2019 Session Description

Extreme Exploration
What Marco Polo, Christopher Columbus, and Arctic explorers have taught us about the world at the edge

For adults • Mind U session
Category: Creating
Maximum Participants: 24
9:00am daily • Centennial 8
Time and location subject to change (what isn't?)

Each day of our short Mind U sessions, we will be setting the stage for what “exploration at the edge” means for three types of expeditions that changed the world. We will explore three journeys into the unknown, one per day, and think of each one in a historical and cultural context. Plus the perils associated with exploring. We will also explore what things were brought back in terms of ideas, art, culture, crops, and goods that made for a different world.

Building on this background, each participant will take the day’s exploration and then capture depictions of what this might mean by taking photos using a phone or tablet around Mindcamp. These depictions can range from a very realistic translation to something that is extremely abstract, and anything along that continuum.

Additionally, during our first session, we will learn how to create a postcard using this photo input and continue enhancing our postcard approach during our time together.

On our last day, we will further modify our postcards for each of the explorations and then share our gallery of postcards, self-discoveries, and key learnings about what Extreme Exploration has meant for creative thought and a transformational world view.

You will need a Smartphone or Tablet and the app, Snapseed, installed prior to Mindcamp.

The Skinny: 3 things you will do in this session

  • Use Extreme Exploration as a metaphor to learn about the "edge" and discovery
  • Create postcards that depict what the edge means to each person, based on three very different extreme explorations
  • Contemplate the consequences of Extreme Exploration both personally and professionally
Mary Ellyn Vicksta
Appleton, WI
Mary Ellyn Vicksta fell in love with photography when her Aunt and Uncle took family pictures when she was a mere child. While others griped about posing for those family moments, Mary Ellyn was intrigued by what is possible with photos.

Fast forward to the 21st century and she continues to explore possibilities in creative expression while image taking and image making. She combines traditional image taking primarily using a digital camera with image making using photo apps on her iPad. She's become a bit of a photographic groupie for the Canadian photo expressionists, Freeman Patterson and Andre Gallant, with seven workshops in the past few years.

To make money to support her photographic habits, she facilitates new idea workshops and conducts creativity training for corporate clients. Recently she started using Stormz for virtual ideation.

Mary Ellyn is a returning presenter. Click to see what they've presented in the past.

All sessions in this timeslot:

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