Few years ago walking through the streets of Lisbon I stumbled in an old second hand book shop. The piles of books where covering the entire floor. Packed corners of books stacked one on another. Impossible to walk in or find a particular book.
I still think about this scene as a metaphor of our poor brains packed with knowledge and the impossibility to navigate through all we “know”.
How much more knowledge do we need?
What do we do with all the knowledge we already have? It feels at times we produce and consume knowledge compulsively, maybe even without understanding what we “already know”. And, this isn’t just about knowledge management.
While knowledge management is crucial, relying solely on it won’t suffice for our evolution (which is different than growth or development). The capacity to explore, express and engage with the complex impact of the production and consumption of this ever increasing volume of knowledge is not purely knowledge-based.
Creating, changing or influencing a culture requires more than just knowledge management. It must be complemented by continuous learning and un-learning, adaptability, and a focus on evolution.
It is ignorance―not knowledge―that is the true engine of science. Stuart Firestein
It is the ability to continuously inquire for a larger understanding not just on a cognitive level, but also from an emotional and spiritual level that “knowledge” expands into wisdom.
The cult of expertise obscures the very capacity for cultivating a thirst for wisdom. Both business and the education system seem to have a thirst for collecting and accumulating facts, data, knowledge... Both, business and education, reward the answers and not the questions. In so doing we silence people, we silence evolution, we silence the fire of integrated, embodied knowledge which eventually may lead to wisdom.
For us to progress as humankind we need them both: Knowledge and Wisdom.
Art practice expands our awareness and understanding of the world. As a result, our engagement and relationship with what we know about the world, changes. Artists practice the endless art of inquiry allowing the imaginative intellect to create new "knowledge" that is not only new but has the capacity to transform human understanding.
What if art practices challenged our habits and certitude of teaching knowledge? Will it change why, what and how we learn?
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