On Creativity
Without the possibility of imagining, we cannot change our future, because unless we have the capacity to contemplate and imagine and bring into mind a different scenario, we cannot change where we are now.
How can we nurture innovation and creativity to rise to the challenges of the 21st century, and allow space for creative thinking? Hear from visionary artists, authors and filmmakers on how they use creative problem solving to meet challenges in their life and work.
Internationally renowned author and Professor of Education Policy at UNSW Sydney, Pasi Sahlberg’s work looks at the importance of play in learning.
Emmy award-winning Australian filmmaker Lynette Wallworth works on the cutting-edge of media technology. In 2016, Wallworth was named one of Foreign Policy magazine’s 100 Leading Global Thinkers.
Author and poet Jessie Tu’s debut novel A Lonely Girl is a Dangerous Thing won the 2021 ABIA award for Literary Fiction Book of the Year.
Artwork: Lynette Wallworth, Coral: Rekindling Venus, 2012
Presented by the UNSW Centre for Ideas and UNSW Arts, Design & Architecture.
Pasi Sahlberg
Pasi Sahlberg has worked as a schoolteacher, teacher-educator, researcher, and policymaker in Finland and advised education system leaders around the world. He has served as senior education specialist at the World Bank, lead education expert at the European Training Foundation, director general at the Finland’s Ministry of Education and Culture, and visiting professor of practice at Harvard University. He is a recipient of several lifelong service for education awards, including the 2012 Education Award in Finland, the 2014 Robert Owen Award in Scotland, the 2016 Lego Prize, and Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Resident Fellowship in 2017. In 2013 his book Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland won the Grawemeyer Award for an idea that has potential to change the world. His most recent books include Let the Children Play: How more play will save our schools and help children thrive, Finnish Lessons 3.0: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland, and In Teachers We Trust: The Finnish Way to World-Class Schools. He is Professor of Education Policy at UNSW Sydney and the Deputy Director (Research) of UNSW’s Gonski Institute for Education.
Lynette Wallworth
Lynette Wallworth is an Emmy award-winning artist and filmmaker who consistently works with emerging media technologies. Her immersive installations and films reflect connections between people and the natural world, and explore fragile human states of grace. Wallworth’s work has been shown at the World Economic Forum, Davos, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the American Museum of Natural History, New York, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, the Smithsonian, as well as film festivals including Sundance Film Festival, London Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, Sydney Film Festival, and the Adelaide Film Festival. Her works include the interactive video Evolution of Fearlessness; the full dome feature Coral, with accompanying augmented reality work; and VR narrative Collisions, which received a 2017 Emmy award for outstanding new approaches to documentary filmmaking. In 2014, Wallworth’s feature documentary Tender won the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Award for best televised documentary. In 2016, Wallworth was awarded a UNESCO City of Film Award, the Byron Kennedy Award for Innovation and Excellence and Foreign Policy magazine named her as one of the 100 Leading Global Thinkers of the year. Wallworth (DipArt ’81, BAVA (Conv) ’85 is a UNSW alumna and in 2020 was awarded the UNSW Alumni Award for Arts & Culture, in recognition for her acclaimed artwork and films, which reflect on the connections between people and the natural world, have resonated with audiences in Australia and beyond. Wallworth is a UNSW alumni and in 2020 was awarded the UNSW Alumni Award for Arts & Culture, in recognition for her acclaimed artwork and films, which reflect on the connections between people and the natural world. Wallworth, is a UNSW alumna and in 2020 was awarded the UNSW Alumni Award for Arts & Culture, in recognition for her acclaimed artwork and films, which reflect on the connections between people and the natural world.
Jessie Tu
Jessie Tu trained as a classical violinist for more than 15 years. Failing to succeed as a professional musician, she taught music at Kambala, St Ignatius College, MLC Burwood, Kings School, Newington College. She has taught at refugee camps in the Middle East, volunteered with AUSAID in the Solomon Islands, travelled to complete residencies in the US, and now works as a journalist at Women's Agenda. She has won several poetry and writing awards, and her first book of poetry was released in 2018. A Lonely Girl is a Dangerous Thing is her first novel which won the 2020 ABIA award for the Literary Fiction Book of the Year. Jessie Tu completed her Bachelor of Music Education in 2010 with UNSW. Tu, is a UNSW alumna and in 2021 was awarded the UNSW Young Alumni Award.
Sarah Dingle | Chairperson
Sarah Dingle is a dual Walkley Award-winning investigative reporter and presenter with the ABC, working across radio and TV current affairs. She has investigated everything from indigenous affairs and human rights to defence and sport. Her work has also won the Walkley Foundation’s Our Watch award for reporting on violence against women and children, the UN Media Peace Prizes, the Amnesty Media Prizes, the Voiceless Media Prize, and the Australian College of Educators Media prize. Her radio documentaries for the ABC’s Background Briefing have been recognised by the Australian Human Rights Commission, the Australian Sports Commission Awards and the National Press Club. In 2010 she was the ABC's Andrew Olle Scholar. In 2021 she released her first book, Brave New Humans.
