Registration

Opening

Choreographies of possibility: Educating so that plurality of creativities is possible

Abstract

We live at a time when humanity is facing profound challenges. In response, we need to radically change our systems of education and professional development so that we can co-author the choreographies of possibility that foster new knowledge systems (epistemologies) and ways of being (ontologies) and doing (creativities). To address our wicked problems, we do not simply need new solutions; we need to look for new sciences and creativities altogether, different forms of knowing, being and doing. In this talk, I will invite you to consider a re-orientating assemblage of choreographies of possibility. I will discuss: (i) the plurality of creativities and its connections with how we articulate the meaning of our lives, both individually and collectively; (ii) materialities of experience that inspire new ways of producing, curating and consuming; and (iii) ontologies of difference that enable us to imagine a multiplicity of creativities that are indeterminate, distributed and collective.

Bio

Pamela Burnard is Professor of Arts, Creativities and Educations at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. She has published widely with 25 books and over 150 articles which advance the theory and practice of multiple creativities across education sectors including early years, primary, secondary, further and higher/further education, through to creative and cultural industries. Current funded projects include ‘Choices, Chances and Transitions around Creative Further and Higher Education’ (funded by The Nuffield Trust) and ‘Digital Playgrounds for Music’ (DPfM) (funded by Huddersfield University). Her most recent books include ‘Eruptive Research: Landscapes on Research in Teaching and Learning’ (Brill-i-Sense) and ‘The Power of Pluralising Creativities’ (Brill-i-Sense). She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA), Fellow of the Chartered College of Teaching, UK and Fellow of the International Society for the Study of Creativity and Innovation (ISSCI) and Professor-in-Residence and Governor at The University of Cambridge Primary School (UCPS).

From Profiles to Principles: A Reflective research Workshop on Possibility Spaces.
Take part in a 90-minute workshop rooted in artistic practices, contributing to a research project on how participants engage with the principles of Possibility Studies and Possibility Spaces. Through visual and movement-based strategies — such as, but not limited to, drawing and guided walks — the workshop will foster individual and collective reflection on shared values, transdisciplinary practices, space, and community.

Researchers and facilitators: Julie Théberge (HUPR-Research center on human potential, Canada) and Véronique Richard (university of Queensland, Australia)

Possibility Studies and Social Media: Navigating the Light and Dark Sides of Online Participation

Vlad Glaveanu, Darragh McCashin, Constance de Saint Laurent, & Brady Wagoner

This symposium explores how social media shapes, expands, and restricts our sense of possibility both individually and collectively. Constance de Saint Laurent examines how conspiracy theories function as possibility-making systems, offering alternative narratives that contest mainstream knowledge while also narrowing horizons through the institution of rigid, dogmatic worldviews. Darragh McCashin focuses on the (im)possible task of combatting the dark side of online behaviours. Using examples from applied interdisciplinary work on masculinity influencers, online racism and online hate, his talk will critically consider the dilemmas of anonymity, online regulation, age appropriateness and safety-by-design when envisioning the future of our online selves. Finally, Vlad Glaveanu draws on an empirical study of Reddit discussions on climate change, conducted with Bruna Segura and Daniel McCarron, to examine how online narratives define horizons of possibility and shape agency for climate action. Using the HOPE (Horizons of Possibility Estimation) methodology, he explores how perspectives, positions, and dialogues within online spaces can either foster hope and engagement or contribute to disillusionment and inaction. Together, these talks invite critical reflection on how online participation can both nurture and threaten possibility in the digital age.

Win free drinks token during the day with our social game, and join us for drinks at the pub The Roost (here)! 

Game instructions in your conference bags. 

Registration

Opening

Empowering excellence (from everywhere)

Bio

Katriona is professor in the Assisting Living & Learning Institute, Department of Psychology, Maynooth University. She is also a memoirist and her first book,Poor, debuted at #1 on the Irish Non-Fiction bestseller list. She is the Principal Investigator on the STEM Passport for Inclusion project, featured on RTE Changemaker series. She has held research grants from the Irish Research Council and Science Foundation Ireland leading initiatives to tackle digital inequality in education.  She also successfully led the largest HEA PATH funded programme entitled Turn to Teaching which focused on diversifying teacher education. She has been invited speaker at the UN, the World Education Forum, the European Gender Action Workshop on Women and Digitalization. She has worked with Irish policy makers to develop policies around education and inclusion. She has published research on equality, gender, education, inclusion and STEM.   

