Be Creative with a Purpose

Frankly speaking, to me, in order for someone to be creative, it is not just to invent something new and have fun with it or just for the sake of beautification or decoration. What I have posted earlier are indeed amazing creations that have been created; using a line of construction toys and a little of mechanical skills and "ta daaa"; something beautiful and actually functional (for the sniper and printer) and not to forget the LEGO church..beauty. They do have the "wow factor" (quoted from lecturers during my alpha year..) However, what benefit does it brings to others and to the world? Do we have the ability to make the same machine out of LEGO? Do we have the chance to have fun with it?

To me, being creative with a purpose is the real meaning to creativity and it is no doubt challenging; to be able to come out with something new yet useful and applicable to anyone in their daily life. Take recycling for example, a well known process where everyone is being educated about and emphasized around the world. People are coming out with ways and ideas on how to save our Earth; reduce, reuse and recycle rubbish. Now, figuring out how to make good use of all the rubbish that we have thrown away is an simple start for getting someone to be creative. Making treasures out of trash is creative..

I would like to share a project that I did with 4 of my other course mates (Wei Yee, Ee Linn, Gihan and Jen Hou) in the Alpha year; Turning Trash into Treasures. Our task was to come out with something functional from gathered rubbish and we had this idea of making books for children of ages 3-6. Well, making children books may sound easy, but there are a lot of things that we need to take into consideration; the safety of the materials we are using, sharp edges things are a "no no", objects and colours that attracts children's attention and most importantly children learnt something after flipping through the books. I believe teachers and parents can easily make these treasures for their students or children at school or at home. It is not that difficult to be creative.

Here are some photos of our work. Enjoy.