Academy

Culture Compass

The brainchild of Sebastian Flynn, Culture Compass works with refugees in Australia. The program, via workshop intensives, invites participants to explore the cultural environment of their past and present in order to create a positive vision (origination) for their future.

The opportunity to ‘tell a story’ and ‘articulate an experience’ to a genuinely empathetic and appreciative audience,” writes Sebastian, “can do much towards the process of reorientation and redirection of an individual as well as a community group.

The Culture Compass is designed with this possibility in mind. If the individual or group prefer not to actively address an audience, the presentation will be via a form of exhibition; this still enables the individual or group to ‘process’ their experience and to know that it is being shared. Origination* is a term I have devised to describe the positive inner ‘vision’ or inspirational internal ‘picture/memory’ (usually from one’s culture/country of origin) that continually informs the creativity or cultural vision/pursuit of an individual. “Culture” is used here in the general sense of embracing all human endeavour. Recreating or repairing this vision to create a better and fully integrated personal and collective future is the aim of the Culture Compass.”