agIdeas No. 01 | Shaun Tan

agIdeas is an annual International Design Week.  Each year agIdeas brings 40 internationally acclaimed creative people to Melbourne, those who have pushed the boundaries and excelled in their area of creativity.

This year was the first year that either of us attended and we enjoyed the experience very much and came away feeling very inspired and excited. So, we're going to turn what we learnt and got excited about into a bit of a feature.  For the next couple of days, we will share highlights from the 2012 agIdeas.

To see a full list of the speakers and learn a bit more about agIdeas, head over to their website.

No. 1  |  Shaun Tan [website]

If you don't know who this guy is, you need to get on it right now! 

I'll let you find out more about him on his website, because I want to talk more about what he said in his presentation.

• He works from his home. Alone. This is reflected in much of his work
• Tan is guided by a sense of 'rightness'. He doesn't question it - if it feels right, it is. 
• He is inspired by small and seemingly insignificant things and it's the encounter with something unknown and how me make sense of new things that he finds interesting.
• There is strangeness in everyday life that we often fail to see because our life becomes routine and 'normal' - if you actually stop and look at things, it doesn't take long to realise how strange the things we do are! 

I actually felt a deep connection to the things Tan was saying.  Too often we [or should I say 'I'] reject everyday life as being boring and uninspiring, but if we stop and open our eyes (really open them), we would see how much we miss.

This theme is explored in Tan's book 'The Red Tree' and also 'The Lost Thing' (which was also made into an animation that is definitely worth watching!!)

I think the thing that I took away from Tan's talk is that we should try to look at things as if we had never seen them before and with some imagination. Not only as a way of boosting creativity and getting inspired, but as a way of living life, really living it.