From Profiles to Principles: A Reflective research Workshop on Possibility Spaces.
Take part in a 90-minute workshop rooted in artistic practices, contributing to a research project on how participants engage with the principles of Possibility Studies and Possibility Spaces. Through visual and movement-based strategies — such as, but not limited to, drawing and guided walks — the workshop will foster individual and collective reflection on shared values, transdisciplinary practices, space, and community.

Researchers and facilitators: Julie Théberge (HUPR-Research center on human potential, Canada) and Véronique Richard (university of Queensland, Australia)

Imagining the Creative Campus: Possibilities for Higher and Further Education

Brian Donnellan , Vlad Glaveanu, & Alan Frize

What might a truly creative campus look like, and how can we begin to imagine one together? This interactive symposium introduces The Creative Campus, a national initiative in Ireland launched under the Creative Youth Plan 2023–2027. Spearheaded by the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, in partnership with Creative Ireland, the initiative is currently focused on building a shared understanding of what a Creative Campus could be. At the heart of this effort lies a broad, participatory process involving tertiary education institutions across Ireland, working together to explore and articulate the conditions that enable creativity in higher and further education. In this session, members of the working group will share emerging insights from this national consultation and showcase illustrative examples of creative practices, policies, and partnerships. Participants from around the world are invited to join the conversation: to exchange ideas, compare international perspectives, and contribute to a collective vision of what a Creative Campus could look like. The session will feature facilitated discussion tospark reflection, and seed future collaborations.

Join us for this interactive singing workshop during which we will explore the colours of our voices through vocal warmups, gentle movement, simple harmony and chant. We will also learn Sadhbh's song Lighthouse, which was commissioned by Sing Ireland, Music Generation and Kildare Arts Service, and celebrates the legacy of St Brigid through the lens of social justice. No singing experience required.

If you are taking part in the conference dinner, you are then invited to join in with the song during Wednesday evening's concert when Sadhbh will perform a short set of songs for collective, active hope.

Bio

Sadhbh O'Sullivan is a songwriter, musician and socially engaged artist based in Kildare. Drawing on a wealth of experience and training in the area of Arts & Health, Sadhbh love to offer workshops that blend singing with creativity and movement, and has facilitated outreach programmes on behalf of the National Concert Hall, the Irish Hospice Foundation, Sing Ireland, IMRO and the HSE. Sadhbh is also musical director of dementia-friendly community choir Voices of Spring, and co-founder of Embrace Music - a social enterprise currently producing a multi-disciplinary exploration of voice and identity called Thank You For Hearing Me. Her latest album We Begin in Darkness was described as 'hugely impressive' by Paul McLoone on RTE Arena and 'captivating' by Hot Press Magazine, and her most recent release is a musical setting of Refaat Alareer's poem If I Must Die in aid of Doctors Without Borders' work in Palestine. 

Registration

Opening

Trans theoretics as creative possibility

Abstract

Like queer theory emerging from the more static fields of gay, lesbian and gender studies, trans theoretics emerge out of queer theory and postgenderism into something broader still. There have been several articulations of the liberatory potential of a ‘postgender’ society, but in this talk I will return to Shulasmith Firestone’s 1970 book The Dialectic of Sex, and Donna Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto. I do so to explore the possibility of a trans theoretic that might offer us a ‘third way/space’ in which to move into the unknown, one that does not demand an arrival—teleologically, socially, or technologically. Like queer theory, a trans theoretic offers the possibility of going beyond established binary biases in scholarship. Trans theoretics suggest ways of thinking and doing that are not linear, are not even directional, are not about moving from point ‘a’ to point ‘b’, but rather about moving itself, and the joys, affordances, and limitless creative potential of moving into ourselves during times of terrifying change

Bio

Daniel X. Harris (they/them) is a Professor in the School of Education, and Director of Creative Agency research lab: www.creativeresearchhub.com . Harris is editor of the book series Creativity, Education and the Arts (Palgrave), and has authored, co-authored or edited 22 books and over 150 chapters and articles as well as plays, films and spoken word performances. Their research focuses on creativity studies, cultural, sexual and gender diversities, and on performance and activism. They are committed to the power of collaborative creative practice and social justice research to inform social change.

