Your conferences have a clear motto: “Creativity, right
of emergency.” Ever since I work in the development and promotion of creativity, I have always said that creativity is a right and that it is urgent. It is the right that we have people and peoples to have our own uniqueness and identity to transform and advance from our own style. And it's urgent because in these times of precariousness, suffering and destruction of the planet, we have to find new solutions, without creating new problems. And those solutions can be found by the ability to imagine and imagine new paths that we have people. Sometimes, you don't need to take a 180 degree turn, a 10 degree turn can cause a big change. The Age of Industry, the Age of Information and the Age of Knowledge. Now it's the turn of the Age of Imagination. What you imagine is not what I imagine, and that good will be the starting point.

We often limit creativity to art and culture.
Creativity is global and has many levels. Creativity requires decision-making, commitment to a solution, and every day we are making decisions. Some have it more developed than others, but creativity is a biological thing, human beings are creative and our evolution is constant. Creativity consists of deciding, imagining, dreaming and making other realities a reality, putting the seal of oneself ... And although we may be more prone to some areas, we ourselves should extend our creative strength to all areas, because in the background everything is related, for example, music with math, colors, word… Nothing is isolated and closed.

If we are all talents, there is a lot of potential… In
addition to individual creativity, there is collective intelligence, because 2+2 is not 4, the result can be 40 or 100,000, for the synergies and relationships that are generated. When you're interacting with others, you're creating a new culture, and the society itself is the one that creates. The key is to foster talent and people's participation, and there are examples of experiences that have managed to reactivate and bring the neighborhood and the community together. Here in Euskal Herria, you are based on action and auzolan; on that road you can go far. Some ideas come from thinking, feeling others (which have a lot to do with emotions) and others from doing or exchanging. Basque society operates above all, so when I see that on many occasions the Basques meet and think to draw ideas, repeating Anglo-Saxon models, I tell them that creative techniques have to adapt to their own methodology (action and auzolan).

It is sad, sad, sad and immoral, not to develop all those capacities that we have, because the Gross Domestic Product of a people is the talent of the citizens. Everyone has talent, we're all born to do something very well, with the ability to create something new, and that's wasted. I've been working in this field for over 50 years, and I haven't met anyone who doesn't have a creative power yet. I have met people who have been despised, who have self-censored and despised, who have not been able to communicate and express everything they have inside… but not without talent. The problem is that creativity is not fostered, neither in education, nor through the media, nor creating suitable spaces for it.

Is creative people despised and belittled?
History itself has taught us that great creators have not been recognized many times, until they have spent some time, having killed the creator several times. We're afraid of change because moving within parameters that we have internalized is very comfortable and creating means questioning everything, questioning your world and taking a risk, and we often prefer to have everything very marked, because that's how we don't have to make any effort and it gives us security. To be loved, we often do what others do so not to be “weird” or “different.” And that, unfortunately, has happened since childhood. Therefore, it is necessary to facilitate spaces and environments that allow personal development, favor diversity and interaction.

“To create is to question
our world.” When progress is made, you've broken one rule to create another one. It would be the theory of chaos: when everything is neatly ordered, in the end things are like dead; you have to remove the chaos to create something new. Nature also works like this. It is very important to break the rules, because one of the keys to creating them is to unlearn, to get rid of concepts and attitudes that have become obsolete and outdated. This does not mean that tradition has to be abandoned, but that tradition is a legacy conceived and created by previous generations, a necessary basis for moving forward, but without being hooked on it.

How to develop creativity?For
me, atmospheres are more important than techniques, allowing environments and spaces that help create. The key is to believe in people, to understand that what you have in front of you is unique and that if you give yourself the opportunity you can bring a lot. In the case of oneself, we must trust ourselves, become aware of how much we can give ourselves. From there, passion is the motor that will give us strength to act. As has already been said, insofar as this is a danger, courage is also needed. And courage, courage, because surely we will be criticized, or we will have to fail and start again. Imagination, of course, is fundamental to seeing other possible realities and worlds; it all serves in imagination, including utopias. We are asking for a table to be drawn and nobody is going to represent the same table, with different nuances. Finally, being perseverant is also important, insistent, and I do not mean effort, because I do not like the word effort, it is punitive.

