Travel notebook #3

Have you ever wondered how you can deliver your work in a different way than you have been delivering? Better, in a way that makes more sense to you?

In my opinion, one of the greatest challenges in life is understanding how we can carry out our work in a way that resonates with what we feel is our vocation and purpose (if this is a pursuit that is part of what you propose to live) .

And in order for us to truly understand this space for ourselves, we need to experiment, allow ourselves to reinvent, question, go back and revolutionize too.

On this path we are introduced to new ways of doing what we have been doing for years with a completely different touch, we get to know new areas of knowledge and awaken to connections with expressions and knowledge that, a while ago, we could not conceive of as having something in common with our field of activity.

I have been invited to these new perspectives throughout my life and here in London it has been no different. For a few weeks now I have been noticing a happy synergy between two areas that are part of who I am as a person and professional: Art and Research.

For years I've been trying to understand how to connect two areas of my life without one needing to be suffocated by the other. And it was in the middle of another day of toil that my email inbox invited me to look at this once again, but now with some very fruitful good news. I received a message announcing a call for collaboration between artists and researchers.

I then began to explore the program to which this call was linked and the others that somehow dialogue with it. On this wonderful trip, I realized that here in London the connection between Art, artistic expression, and Science (social or not) is much more common than I imagined.

I am still maturing my space of connection between truths and I feel that I still have a way to go in this process, but I wanted to share here this discovery that fed my soul and made me go further in a very special sense.< /p>

At many times they try to convince us that our professional choice needs to be linked to just one profession or sector, but we are less and less convinced of this.

Inevitably, life shows us that our space of authenticity often lives in the same space where we manage to connect our different gifts and predilections.

And it is also in this multiverse that we are able to deliver even more value to those we intend to connect with.

Reflecting on the Academic area, in my opinion, one of the great challenges for researchers - especially in the human and social sciences - is still being able to deliver a result that has direct applicability in other sectors of society, that is, that In fact, dialogue with them and propose practical changes.

From the moment we, researchers, allow ourselves to expand our perspectives and exercise dialogue with other tools and areas of knowledge (and life), we leave a common place and open ourselves to new ways of seeing the same object .

Some examples of connections are Law with Data Visualization, Biology with Fine Arts, National Defense with Psychology, among many others that go beyond this brief list I made now.

When we allow ourselves this exercise of connecting and expanding, we find ourselves with greater possibilities of dialoguing not only with our core of colleagues and field of expertise, but also with those who can use our knowledge to generate improvements in different and diverse areas. layers of society (company, government, local community, personal life).

In this movement, then, we polish ourselves, we allow ourselves to experience new spaces of professional being and we access channels, forms, expressions that can disseminate our commitment to more places and people.

I know that some people don't insist on being in a job that they feel is their calling and I also know that not being in this space is a great daily challenge.

However, I also know that, more and more, people are looking to employ their workforce in something that makes them feel fulfilled both as people and as professionals. A search that is often related to the commitment to being an agent of positive change in the society that welcomes us.

So, these words may resonate in some hearts and minds that pass by.

And if I can leave any tips for those who are in this search, the main ones I would give would be: be calm with your processes; allow yourself to learn to expand your views based on every experience you have, whether more or less challenging; and have the courage to change (first of all, internally and then the external will follow).

For those who are curious about connecting Science with artistic expression, I leave here some names of projects and people that have appeared in my searches and that prove to us that some limits are just beliefs of our mind.

Sasha Engelman, "London-based geographer exploring interdisciplinary, feminist and creative approaches to environmental knowledge making."

The Green Art Lab Alliance, "mycelium-like network of art organizations contributing to environmental sustainability through their creative practices" . Founded by Yasmin Ostendorf.< /p>

Valley of the impossible, "invite and challenge artists, scientists and other creative thinkers and makers to envision alternative perspectives on our relationship with the natural world.

LabVerde, "transdisciplinary platform based in the Brazilian Amazon aimed at developing artistic languages about the environment, which operates in the production and democratization of knowledge, through the organization of residencies, lectures, exhibitions, festivals, workshops and publications.

List of opportunities in Art-Science on ArtConnect.

I am Jéssica Leite, Futurist, Researcher, Artist, Therapist and somewhat skeptical about the impossibility of living in a better world.