This spotlight is dedicated to Manuela Bosch, a creative professional who has spent decades designing spaces for transformation, activation and realization.
With transformation written all over the walls, now feels like the perfect time to start the creative process again with a blank space.
In this interview, Manuela invites us to consider how dreams evolve and sometimes need to be released, much like the natural cycles of life and creativity. We’ll discuss the process of change, creativity as regeneration, and how we can rediscover ourselves.
The past
Could you tell us about yourself and what Dragon Dreaming means to you?
Dragon Dreaming has been one of my core practices for facilitating transformation in projects and teams for many years, and it still essentially informs my internal operating system.
In 2010, I travelled around India for three months. I had just left my job in advertising, which involved working on the launch of the first iPhone. I am grateful to have been part of this revolution, and I had some really great colleagues. However, it was also a conflicting job because I have always been critical of profit-driven systems, and I was working right in the heart of one.
During this time, I didn’t feel complete; I felt divided. Neither a career in advertising nor simply being a ‘punk’ felt right for me. I hid my profession when I went raving in Bar25, and I kept my critical concerns at work to myself. While travelling, I discovered yoga as a practice and a philosophy. It is a philosophy based on promoting wholeness. I realised that my tension disappeared when I stepped out of an ‘either/or’ mindset and started thinking in terms of ‘both’ and creative complexity, embracing balancing acts.
When I returned from India, I realised that I wanted to adopt this mindset in my life. However, I wondered how I could apply it to work, business and society. With this question in mind, I started working on a social creative project. The vision was to realise a gigantic multi-generational, multicultural endeavour through a collective building project in a central location in Berlin. I quickly realised that the project management and facilitation skills I had acquired in advertising were not transferable to emerging, chaotic and volatile environments. A collaborator and later a close Dragon Dreaming colleague, pointed me towards Dragon Dreaming. And that was exactly what I needed. This framework and methodology was truly the answer to my heart’s longing.
“Everything starts with a dream.” How do you understand this concept today, especially at this stage?
I have to admit, I came to a point where I am questioning the idea of big visions. I don’t believe anymore that one just needs to have a strong enough purpose and vision in order to create something powerful or meaningful.
On the one hand, I feel I have failed so often in my attempts to create something big and successful in terms of numbers. On the other hand, I believe the stories we tell ourselves about success are part of the problems we have in the world today. They promote ideas of ownership, control, and overestimation of one’s abilities.
Dragon Dreaming, as I practise it, helps projects at every stage of their lifecycle, from conception to completion and beyond. When projects follow the Dragon Dreaming cycle, they undergo a powerful test. It soon becomes clear whether the collective dream that the group is carrying is meant to be implemented in this form, with this team and at this time. The process acts as a catalyst, helping to propel a project forward in the direction it is meant to go, rather than according to an individual’s preconceived ideas.
I am currently reading Vanessa Machado de Oliveira’s most recent book, Outgrowing Modernity, which I would highly recommend to anyone who wants to ‘do good’. She writes, ‘Given our socialisation within modernity, we tend to underestimate the depth, magnitude and extent of problems, while overestimating the effectiveness of our solutions, consultations, dialogue, planning strategies and enthusiasm.’ I still believe in dreams and visions. However, I place greater importance on what we call ‘deep listening’ in Dragon Dreaming. This allows me to grasp ‘the depth, magnitude and extent of problems’ before I start planning and taking action. It is a type of listening that continues while I am planning and taking action, allowing me to consider alternatives, realign, and stop what I am doing if necessary. I’m not saying that I’m very good at it, but I can’t help but aim for it.
What have you learned about collaboration from creative, social & regenerative projects?
As early as the beginning of my 15-year journey working with social and regenerative projects, I had a big ‘aha’ moment. Collaborations in this field are not much different to projects in the dominant system. There are issues of power and control, as well as many blind spots.
In a field where people are driven by strong beliefs about right and wrong, they can be even less open and collaborative when things go against their will.
I realized that the challenges around collaboration can be even greater than in work environments with set hierarchical structures and job descriptions, where people know from the outset that their scope of impact is limited by these structures. Anyone who doesn’t understand might want to read the famous article ‘The Tyranny of Structurelessness’ by Jo Freeman.
At the same time, it is especially regenerative and social projects that try new things and question their way of working that are interested in ‘collaborating sincerely’, as my friend Felix Weth promotes. Cooperative working structures and governance systems exist, and many social and regenerative projects apply them.
In summary, I have learned that social and regenerative projects can only work if we dedicate ourselves to developing and expanding our relational and regenerative skills. For example, we must learn to manage conflict together, prevent burnout and exploitation at all levels, and recognise our complicity in creating harm while performing our ‘good deeds’. For me, these are the true future skills.
The renewal
You mentioned the power of letting go and creating space for renewal. How do you see “endings” as part of the creative cycle?
Well, ‘endings’ are simply part of the creative process. I didn’t set a timer and decide, ‘Now it’s time to close’. This phase comes naturally, like the changing of the seasons. It’s been an evolution of events, combined with my desire for change in my life. I don’t feel that I’m ending things; I’m ‘allowing’ things to end. I pay attention to where things want to go. But it’s tricky, as the signals are not always clear.
