How the cards came to be.
Creating with Nature grew out of a multi-year research project at Toronto Metropolitan University in Toronto, Canada called Reframing Creativity, where David Gauntlett and Valeria Duarte interviewed multiple artists & creators about their creative experiences amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
One finding was particularly striking:
Most creatives talked about having found a valuable connection to nature and ‘the great outdoors’ during the pandemic, even though nature was not a topic we had included in our list of questions.
They seemed eager to comment on how nature became a fundamental part of their lives, and easily found a way to weave their work and creative experiences amid the pandemic with nature-related answers. They wanted to discuss how the natural world became a fundamental part of their creative lives: a place to find inspiration, peace of mind, and reconnect to their creativity.
The idea
After analyzing the data that shed light on this newfound relationship between creators and the natural world, we also hosted an outdoors event and creative activity in partnership with Creato, a Toronto based arts collective, where participants engaged in a creative treasure hunt adventure at a local park.
Between the findings from our research, and the amazing response we had at the event, we saw the opportunity to create a tool that combined the usefulness of the creativity deck as a way to prompt unexpected ways of thinking, with the benefits and engaging possibilities that nature brings about.
We made Creating with Nature because we couldn’t find something similar in the market at the moment, and as a response to the dire need of habits, tools and platforms that would support and preserve artists’ and creators’ relationship with the natural world.