Omnium Creative Network

I am very pleased to announce the launch of the Omnium Creative Network (OCN), which is what I will be spending quite a bit of my time on from now on. The OCN is a free and non-profit online global community of creative people (students, professionals, educators, theorists, writers) and its aim is to encourage members from all over the world to collaborate in a variety of ways; to focus their attention on more socially aware and ethically responsive art and design projects.

Over the past eight years The Omnium Project has run several global projects exploring creative collaboration online. The last big one, Creative Waves involved 107 participants from 22 countries around the world and included such design luminaries as Stefan Sagmeister and Steven Heller.

I was fortunate enough to be involved in the very first project as well as Creative Waves. Each time a thriving community was built and many engaging conversations and debates were had. But once the projects wound up the community dispersed again. We wanted to continue those conversations, which is what the OCN is all about.

Membership is free and made up of participants from a wide variety of countries worldwide; in particular, we hope, countries less fortunate in terms of having easy access to creative interaction through conferences, publications and exhibitions.  The OCN aims to become a rich research resource and information exchange, as well as a place for its members to get the chance to meet and work with people normally out of reach due to their geographical or socio-economic situation.

Apart from the ongoing content (debate, essays, interviews, guest lectures) we hope to run a project each month for organisations and charities. Suggestions for topics, guests and projects are very welcome.

You can join simply by going to the OCN page, which by should also soon be hosting the top ‘scrape’ of activity in the community as a website called Outline.

It’s crucial that we spread the word far and wide, so if you would like to help you are invited to download this PDF and send it on to people that might be interested. A more detailed PDF outlining some of the above can be found here.

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