With all the projects I am closing now, however, I just did not feel I had enough energy, resonance or support to maintain them as they were. For them to be worthwhile, I felt that I would need to invest in them in a way that I am not able to. I would need to focus on one of them to do it justice. However, I did not have enough motivation to focus on one of them. So, although it feels scary and sad to let them all go, it is also actually quite exciting and liberating. I quite like change, and I have a lot of respect for what is coming next.
What does it mean for you to “compost” your work?
I am also inspired by Vanessa Machado de Oliveira’s approach to composting as a process of inner transformation. Of facing difficult feelings. It’s about owning my ‘shit’, such as complicity in destructiveness or even harming, and stories of self-delusion.
I also picture the large, generous compost pile from my childhood home. The fertile soil it produces is used to grow delicious produce in the garden.
The quality of the soil is determined by the ingredients of the compost. I definitely want to reuse what I put into my compost once it has gone through the composting process. Over the past few years, I have been active in many different fields, all of which are related to transformational work. These have included facilitating community projects, co-founding purpose-driven start-ups, operating within large-scale non-profits, working in the wilderness and facing practical ecological challenges, engaging in deeply relational practices involving the body and sexuality, and working on cultural and artistic initiatives addressing questions of power and inclusion. What might grow on such soil?
How do you celebrate this new chapter and the end of the previous one?
I celebrate by reflecting on my failures and successes, and by appreciating the gifts I have received. I am also reconnecting with friends I have met along the way and sharing stories. I also aim to be more open about my process. That’s why I immediately agreed to this interview.
What do you think are the most important human qualities for sustaining creativity and connection in times of change?
I think it is particularly important to be aware of our changing inner states, as well as what is happening around us.
In Generative Facilitation, we assume that our inner state determines the quality of our creations and leadership. It is very difficult to contribute constructively when I am in a contracted, reactive state of separation, or even of hurt, anger or hatred. However, a sense of groundedness and resourcefulness that embraces ambiguity, chaos, openness and receptiveness to emergence will foster similar qualities externally.
To foster this mindset, I believe we need to take good care of ourselves and each other. This involves tending to my physical body, nutrition, movement and touch; tending to friendships, family and contact with natural environments; and engaging in simple rituals, playfulness and stillness. All of these things help me personally. These activities support my ability to slow down and listen, and to sense when something feels “off” or simply right in my gut. I think this capacity is needed to step out of my comfort zone and face difficult issues, taking risks at a time when goals may be changing permanently.
The dreams
What kind of dreams inspire you now?
Currently, my dreams are influenced by the urgent issues facing our planet. I am concerned about extremist tendencies in all areas. I dream of places where we can come together, despite our differences. I feel a strong urge to stand with others and speak out against what I perceive as wrong, while also continuously questioning the basis of my own opinions. I dream of relationships, friendships and communities based on care and kindness. I dream of kindness for no reason. I dream of relationships that can tolerate discomfort and withstand crises. I dream of circles of friends that come together for no reason other than enjoying each other’s company. Just because we enjoy each other’s company. I dream of disentangling the commodification of life.
Another urgency: The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research recently published a report on planetary health. Seven out of the nine critical Earth system boundaries have now been breached. If the Earth were a patient, it would be in intensive care. Even more worrying than climate change is the decline in biodiversity. At the same time, innovative funding mechanisms in this area are accelerating. I hope that they are more than just a passing fad, and that they bridge the gap between the vast sums of financial wealth available and the initiatives in need. What if today’s cattle farmers become tomorrow’s nature conservationists, simply because something like biodiversity credits enables this? We need all our creativity and massive collaboration to get our patient out of intensive care. Success is not guaranteed, yet every metre of unexploited land is worth saving.
Personally, I dream of working inside an organization that is undergoing change. I want to shift more towards taking on a leading role in the hands-on operational and sensitive relational work needed to facilitate the next step in an uncertain, complex and ambiguous setting.
Finally, what advice would you give to creatives who might be afraid to slow down, to change direction, or to start dreaming again?
I would prefer to avoid giving general advice. However, based on my own experience, if I realise that it is my fear preventing me from slowing down, then I have already come a long way. I would acknowledge my fear and try to become more familiar with it. As a creative person who enjoys experimenting, I would try some things that scare me but are safe enough. I might also change my environment. I would realise that I am a different person in a different context because who I am is not fixed, but changes depending on the situation. In my experiments, I would take time to notice what lifts me up and keeps me going. What is difficult but feels right? What have I simply finished doing and am not going to continue? When I am ready to take the plunge, I will ask myself: What could go wrong? I would do it not because it’s perfectly future-proof, but simply because it’s the best I can do based on what I know today. I am ready to be wrong and learn again.
This conversation with Manuela is part of the Creators Foundation’s Spotlight Series, which explores how creativity evolves, adapts and connects us through times of change.
Manuela’s story reminds us that every ending contains the potential for something new and that creativity often begins again in moments of stillness and reflection. As we look to the future, our aim is to continue nurturing honest conversations that inspire courage, care and collaboration among creators everywhere.
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