Creative Life Curation: Turning Experiences into Meaningful Achievements

Last updated on 20 May 2023

A Possible Book for Knowledge Creators and Experience Curators

3 parts
11 chapters
40 articles
Total 624 min read
Total 165,360 words (about 330 single-spaced pages)

In 2019, I found CALL (Creative Action Learning Lab) as a personal studio for my independent knowledge discovery. From Oct 2020 to Oct 2021. I run CALL as a knowledge curation studio that produced a set of knowledge frameworks and built an ecology of ideas.

The primary theme of CALL is Creative Action. Originally, it referred to my approach to creativity research: the “Process as Product” approach. You can find more details in The NICE Way and Creative Actions.

Later, it led to the Path of Creative Life and a series of possible books: Aspects of Creative Life. See the diagram below.

In the past 12 months, I developed a new structure of units of analysis:

1. Creative Actions
2. Creative Projects
3. Creative Journey
4. Creative Life

I also mentioned these four units of analysis in the following possible books:

1. Ecological Practice Design > Creative Actions
2. Project Engagement > Creative Projects
3. Creative Life Curation > Creative Journeys
4. Advanced Life Strategy > Creative Life

Each book also introduces a theoretical framework.

1. Ecological Practice Design > The Lifesystem Framework
2. Project Engagement > The Developmental Project Model
3. Creative Life Curation > The Creative Life Curation Framework
4. Advanced Life Strategy > The Anticipatory Activity Framework

These four books are developed for different purposes. Now I curate them together as a new meaningful whole!

This article introduces Creative Life Curation: Turning Experiences into Meaningful Achievements.

The Creative Life Project
The Creative Life Curation Project
The Art of Knowledge Curation
The Art of Experience Curation
Becoming A Life Curator
A Possible Book
PART 1: A Theory of Life Curation
PART 2: Becoming A Life Curator
PART 3: Aspects of Creative Life

The Creative Life Project

In 2022, I used the Thematic Landscape Map to manage my knowledge projects. Though the Creative Life project is hosted by CALL (Creative Action Learning Lab), it also connects to other knowledge centers.

The Creative Life project became a collaborative project between the following four knowledge centers:

CALL: From “Creative Actions” to “Creative Life”
Life Strategy Center: “Life Strategy” for Knowledge Creators
Curativity Center: “Life Curation” for Knowledge Creators
Activity Analysis Center: “Activity Analysis” for Knowledge Creators

We can see the Creative Life Curation project as a sub-project of the Creative Life project.

The Creative Life Curation Project

From the perspective of Curativity Center, the Creative Life Curation project is part of the journey of building the knowledge enterprise of Curativity Theory.

In 2019, I wrote a book titled Curativity: The Ecological Approach to General Curation Practice.

I have been working in the curation field for over ten years. I was the Chief Information Architect of BagTheWeb which was an early tool for content curation (We launched the site in 2010). This experience inspired me to make a long-term commitment to the Curation theme. After having 10 years of various curation-related practical work experience and theory learning, I coined a term called Curativity and developed Curativity Theory which became a book.

The new term Curativity refers to “curating pieces into a meaningful whole” which means general curatorial practice. The reason why I coined the term is that I was not satisfied with the specific view of curation such as “professional curation means art and museum.” I argued that there is a need to redefine “curatorial practice” as a general social activity and a universal experience. In other words, I was calling for an interdisciplinary view of curation or curatorial practice.

Why do I use the term General Curation?

Museum curators and Art curators tend to use Curatorial Practice to refer to their professional activities. I consider Curatorial Practice as a subcategory of General Curation. From the perspective of Curativity Theory, the following social practices are considered part of the family of General Curation.

Educational activities
Event organizing and curating
Web content curation
Knowledge Curation
Publishing and editing a catalog or a magazine.
Toy Curation
Grocery shopping and other types of shopping
etc.

Thus, General Curation is about social practices which require selecting, collecting, organizing, presenting, and reflecting. It goes beyond the scope of traditional professional Curatorial Practice.

In the past three years, I worked on several general curation projects. See the diagram below.

The primary project was the Knowlege Curation project (Phase 1, 2020–2022). This project aimed to Connect THEORY and PRACTICE by turning Pieces into a meaningful Whole.

Started on June 26, 2020
Closed on Oct 18, 2022

Now I am working on the Creative Life Curation project.

The Knowledge Curation project is about connecting THEORY and PRACTICE.

The Creative Life Curation project is about turning Individual Life Experiences into Collective Culture. It refers to both personal innovation and cultural innovation.

In 2019, I also developed a framework for General Life Curation.

Now we see a path:

1) Knowledge Curation -> 2) Creative Life Curation -> 3) General Life Curation -> 4) General Curation Practice

The Art of Knowledge Curation

The Creative Life Curation project produces two results.

A Semiotic System Diagram as a theoretical framework
A Model of Creative Life Curation

The first one is about the art of knowledge curation while the second one is about the art of experience curation.

In the past several months I developed several frameworks for creative life development from different theoretical perspectives. This led to a challenge:

How to curate these perspectives together for the Life Strategy project?

The answer is Ping-keung Lui’s theoretical sociology. I used it as a reference frame to curate three paths and four frameworks together.

