Foreword by Andrea Quagliola

Foreword by Andrea Quagliola

Most forewords to anything seem to start by acknowledging the ‘current challenges’ we are all facing - a sort of pre-emptive disclaimer. This one won’t, for two reasons: the first one is that such challenges will be part of our foreseeable future and we should just embrace them.

The second one is more relevant to the subject of this foreword for the 2022 Winter Collective catalogue: it has to do with the notion of creativity. More specifically, with the power of creativity and its fundamental role in dealing with the ubiquitously mentioned ‘challenges’.

Possibly the hardest single trait to be replicated by technology, and the most sought after in young professionals, human creativity has offered pivotal solutions to significant challenges throughout the history of mankind. Beyond specific solutions however, the true value of creativity emerges as it generates an underlying sense of hope: to envision the world of the possible.

The work in the Winter Collective is gathered as a compendium of the possible that expresses our School’s fundamental aim in respect to creativity: to nurture an imaginative journey. In the body of work published in the catalogue such journey emerges through the inter-disciplinary nature unique to the UWA School of Design, where Architecture, Fine Arts, Landscape Architecture, History of Art and Urban Design overlay and interact to engage with global issues through a local yet multilayered and international perspective.

In the face of daunting challenges and inexplicable (self-inflicted) atrocities, this catalogue aims to make a small contribution towards disseminating a sense of hope through creativity and the field of possibility.

Andrea Quagliola Associate Professor in Architecture, UWA School of Design Co-founder, Director, MORQ

Fine Arts & History of Art