In Art Thinking we do not care about clients and users. We do not look for the fit between the product and the market. The focus is on the fit between the project and the creators. The aim is to enable creators to find their passion and embody their work. The second main difference is that there are no brainstorming phases and post-its. In Art Thinking, we do not seek the abundance of ideas, but a critical stance.

Art Thinking is an agile method. There are many similarities with other methods: rapid prototyping, regular feedback, test and learn approach for instance. In fact, Art Thinking is a great complement to Design and Business Thinking, as it helps you challenge your frame of reference. It comes as a first cornerstone for your project, from which you can then add building blocks (i.e. use Design Thinking to find new innovative solutions for specific use cases, or leverage methods like Lean Start Up and the Business Model Canvas to boost your growth and profitability).

Art Thinking can boost the transformation of large organizations through the adoption of a creative mindset and practices. It can be used for specific business units involved in innovation and intrapreneurship as well as to develop entrepreneurial leadership.

We apprehend modern and contemporary art. Our most common references during the Art Thinking workshops are as follows: cubism (e.g. Picasso), ready-made (e.g. Marcel Duchamp), pop art (e.g. Andy Warhol), situationism (e.g. Guy Debord), fluxus (e.g. Robert Filliou), institutional critique (e.g. Haans Haacke), relational aesthetics (e.g. Rikrit Tiravanija), performance (e.g. Marina Abramovic), artivism (e.g. Eva and Franco Mattes), appropriation (e.g. Richard Prince), digital art (e.g. Christophe Bruno).

Beyond the core references listed above, we try to select a sample of art and entrepreneurial practices from your local culture. In other words, when we do this workshop in Japan, we share cases from Japanese artists and companies. Moreover, the projects developed by participants are mostly connected to broad challenges which are experienced locally.

Prior to the workshop, we suggest themes like artificial intelligence, circular economy, fintech, which are assigned to each team in advance. These topics are usually connected to key social, technological or economical transformations. On top of that, some workshops can have an overarching theme, like sustainability or digitalization.