Most of us are stuck at home right now, and those that are not are working in essential jobs keeping our society functioning, whether that means caring for COVID-19 patients or stocking supermarket shelves or sanitising our streets and buildings. A hospital or supermarket might not be your idea of a creative space (we’ll come back to that in a bit) but what about your home?

We are all inspired by different things. I am very lucky – the two things that inspire me most are books and nature, and at my desk I am surrounded by stacks of books and have a view of my green, overgrown garden and the birds that visit it. My house isn’t perfect but my wife and I have managed to make it a creative space that works for both of us.

Hopefully, whether you live in a house or apartment and whatever size your family, there is a part of your home you can claim as your own. Take a moment to think about how you use it and if it inspires you or oppresses you. What about it works, and what needs to be changed?

Once you have thought about your own space – take a moment to think about the wider world. Our cities as a whole and the parts that comprise them. Which spaces around us are “creative spaces”, and who has access to them? Who gets to be creative? After all, we need creativity for innovation but we also need it to recharge our minds and develop our personalities.

Once we survive the coronavirus, we will still have to deal with the climate crisis, and that will mean rethinking how we live in many ways. We should take the opportunity to make our surroundings more pleasant and more inspiring – for everyone.  

About Aedan Lake

Aedan Lake is a freelance writer living in Sharjah. Part of the founding team of the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature, he worked on 12 editions of the Festival. He is currently advising Abu Dhabi International Book Fair on a series of online talks for readers enduring the current lockdown.