From Profiles to Principles: A Reflective research Workshop on Possibility Spaces.
Take part in a 90-minute workshop rooted in artistic practices, contributing to a research project on how participants engage with the principles of Possibility Studies and Possibility Spaces. Through visual and movement-based strategies — such as, but not limited to, drawing and guided walks — the workshop will foster individual and collective reflection on shared values, transdisciplinary practices, space, and community.

Researchers and facilitators: Julie Théberge (HUPR-Research center on human potential, Canada) and Véronique Richard (university of Queensland, Australia)

All conference attendees are warmly invited to the 5th General Assembly of the Possibility Studies Network (PSN), a key moment for the community to reflect, connect, and plan ahead. This session will offer an overview of the Network’s activities over the past year, including highlights from events, working groups, and publications. It will also serve as a space to collectively shape future directions, with discussions about upcoming initiatives (such as the 2026 conference) and opportunities to get involved.

Whether you are a long-time member or engaging with PSN for the first time, the General Assembly is an open forum for sharing ideas. All are welcome.

Conference dinner

We’re pleased to invite all participants to the conference dinner at Sásta by the River, a relaxed, casual tapas-style eatery located at 23 Mill Street, right along the River Lyreen in Maynooth. The dinner offers a chance to continue conversations in an informal setting over good food and drinks. Space is limited, and registration is open until Monday, 30th June at 5:00 p.m., or until capacity is reached. Registration here. 

Don't forget to join the interactive music workshop on Tuesday at 4:40pm if you want to participate in the collective performance during the dinner!

Registration

Opening

The Study of Creative Pedagogy as a Possibility for Informing Creative Practice  

Abstract

Education at any level can be a distinct catalyst for endless possibilities to occur and advance. This early career keynote speech aims to inspire others to interact with and partake in possibility thinking, using imagination and promoting creativity, by virtue of results uncovered and communicated from recent research conducted on teachers’ engagement with creativity in the Irish post-primary Music classroom. Helping to advocate how creativity, imagination and possibility study practice may enhance both teachers’ and students’ teaching and learning experiences in the classroom, an outline of teachers’ agency, beliefs about creativity in education, and teachers’ self-efficacy will be described. Interestingly, this research draws on some conflicting evidence between self-reporting on creative practice and description of engagement with creative practice. Evidence from this research will also highlight teachers concerns in incorporating creativity and imagination into their teaching while acknowledging the dichotomy between needing creativity and imagination in education, and teaching to the test. The possibilities within pedagogic practice in classrooms are diverse. I will leave the audience with the question: Why not extend a hand to invite multiple possibilities into the education sphere through employing creative pedagogy and seeing where it may take the learners of today and tomorrow?

Bio

Dr Jenny O’Sullivan is a musicologist, a post-primary Music and English educator and a music and creativity researcher. She has considerable interest in the integration of music in the community, the accessibility of music and music education for all, the creative endeavours of teachers and their students, and an enthusiasm for leadership in creativity within music education in particular, as well as in all areas of curriculum study and schooling. Jenny has served as a member of a development group for Cork Education and Training Board’s Arts in Education Strategy (2022), developing a framework for arts provision within Cork ETB schools. Her research interests are multitudinous including music, music education, creativity, creativity and imagination in education, possibility studies, creative leadership and arts education and policy.

From Profiles to Principles: A Reflective research Workshop on Possibility Spaces.
Take part in a 90-minute workshop rooted in artistic practices, contributing to a research project on how participants engage with the principles of Possibility Studies and Possibility Spaces. Through visual and movement-based strategies — such as, but not limited to, drawing and guided walks — the workshop will foster individual and collective reflection on shared values, transdisciplinary practices, space, and community.