“Innovation” in the business world is a fashionable word, and on many occasions it seems that everything is worth in its nombre.La innovation is necessary for society to thrive, the problem is how that innovation arises, and it is true that often innovation is made only by innovation, without
first having worked creativity, and the seed of innovation is creativity. A team that works creativity, without seeking it, will always be innovative. The problem is that, being a venal concept in the market, there are scammers with the approval of experts who do business, organizing small workshops on innovation. It also has a very Anglo-Saxon vision.

In today's neoliberal society, is there a risk of using and devaluing creativity for economic purposes?
Yes, it also goes on a streak. Precisely, the creativity that was interested was fashionable a few years ago. In short, from the moment when the neoliberal model tries to control the concept, we must ask ourselves: What is creativity for? Creativity doesn't have to be linked to good, a torturer can be very creative in that task, can have a lot of imagination making others suffer. The ethical perspective should be taken into account.

When he worked as a pedagogical advisor on the television channel TVE, he participated, among others, in the rupturistic program La Bola de Cristal. Lolo Rico, director of the program, told us at ARGIA that the message was freedom, that everyone thought for themselves. Creativity has a lot to do with freedom.
Yes, and not just by thinking freely, because our singularity is linked to thinking, feeling and doing. Moreover, thought is not always yours, another has been able to think for you, but the feeling is yours, absolutely.

Creativity has to do with inner freedom: you can be imprisoned in jail and keep creating, and be on the street but you can be a jailer, because you're very self-critical, because you reject ideas that don't fit into your rigid schemes, because you do what those around you expect...

Does current television promote freedom and uniqueness?
It bothers me to see how such a useful tool is used to increase knowledge, to know new worlds and to create new societies.

And how does the education system see? In fact, it seems that in childhood creativity is worked more, through drawing and labor, inventing stories, playing... and from a certain age all this is interrupted.
Don't think about it, sometimes the imagination of the child is frustrated from childhood, and on the contrary, I've met teachers of more or less beautiful poquitos who believe in the students and who develop strategies to develop their creativity. The problem is that it is often the educational system itself that limits this work, because in Primary and Secondary there is so much bureaucracy and additional work that teachers do not have time to dedicate it to what they really have to offer, to be provocative of the student, to be peers on the way to get their talent out. It's a castrating, planned educational model that drives everyone to work by the same means and content at the same time, instead of prioritizing imagination, autonomy, self-creativity. A tip for teachers: without loving you can't teach, because education is an act of love and you won't educate the student if you don't love him, if you don't trust him. I speak this in capital letters.

We talk about children, but in the case of the elderly, do you think we tend to prune their creativity, as if they were exhausted from an age?Doing that is a huge loss, because the experience is accumulating, and the older the creator of the whole life, the more
developed the competition will be. The platform they have launched in Spain is a sign that older people continue to create: For the Right to Continue Creating. If you're retired, you can't collect copyright for making a book, a movie, or anything else, and you're fighting that. Because it's not logical that if you have stocks, real estate or not, then yes, you can collect the pension and the rest, but in the case of creation you can't.

SPACE OF WITCHCRAFT TO ENRICH BASQUE CULTURE

The key to creating the environment, if it is the atmosphere, is the perfect place to awaken our creative sense, Iñiguez stressed. “It’s a space with a magnificent perspective: how nature and art connect, that anyone who wants to create can come, regardless of their age or their field. I have been here for a few days and there have been very interesting people: girls who want to join together to form a music group, a group of boys who want to organize a show, feminists who have shared experiences… People come into the kitchen, as if they were at home, and that is worth a lot, gives an opportunity for exchange and synergies.”

The sorcery area of Garaion is located in a large hamlet of Ozaeta, in Álava, in a beautiful setting. “It is a space of creation, aimed at creators and creators, to stimulate their creative works, their research and their experiences of new experiences; and, through it, to stimulate their creative capacity in the community, enriching the imaginary of the Basque culture in Euskera,” said the members of the project. Amaia Gabilondo, Julia López and Ainara Arrieta lead the project.

In the image on the left, Marga Iñiguez and Amaia Gabilondo dialogue. On the right, by the maze of corn that they've built in Garaion.