ABSTRACT
The aim of this chapter is to increase understanding for aesthetic learning in an organization not belonging to the art and cultural industries sphere. I refer to my case study on artistic interventions in a trade union organization. To increase organizational creativity, the organization had engaged an artist for creative workshops for a team once a week during a year. The organization wanted to develop new recruitment and communication methods to guarantee membership numbers. The aim was also to find more fun in work practice and to reflect on how to maintain the balance between work and private life. These aspects would be in line with the humanistic management perspective, which pleads for the good and the development of human beings in organizational life.
I followed the workshops during the year they were conducted. The methodology was qualitative, inspired by reflexive ethnography. In the beginning the specially selected team was very enthusiastic. However, after the initial phase the group became more and more frustrated. There was some conflict between the artist and the team concerning goals and methods of the project. The learning process, however, continued. A way to understanding aesthetic learning would be to take inspiration from the artistic way of work, by looking for tensions and excitement when seeking after the moment when the artistic expression is brought forth. That would mean being prepared to stay in the experience of resistance and problems in order to see what they say to one and as well as to get a kind of presentiment of what will be in becoming in the creative process.
