The Creativities Project at the University of Pittsburgh brings together thinkers and makers from a wide variety of fields to examine the character, process, and societal impact of creativity in the twenty-first century. In an age in which “creativity” is a buzzword that extends well beyond the arts, the Creativities Project asks questions about the role of creative practice in our political economy: whose labor is recognized, in what forms is it compensated, how do intellectual property and citation practices structure such recognition, and what choices are we making about legal and cultural infrastructures that render some forms of creative production valuable or legible and others valueless or invisible? To answer these questions requires us to renew investigations of creativity in light of changing practices in music, writing, and the visual arts, as well as the sciences, law, and business. On account of its historical contingency, examining creativity in its contemporary moment also entails historical inquiry into its origins. Those investigations are the objects and subject of the Creativities Project.
The Creativities Project emerges from interdisciplinary conversations enabled by Pitt’s Humanities Center, its current funding source. Contested concepts and competing theories on creativity’s array of practices emerge from this dialogue. Theoretically, investigating contemporary creativity stimulates conversation about how individuals, groups, and objects generate new and salient matter. Pragmatically, the results of these investigations can guide industry actors, academic and cultural institutions, law, and public policy that shape how people work and live. The Creativities Project aims to convene conversations and experiences that push us to understand and practice the concept of creativity in ways that are better suited to our contemporary moment.