Creativity in Crises: Adapting a community of practice through a landscape of COVID-based disturbances

This co-authored paper discusses reflections from an ongoing dialogic interdisciplinary forum titled, This Is Not A Seminar: Creative Research Dialogues (TINAS), specifically from the perspectives of Ph.D. candidates Gale Mason and Harrison See; both painters and practice-led researchers who regularly participate and benefit from it. The theme “Together in Tough Times” has been particularly poignant as during the uncertainty created by the COVID 19 pandemic, this forum faced unmitigated disruption and an uncertain future. Through the commitment of its members, TINAS adapted as it sought to navigate these difficult times. Two key shifts that took place within these sessions are of particular interest. The necessity of adapting to operating within a space between domestic and professional while challenging a ‘business as usual approach’ and shifting from the analogue world to online communication. There is also a focus on the strategies employed as TINAS rose to the challenge of negotiating with this new terrain, acknowledging their varying levels of success and in some cases, outright failures.