COMMUNITY PROFILE

“Creativity isn’t just when you’re writing poetry, it’s about how you live your life.”

Meet Jai, the epitome of a “multi-pie guy”. His full life is a tapestry deeply woven with creativity, innovation, and community. A few of Jai’s pursuits span the realms of poetry, music, co-housing, writing, and cooking. His mind is constantly innovating and creativity is a part of his daily life. He also finds solace in slowing down to create space to fully savour his creative process. 

As a co-cordinator and instructor at the Capilano University, IDEA School of Design, he co-developed the Interaction Design program. Jai works in user experience (UX) research to help people and organizations discover how their products and services interact with people. People and technology are at the heart of his career. 

Jai’s heart also beats for service - he is a respite foster care parent and a board member with Brightside Community Housing as well as a volunteer at MOSAIC, assisting newcomers to Canada find job opportunities. In every facet of his life, Jai stays true to his values whether that be writing music or helping a family acclimate to a new country, he believes that life is an act of creativity. 

How does your creativity flow shift between all your different projects? 

“My values of collaboration, convening and creativity are at the center of everything. I’ve always worked in collaboration whether as a composer writing music for dance and theatre, creative writing, or in the work I do. And convening, I love bringing people together. I often have people for dinner and organize salons to help make sense of the world. It is bridging like-minded people together. Creativity is the last pillar of that for me and it is imbued in everything that I do. Creativity isn’t just when you’re writing poetry, it’s about how you live your life.”

How do you personally define creativity? 

“Maybe it’s an approach to the world. Creativity is a mindset where you see everything as endless opportunities for creation and imagination. I think our culture doesn’t encourage people to play like when we were young. Children are always curious, sharing, understanding, trying things out, and playing. And somewhere along the line, we get told that we have to be good at something for it to be good. You don’t. Fail creatively!”

So, how do you manage to not lose that sense of play and wonder? 

“I’m pretty silly, always tweaking the nose of whatever I’m doing.  And maybe it’s a mindset. It’s the way I see the world. I see the world in abundance of endless opportunity. Lately, I’ve been feeling overwhelmed with all the terrible things happening in the world. I think one of the things that we can do is be creative and bring something beautiful into the world. Being creative is making a choice to be optimistic.”

Can you tell me about a time you used your creativity to overcome adversity? 

“The pandemic was a hard time for everyone. My friend and I created a project called the Power of Portrait, and we put out a call to everyone to submit a photo and a story of how they were dealing with COVID-19. When all the businesses were boarded up downtown, we had this huge display of all the portraits that linked to their stories on the website. We wanted to create something that might capture the hearts and minds of people and inspire togetherness despite being a part. It was a beautiful display of collective creativity.”

What advice do you have for someone afraid to express their creative voice? 

“First off, if people are feeling like they are not creative, ask yourself, “Where is that coming from?”. And be confident that you have something to say, something to add to this world. And then perhaps take a second to slow down and take a look at what you’re already doing. Reframe your thinking of what is creative. Whether that’s cooking, arranging the pillows on your bed, or the way you dress; these are all creative acts.”