There's magic in the world of the Trickster, don't you think?
Sometimes you have to cross boundaries, transgress a distinction and all the rules that go with it, to allow something amazing to happen.
Sometimes you have to cross boundaries, transgress a distinction and all the rules that go with it, to allow something amazing to happen.
Like Lewis Hyde said ... "Every group has its edge, its sense of in and out, and Trickster is always there at the gates of the cite and the gates of life, making sure there is commerce ... Trickster is the creative idiot, the wise fool, the grey haired baby, the cross dresser, the speaker of sacred profanities ..." Lewis Hyde, Trickster Makes This World (1998)
Last night's BBC Radio 4 Zeitgeisters episode on the Theaster Gates told just this story. Urban planner, turned artist, turned revolutionary urban regeneration catalyst .... Theaster Gates is a superb example of Bill Torbert's "double loop" of action ....
There are behaviors that are legitimate with any given role in a system: planner, artist, entrepreneur, whatever. And we can spend a lifetime tweaking the legitimate behaviors to get marginal changes in outcomes from within the legitimate space ... What Torbert calls "Single Loop"
And we can shift ("Double loop") the strategic role in which we turn up in any system. And this is so spot on for what Theaster Gates has done ...
A Trickster in the shamanic sense, shape shifting from the expectations of one domain to the expectations of another, and transgressing the norms of both, producing work that is lighting the imagination of art collectors and social activists ... and bringing transformation to his south Chicago neighborhood ....
One of those practical stories of radical innovation in action that makes Torbert's valuable insights leap to life with a practical and inspiring example ....
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