, on the art and craft of capturing, mapping and reflecting on the natural arcs in our biographical journeys.
Inspirations in the Studio experience design:
M C Richards
M.C. Richards’ work, particularly in her 1964 book Centering: in Pottery, Poetry, and the Person, which grew out of her time and experiences at Black Mountain College, where she was famous for dissolving what she called "ordinary dualisms"—the idea that you had to choose between being an intellectual (the heavens) and a craftsperson (the clay).
She argued that the act of "centering" clay was a physical manifestion of centering the soul, and that "we are not craftsmen only during studio hours," but that our entire life is the "big art" we are practicing.
While she often used various metaphors to describe this "crossing point" between the physical and the spiritual, the specific passage that most closely matches your description is:
"In centering the clay on the potter's wheel, one centers down, yes, and then one immediately centers up! Down and up, wide and narrow, letting focus bear within it an expanded consciousness and letting a widened awareness... have the commitment to detail of a focused attention. Not 'either... or,' but 'both... and.'"
Another famous quote of hers that captures this exact "hands in clay / reaching for heavens" duality is:
"I don't have to choose. I am both, and I live in the crossing point." (Referring to being an "earthy, practical" person and a "dreamer/visionary" simultaneously.)
Signing up for the residency
Participants will be selected initially after joining our waiting list, and then a call will be arranged. We will be selecting participants to ensure the ideal combinations of profiles.
There are two possible directions of "contrast" cohorts (i.e. a deliberately multi-disciplinary participants, from different professional backgrounds), or "coherence" cohorts (i.e. from similar professional backgrounds, seeking to deepen their field or community). There will be between 6 and 8 participants per cohort.
The application process will be firstly based on a waiting list, before arranging a discovery call. Please click on the relevant waiting list button below to send us your contact details, and we'll reply with a short form to complete.