Exploring Creativity from Within: An Arts-based Investigation

Abstract

This paper illustrates how art making generated a novel understanding of the creativity of health services, a context more often noted for its complexity, rule-bound operations and tensions, than for its creativity. Art was used to identify the researcher’s driving forces, facilitate reflexivity, and to explore research participants’ experiences of creativity. What emerged was a practice-theoretical conceptualization of creativity and a connection with the Aristotelian concepts of praxis and poiesis, and the formulations “creative implementation” and “creative activism.” This work provides researchers with a platform for conducting multilevel (individual, team and organizational creativity) and multidimensional (creativity plus innovation) research that is not only applicable to health services, but also to organizations that share some of the characteristics of health services.