A curious mindset  

The findings of a recent test on creative thinking conducted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development among 15-year-old students around the world shows that Filipinos have one of the weakest creative thinking skills. It measured the students’ ability to use their reading, mathematics and science knowledge and skills to meet real-life challenges. While the study qualifies that academic excellence is not a prerequisite for excellence in creative thinking, a minimal proficiency helps. Beliefs, attitudes and social-emotional characteristics such as curiosity, a high level of imagination and persistence are also important and associated with a growth mindset leading to creative thinking.

Open design + art

This brings into relevance an initiative anchored on the curious mindset. Launched by the De La Salle College of Saint Benilde to celebrate its 35th anniversary, Benilde Open Design + Art revolves around curiosities: on movement and its relationship to sustainability, the shuttling of thinking across craft and technology, and the culturing of the virtual with the real.

Marked by an appetite for investigation and experimentation and for tinkering that fuels renovation and innovation, the initiative seeks for answers to questions about the world. Is there such a world? Can such a world be more than imagined? Can we create foundational designs and proposals for such worlds to become more than just fanciful ideas?

Launched as a call for unrealized creative projects, 324 proposals were received. Ten were selected for the Benilde Open category and awarded grants worth P300,000 each. Fifteen student proposals, under the Best of Benilde category, were also selected and given full presentation support. All projects are currently presented at the Design and Art campus and the Hub for Innovation campus of Benilde.

Curiosity is part of how we as a species have survived. It is the stimulus for our desire to learn and discover. We want to know what happens next. The curious are the ones who ask the questions and are the ones who take the next steps to find out how things can be done.

Open grantees

“Tropikalye” by Nice Buenaventura and Costantino Zicarelli is an online index of photographs and text highlighting the accidental intersections of contemporary Philippine aesthetics and the everyday from the vantage point of the street.

“Nightingales” by RJ Fernandez is a documentary that shows the daily life of three Filipino nurses based in East Sussex in the United Kingdom, including their horticultural activities as they learn to grow food in a community garden.

“Stakeholding: Chapter 1, A Developing Tabletop Game” by Lyra Garcellano takes players through a journey of the contemporary art and culture world where they occasionally make complex decisions and answer queries such as: How do we design a new art world? How can we chart our journey? How can we be mobile in that path? What do we do when we collide with other worlds/communities—do we occupy and conquer or do we cooperate and collaborate?

“Re-Move: Unraveling truths behind the spectacle of indigenous exposition through the contemporary performance lens” by Aaron Kaiser Garcia is a multimedia project on the Filipino body, which holds centuries’ worth of stories about resistance and triumph against colonial oppression and exploitation.

“Exploring the Use of Philippine Silk in Tausug Siyabit Weaving” by Rambie Lim proposes to bridge the gap between suppliers, dyers and weavers to possibly bring about the renaissance of traditional Tausug textiles by working with weavers in using silk rather than polyester thread.

“Unraveling Baguio’s Inner Tapestry: A Psychogeographical Exploration Through Sensory Encounters” by Gabe Mercado employs creative interventions and collaborative practices with artists and explorers through unscripted explorations of the city.

“Maria, Maria” by Lala Monserrat in collaboration with Russ Ligtas, Geric Cruz and Jazel Kristin is a community art project featuring performance, photography, film and sculpture collaborations among resident artists of Casa San Miguel Center for the Arts in the coastal town of San Antonio, Zambales, and a spirited group of young locals of the LGBTQ community.

“Cosmic Garden” by Issay Rodriguez merges art and technology to find innovative solutions between a synergy of art and agriculture. Through a relationship between the universe and earthly gardens, the artist explores this through the unique perspective of bees.

“Developing Puppetry in the Philippines” by Mikayla Teodoro aims to introduce new methods in puppetry arts to turn the country into a puppetry hub in Southeast Asia. By studying the anatomy of a hyena, prototypes for the head, tail and leg joints are made and tested before a final prototype is realized.

“Curious: Spotlight on Filipino Sign Language (FSL) Literature” by Michael Vea focuses on integrating FSL Literature within the landscape of Philippine literary arts. Through a pioneering creative signing workshop and an exhibition featuring work from five Deaf literary fellows, the project seeks to blend craft with technology and create innovative literary works.

The best of Benilde students

“Designing Space for Bram Stoker's Dracula and Ryan Jacobson’s Can you Survive Dracula?” by Louisa Ray Cagalingan explores an immersive, stylized space for a reimagining of Bram Stoker's Dracula and Ryan Jacobson's Can You Survive Dracula?

“The Local Identity” by Xandrix Antaso Corpuz Jr. is an app with an open service directory that brings together emerging creative practitioners who offer quality services at fair rates.

Ang Paglipad ng Saranggola sa Aplaya by Danielle Cusi is a thesis film project about Diane, who spends summer breaks with her grandmother, and learns that Rosie, her Mangyan friend, had sacrificed for her family by living far away to work as a domestic helper.

“Hugo: A Smart Pillow for Self-Regulation” by Asia Entico is a non-invasive, non-pharmacological device that stimulates the vagus nerve through vibrations. The vagus nerve operates under the autonomic nervous system and prompts the “rest and digest” system. Hugo is intuitive, comfortable, and provides immediate relief from symptoms of fight-or-flight.