Multipotentiality

I learned a new word this week. Multipotentiality. 

“Multipotentiality is an educational and psychological term referring to a pattern found among intellectually gifted individuals.”

I find this both to be, humourous and comforting.

When I was a kid, I really wanted to go to gifted classes because once a week the really smart kids got to leave class and go somewhere, I had no idea where or what they did there, but it seemed like something to get in on. My grade 4 teacher told my mom that she didn’t think I was suitable to take the test. So I stayed a non-gifted child. Later on in high school, I had several friends who were in the gifted program and one day while having a slightly heated argument with one of them about the differences between gifted and non-gifted, he said “I understand that you can not comprehend the same way we do”…well to this day it has left a sour taste in my mouth about the label gifted.

Labels in general really. I think that there is a difference between being labelled and self-identifying. I get that it is labeling yourself in a way. But I feel like by self-defining you are saying I see overlapping philosophies here and I want to find out more. It doesn’t mean you fit a template to a T.

Before I started Exhibit Change, I had a mini life crisis when I realized I had gone to school for architecture, thought I wanted to work in museums as an exhibit designer but was working in nonprofits and loving it. What was I to do? Exhibit Change was born to bring together those intersections and to help me feel whole. Within Exhibit Change I can think like a designer, create experiential learning programs, play endlessly with new ideas and help to better the spaces around me.

I founded Exhibit Change 2 years ago and within that time I have created projects in community gardens, neighbourhood visioning, design thinking workshops, a sustainable communities camp, political community events, a 3 day service design conference, nonprofit diversity training curriculum, a 10 city wide photography project, an education unconference…the multitude of intersections makes it confusing for people to full understand what we do, but it is what keeps me on my toes, fully engaged in every new project and growing my design process.

And then there are days where the millions of ideas and thinking that rush through my brain at one time can feel overwhelming and I have no focus on where to start and what to get done. Everything feels valuable and important. I feel comforted that I can re-examine my behaviours in a new light.

I am a multipotentiality-ist