The structure of Lui’s theoretical sociology is a nested structure. See the diagram below. According to Lui, “The realism comprises a subjectivist structuralism and an objectivist stock of knowledge, while the hermeneutics is an interpretation and an analysis. Second, I shall present an ontology that nests the realism within its boundaries.” (p.250, 2016, Aspects of Sociological Explanation)

I used Lui’s nested structure to connect my four frameworks:

The Anticipatory Activity System (AAS) framework
The Life — History Complex
The Creative Life Curation framework
The Path of Creative Life

See the diagram below:

It’s clear that these frameworks are located at different layers.

Ontology: The Path of Creative Life and The Life — History Complex
Realism: The Anticipatory Activity System (AAS) Framework
Hermeneutics: The Creative Life Curation Framework

Lui’s approach also offers a brand-new tool called “Semiotic System Diagram” which is a set of concepts that are connected together. He used the same method of mapping the semiotic system of theoretical sociology to map other sociological theories. By comparing different semiotic system diagrams with the semiotic system diagram of theoretical sociology, he can use his theoretical sociology to support and contain many empirical sociological theories.

I also made two semiotic systems diagrams for the new theoretical framework. The first one offers a global view. You can find more details in Three Paths of Creative Life and A Semiotic System.

The second one expands the third part which offers details of the Creative Life Curation framework. See the diagram below. You can find a large-size picture in A Semiotic System Diagram for Creative Life Curation.

This is an amazing theoretical knowledge curation project!

While the primary theme is claimed, the concrete solution is not clear. The primary theme is the transformation between individual actions and collective culture.

From three different theoretical approaches, I developed three paths for understanding the primary theme. How can I curate these paths into a meaningful whole?

I need a new knowledge container to contain these three pieces.

The solution is clear. I can use a meta-theory as the container. Lui’s theoretical sociology is a such meta-theory.

The Art of Experience Curation

The second semiotic systems diagram also refers to the Creative Life Curation framework.

In the past three years, I worked on the Knowledge Curation project. On Sept 18, 2022, I designed a cover image for a possible book Knowledge Curation and used it to close the Knowledge Curation project (phase 1). After reflecting on the journey, I made the above diagram.

I roughly use five movements to model my journey of the Knowledge Curation project. These five movements form a basic model for understanding Creative Life Curation. I also use First-wave, Second-wave, and Third-wave to describe the dynamics of the model. All these dynamics can be found in my journey.

You can find more details in The Creative Life Curation Framework.

The notion of “Creative Life Curation” refers to turning Life Experiences into Developmental Resources, and Meaningful Achievement.

I consider “Creative Life Curation” as a specific life strategy for knowledge creators.

Why did I choose this picture?

It refers to a metaphor:

First-order Experience and Second-order Experience

First-order Experience refers to normal life experiences. The girl sees the ocean.

Second-order Experience refers to Creative Life Curation. We need to curate pieces of normal life experiences into a meaningful whole.

How can we do it?

According to Curativity Theory, we need a container to turn pieces into a meaningful whole.

We need a frame to frame life experiences.

The frame brings us Second-order Experience.

I also developed five units of analysis for the Creative Life Curation project:

Action > Project > Journey > Landscape > Lifescape

I have developed a Creative Life Curation framework containing five analysis units.

1. Creative Actions
2. Creative Projects
3. Creative Journey
4. Creative Landscape
5. Creative Lifescope

The framework also highlights the following three types of “Curativity”:

Curativity 1: Turning pieces of Projects into a Journey as a meaningful whole
Curativity 2: Turning pieces of Projects into a Landscape as a meaningful whole
Curativity 3: Turning pieces of Actions and Projects into a Lifescope as a meaningful whole

It’s an open framework!

If we can discover a new significant aspect of Creative Life and develop a corresponding method, we can add Curativity 4 and related keywords to the diagram.

Or, we can add Curativity 1.5 or Curativity 2.5 to the diagram.

Becoming A Life Curator

As mentioned above, While First-order Experience is directly given, it requires using Techniques to detective Second-order Experience. See the diagram below.

For example, Immediate Experience is directly given by everyday life events and actions. It belongs to First-order Experience.

If we don’t reflect on Immediate Experience intently, we can’t acquire deep meaning and knowledge under Immediate Experience. The Reflection brings us Reflective Experience which belongs to Second-order Experience.

The above diagram highlights five techniques:

Reflection
Activity Analysis
Deep Analogy
Thematic Analysis
Biographical Analysis

These techniques are part of several methods I developed recently. You can find more details in the following articles:

Project Engagement (v2): Life, History, and Multiverse (July 21, 16 min read)
Mapping Thematic Journey (Engaging with Activity Theory, 2020–2022) — (Sep 15, 37 min read)
Mapping Thematic Landscape (Curativity, 2019–2022) — (Sep 5, 27 min read)
The “Activity — Opportunity” Thematic Dialogue — (Sep 22, 19 min read)
The Echoes of A Thematic Dialogue — (Sep 26, 13 min read)
The “5A” Slow Cognition Model — (Oct 12, 18 min read)
A Typology for Anticipatory Activity System — (Nov 4, 9 min read)
Life Strategy: The “Possible Journey” — (June 10, 9 min read)
Platform Genidentity: The Movements of Unfolding Uniqueness — (May 29, 18 min read)

As mentioned above, the Creative Life Curation framework is an open framework. We can develop more units of analysis and more techniques for curators.

While I made a distinction between Actors and Curators, a creator can be both an actor and a curator. In other words, a person can run a self-guided Creative Life Curation project.