You do this all the time.
You start with a clear sense of where something is going before you know every step. You feel the arc of a performance before it begins. You can hear the finished piece before anyone else can. Then you build it.
That is not guesswork. It is a real skill.
You are already an expert at imagining a future that hasn’t arrived yet.
The systems shaping daily life do not have this skill. Education, local government, public discourse: they plan, regulate, and react. They rarely imagine something alive in advance. That gap shows up everywhere. Uninspired experiences, defensive decision-making, a lack of vision people can feel.
You have felt it. You care about what is happening in the world. You have strong instincts about what could be better, more human, more alive. But the paths offered to you do not fit. Run for office. Join a committee. Adapt to systems designed to strip out the very way you think.
So, you stay in your lane, keep making your work, and the distance remains.
Res Creativa will be a different entry point.
We won’t ask artists to become politicians (although we’re tempted).
We will create a way for creative practitioners to contribute in the ways they already know how:
- by connecting across disciplines and places
- by treating creative thinking as a civic resource
- by opening pathways into civic life that honor, not replace, your practice
In just a few weeks, two dozen artists and creative practitioners have added their names as early signatories. They’re not celebrities. They are not waiting for permission. They are establishing the foundation of what will be … because they can imagine it.
If you recognize yourself in this, add your name. There’s no obligation to perform. No requirement to change your path. Just a clear signal that our way of thinking belongs in the rooms where decisions are made.
Editor’s Note (2026): This essay was written during the earliest days of Res Creativa, when the project was first being imagined. It remains here as part of the organization’s founding story.
A version of this post was originally published on Substack, May 2, 2026
Banner image: Isaac Cruikshank, The Moment of Reflection or a Tale for Future Times!!! (1796), Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, CC0 1.0