Researchers and facilitators: Julie Théberge (HUPR-Research center on human potential, Canada) and Véronique Richard (university of Queensland, Australia)

Registration

Opening

Space to Create: Expanding Possibilities, Meaning-Making and Collaboration

Le Groupe Ouest has been focusing for years on generating new creative and collaborative processes for screenwriters (cinema & series) in order to boost their elaborations as much as deepen their ability to generate meaning. Hundreds of writers, coming from all over the world, came to us in order to test our collaborative tools, with consistent results, dozens of films awarded in Cannes, Berlin, Sundance, Venice...

And year after year, we looked at our job with a perspective reaching beyond the world of cinema or series. It started 20 years ago, with an obvious observation. The act of writing in itself, most of the time blocks the creative process more than liberating it, as well as it blocks the possibility of introducing any real collaboration. We started to inject orality into the process, from as many angles as possible, bringing a much liberated substance, bringing also all the qualities the phenomenon of flow generates when we tell. In order to densify the layers with which we were playing, we brought huge paper boards allowing the writers to draw, to sketch, to generate collages of any kind...

And one day, we felt the need to use spatial means instead of flat boards to populate and deepen imaginary worlds. We ended up generating a GREENHOUSE aimed at idea generation, which not only opened a whole range of creative possibilities, but also allowed a renewed use of collaborative set ups. Because space allows presence, and not only the presence of one, but the excited presence of 3, 4, 5 collaborators in the process. And the GREENHOUSE started to open possibilities for education, ecology, politics...

Bio

Screenwriter, Founder & Artistic Director of Le Groupe Ouest Following a first life as a sailor fascinated by mathematics and an interrupted Phd in philosophy at the Sorbonne, he graduated from the CEEA in Paris (the French conservatory for film writing) in 1996. After writing and directing a few awarded short films, a Chamber Opera in Paris as well on-stage experiments with a Philharmonic Orchestra in Prague, he co-wrote the 3D animation series Ratz, wrote for independent cinema with directors like Atiq Rahimi or Lucile Hadzihalilovic, and won the Gan Foundation Prize as a writer in 2005. 

In 2005, he founded LE GROUPE OUEST in western Brittany/France, a place created by writers for writers in a seaside village. Le Groupe Ouest has become a leading place in Europe for the coaching of the script development phase in residency (more than two thousand writers and filmmakers from all over the world coached in the last 20 years). Since 2015, he launched a focus on the ideation phase (called Pre-writing), which path of research led him to launch the StoryTANK a European think tank putting together screenwriters and researchers coming from various fields (cognitive science, physiology, anthropology, phenomenology…), in order to open new understandings and perspectives.

Only for participants who have registered for the bus on the centre launch registration form. 

To close the 5th International Conference of Possibility Studies, we warmly invite you to the launch of the DCU Centre for Possibility Studies, a new interdisciplinary research hub dedicated to creativity, imagination, futures thinking, and human flourishing. Held at the historic 1838 Club on DCU’s Glasnevin campus, the event features talks, music, and opportunities for informal exchange. A coach transfer from Maynooth University will be available for registered participants.

Programme Overview

• Welcome Remarks
  Professor Vlad Glăveanu, Director of the DCU Centre for Possibility Studies

• Book Introduction
  The Creative Imperative, presented by editor Michael O’Reilly
  A cross-disciplinary volume highlighting the central role of creativity in times of uncertainty

• Keynote Talk
  FRICTION: Forged through Resistance, Impasse & Challenge
  Dr. Wendy Ross (London Metropolitan University)
  On how obstacles can become catalysts for creativity

• Live Music Performance
  Diogo Monzo, Brazilian pianist and composer

• Drinks Reception
  Light refreshments and informal discussion

Location

The event will take place at the 1838 Club, located on DCU’s Glasnevin Campus in Dublin. The venue is easily accessible and offers a unique blend of historic charm and modern facilities. A coach will depart from Maynooth University for registered participants. 

For participants wishing to return to Maynooth, there are direct trains from Drumcondra station (a short bus ride from DCU) multiple times an hour.