I tend to misplace things in my office. Generally, I like to find the things I misplace myself. On occasion, I am unsuccessful in that effort. … If I can’t find it in an hour, I realize I’m not being useful and I ask for help. Almost to the person, they all walk into the office and in two to five minutes, they find what I missed. And I think that is a metaphor for imagination. Imagination is not going where you’ve been, where you thought something was. And that’s really what the problem is: I look assuming that I know where it is. … The person who finds it, finds it because they don’t think they know where it is, and they start looking in a different kind of way. I think that’s a great metaphor for imagination, in terms of how it works. Imagination is not about what you know already. It’s about looking for what it is you don’t know already, and trying to find it.
- Carol Babelle (aka Akua Wambui ) from the Ashe Cultural Arts Center, New Orleans