Develop imagination, throw away routine. Imagination is the mother of originality.                                           – Harry Gordon Selfridge

Today kick starts a series of events hosted by Selfridges, celebrating the creative mind as we explore the power of imagination. This Festival of Imagination is a six-week programme that offers a foretaste of the inventiveness and ingenuity that will shape our future – taking us into a thrilling world of curiosity and imagination.

I was able to attend the first event by imagineer Rolf Sachs on finding, capturing and propelling creativity. He is definitely no stranger to using imagination to unlock the power of possibility. He is as intriguing and multifaceted as his work – producing everything from furniture and lights to photography, stage sets and installations. His work takes inspiration from weaving magic into everyday objects that contain ‘traces of life.’ The ability to challenge thinking and surprise people are what fuels his thinking –  allowing him to move freely between art and design, searching for the ‘inner soul’, character and honesty in unexpected and overlooked places.  Much of his creative process relies on nostalgic memories; drawing from his childhood, his youth to the influencers around him. He believes that only when we are able to look back at history, is when we are able to look forward to the future. It is only with imagination that he is able to create new worthiness in his work.

Today’s society is looking at creative ideas with increased appreciation. Ideas, in the new creative economy, are rapidly becoming viewed as extremely valuable commodities.  More than ever before, the world relies on human creativity to solve the many problems we have created, combat the threats of nature, refine elements of function and style, and simply make life more enjoyable.

But how do we train our minds to develop ideas?

Curiosity and imagination initiates the very information and data we come to call as ‘knowledge’. Though in order to liberate the mind, it does take more guts than head. Imagination is the beginning of creation, a raw state of mind that enables us to see things not as they are now, but as they can be.  It does take a lot of guts to drop conventional dogma and go beyond what is logical and rational. Thinking differently for a start, can make all the difference. New possibilities will start to enhance our current realities, empowering us to accomplish remarkable feats, we never thought possible.

So it is important to make a conscious effort each day to notice the results of creativity, imagination and innovation around you. It is without imagination that we will embark on a dangerous course of stagnation because knowledge in isolation only reproduces past results, it is as good as getting stuck in a rut.