Founding Documents: What Artists of All Disciplines Could Establish Together
Res Creativa is a new initiative for creators, and we will do what founders do: write documents that say who we are, what we believe, and what we intend to uphold.
Visual, performing, and literary artists plus arts enthusiasts are becoming founding members of Res Creativa (you can join them, it’s free to do).
There is no other organization that unites individual creators, regardless of discipline, based on our capacity for creative thinking and our passion for creativity and democracy.
However, to coexist, interact, and move from passive observation to active engagement, Res Creativa will need structure.
Two days ago, the first post of this series suggested that Res Creativa build a civic leadership program. Yesterday, I proposed a plan that would help counteract the agenda launched by a partisan policy institute.
Today’s post, along with the next two, will continue outlining initiatives Res Creativa could develop. Not all at once, and not quickly, but deliberately, in sequence, and together.
RES CREATIVA IDEA 3
A Constitutional Foundation
Founding Documents for a Creative Civic Body
One of the founding members described the idea as a Creatives Proclamation. Not as a symbolic gesture, but as a structural necessity.
Res Creativa is not an arts advocacy organization, a union, or a showcase. It is better understood as a constitutional body of creative practitioners, and bodies like that require clear definition.
That means developing a set of founding documents. A statement of principles, a delineation of rights and responsibilities, and a shared framework that establishes what this body is and what it intends to uphold.
Democracies depend on bodies that can articulate principles, responsibilities, and shared purpose. A constitutional foundation for creative practitioners strengthens that civic architecture.
What this would mean for you as a creator:
Gain the civic awareness and timing to engage where it matters, so your work intersects with decisions, not just reactions to them.
What this would mean for our humanity:
Bring creative minds into the moments that shape public life, so outcomes are informed not only by policy and data, but by lived experience and imagination.
This is work that can begin now, with direct participation from the founding group.
What a Creative Civic Body Declares About Itself
A democracy becomes more functional when it draws on the full spectrum of human intelligence, including the creative intelligence that elected officials cannot access through politics alone.
If creating a shared framework intrigues you as one of five starting points for our “creative republic,” let me know by becoming a no-cost founding member.
Your response will help determine how we organize the initial phase of this work and where to focus early energy.
My next suggestion is formidable. Subscribers will receive Res Creativa Idea 4 tomorrow:
Organizational Intelligence. Creative Intelligence as Organizational Infrastructure
Res Creativa can create a research and applied-practice arm that brings creative intelligence into organizations that want to retain human cognitive abilities.
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Learn more about Res Creativa:
Add your name to the list of artists and arts enthusiasts who serve as founders of Res Creativa:
Let’s help restore humanity and democracy through our collective and creative talents.
—Randall White
