Creating is not only an act of faith, creating begets courage.
A lot of people talk about creativity. A lot of people talk about a lot of things. But the act of creating inspires a visceral sense of courage, a sense of ownership, and a generosity that goes way beyond what can be shared from mere curation.
Curators are great. We wouldn’t have museums without them. And many people have taken on the role of acting as curators of information on the web. But don’t confuse curation with creativity.
Curators are not brave. They are not infused with the sense of authority that comes from intimacy with the creative process. They are missing something critical: experience.
Curators can put on a nice show, however, and bring ideas and people together. Curators are often well-connected. Curators sometimes create contexts where more exciting things can happen. But perhaps curators need to explore the creative process they carefully curate.
For me, creativity is where it’s at. Creativity is where the truth of each person’s value is discovered and shared. And that’s not a curation process, it’s a self-expression process followed by a sharing process following by a wider recognition of a person’s essence.
If I can’t see your essence, then maybe you are curating, not creating. Which is fine, but let’s not confuse the two.
Curation is a compiling, gathering, organizing, streamlining, and making tidy vast amounts of information process—and although this can certainly be a part of the creative process, anyone, who has the organizational inclination can do it.
Curators rehash. Creatives say things that are fresh and brave and true.
Curation is one thing. Creativity is another. Let’s keep them straight.
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Thanks for this post, Christina, such an important group of respectful distinctions to make. We’ve tended to use curation and creation interchangeably a lot lately, which — as you point out — isn’t really kosher.
When I was at MoMA recently hearing Ann Tempkin talk about her work as curator on the Abstract Expressionist New York show there (http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/1098), I was reminded of just how extensive and sophisticated her work was. And she, in turn, was steadfastly clear about the creativity of the artists whose work she’d curated — Pollack, Newman, Rothko, Smith and others. The delineations were as sharp as you describe them in this post, and without either function — creativity or curation — taking a backseat to the other.
So nice job. In general, I hope we’ll all find our way to better terms for aggregating content soon. “Curation” has had quite a workout lately. The more clearly we define such easily confused concepts, the more we’ll know about both and grasp their separate values.
-p.
THANK YOU for this, Christina. This is a perfect description of two stages of my writing process that really needed distinction right about now. The research phase is discovery and curation. When I have carefully organized the information as a curator, and I take it all in and combine it with my own experience, intuition and insight, then I am ready to create. At that point, the words seem to write themselves. The ideas flow. I’m in the groove. I’m not editing and torturing and shuffling things around as if they’re so many bits and pieces. Whole ideas and connections come forth. And they are original, daring, and smacking of truth. When I jump to the creative without doing diligence as a curator, I end up in a mess. You read one last week. (wink, wink)
Again, thanks for this. It struck a chord.
I like it. Thanks for making me think.
You’ve hit the nail on the head. I’d alwasy thought of people in terms of ‘doers’ and ‘redoers’ but your classification is much more suitable. Living in France, where a vast percentage of the population work in the civil service and curate for a living, sometimes creativity seems too rare.
Thanks for such a thought-provoking post!