HOW CREATIVE THINKING AND CREATIVE ART POWERS CAN ACHIEVE RADICAL CHANGE | Webinar Recording
Writer and theatre-maker Jo Randerson is the founder and artistic director of Barbarian Productions (theatre company). See www.barbarian.co.nz for more information.
Jo shared ways that creative thinking can help us address the challenges that face society in current times. Jo offered their insights around the stories we hold in our bodies, on what we choose to believe and on the power of divergent thinking. Their new book Secret Art Powers discusses how creative imagining, alongside good research and data, gives us the power we need to create a society which cares for us all and for the planet on which we depend.
Date: Thursday September 18, 2025
Time: 7:00 PM
Background:
Jo’s recent theatre works include Sing It To My Face, Political Cuts and Grand Opening.
Jo has received the Robert Burns Fellowship, an Arts Foundation New Generation Award and the Bruce Mason Award for playwrighting. She collaborates internationally with visual artists, theatre makers and activists, most recently in Paris, Moscow and Istanbul with Swedish visual artists Goldin+Senneby at the biennales in each city. Her recent play The Spit Children premiered at Antwerp’s largest youth theatre HETPALEIS in May 2014.
Jo often collaborates with communities and lesser-heard voices. Jo is a popular public speaker and progressive thinker about the arts’ relevance in society, and an active part of the social enterprise movement. She is part of a team who have re-purposed a disused bowling club in Vogelmorn, Wellington as a creative community space www.vogelmorn.nz. She teaches at Massey University, Toi Whakaari: NZ Drama School and on the MFA at Victoria University.
Her new work Secret Art Powers was featured on RNZ. Jo’s writing has appeared in the Journal of Urgent Writing, Pantograph Punch and Future Conditional: Notes for Tomorrow.