Creative Winter Challenge

Last year, my dear friend and brilliant artist Fuji Hoffmann [website, vimeo] proposed we challenged each other throughout the month of October to experiment with different habits and create something new every week. We made videos describing our process and results, and shared our dialog on this blog and my newsletter.

Here are a couple of highlights from that exercise:

Fuji and i agreed that working on those challenges taught us a fair lot about our respective processes, and that we enjoyed creating something together. So, we’re doing it again this Winter πŸ˜€ We also learned that the weekly schedule we had committed to last year is unsustainable, so we’ll pace it differently this time — it will be a monthly quest until around when it starts getting warm again.

As before, there are no a priori bounds on what we may request from each other, except that the assignments this season will revolve around the topic of photography — i’m increasingly interested in shooting, Fuji in editing, and i can only expect good things to come out of this cross-pollination! I’ve been fascinated by what Fuji does with images for a while, and it will be an honor to have him make a mess with my photos.

Indeed, feedback was the spirit of our first quest — we gave each other a theme or stimulus, shot a few photos in reaction to that, then sent our images to the other to edit. This October round of the Challenge wrapped up a couple of weeks ago, and i’ll be back soon with our results πŸ˜‰

Work on the November round is underway, and i plan to post an entry or two every month outlining what we did for the challenge the month before — if you’d like to be notified when that happens, sign up for my newsletter πŸ™‚


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Fuji & Mika #16 — BONUS: Stubborn Face Together

My friend, artist and supporter Fuji [website, vimeo] and i challenged each other throughout the month of October to experiment with different habits and create something new every week. We made videos describing our process and results, and shared our dialog here on my blog: fiction_Extract_test1.0, The Stubborn Face of Matter, Haikus from Borzhava, Infinity + 1, “Failure” Is just a Story and Collagenge.

Fuji edited a flattering video to accompany The Stubborn Face of Matter — the song i made for the first challenge. As i said then, the words for the tune came to me during my Copenhagen–Istanbul cycle tour in Fall ’16. I asked him to add some clips from my journey to it, and really like the result! So, i’m sharing it as some sort of post-closure bonus:

See you on the next creative challenge, Fuji!


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Experiments: Creative October Challenge; Fuji & Mika

Fuji & Mika #15 — Collagenge

This is the second of two posts wrapping up the Creative October Challenge — a collaboration with my friend, artist and supporter Fuji Hoffmann [vimeo,Β website] to create something every week (of the month of October :p) and share the process and results along the way.

The discarded items were collected during my trip to Romania to present at the I TEDxDrobetaTurnuSeverin, visit old friends, and spend some time in their stretch of the Carpathians — this was the inspiration for the process, which was then carried out in three of four relaxing sittings throughout the months of January and February.

I’ll miss this.


Fuji and i challenged each other throughout the month of October to experiment with different habits and create something new every week. We made videos describing our process and results and sharing our dialog here on my blog. It starts with Fuji & Mika #0 — Creative October Challenge, where we explain the concept and share our first challenges to each other. To read and watch all posts from the challenge in chronological order, visit Creative October Challenge.

If you prefer to start with some results from the challenge, then i recommend fiction_Extract_test1.0, The Stubborn Face of Matter, Haikus from Borzhava, Infinity + 1, or “Failure” Is Just a Story πŸ™‚


Enjoying my creative experiments and collaborations?
Sing up for my newsletter to be notified when something new comes out πŸ™‚


Check out my vimeo for more videos from other projects, and follow me to be notified when new ones go live!

Experiments: Creative October Challenge; Fuji & Mika

Fuji & Mika #14 — “Failure” Is just a Story

This is the first of two posts wrapping up the Creative October Challenge — a collaboration with my friend, artist and supporter Fuji Hoffmann [vimeo, website] to create something every week (of the month of October) and share the process and results along the way.

Half-the-way through the challenge, i was invited to give a presentation at the I TEDxDrobetaTurnuSeverin in Romania, and Fuji was invited to teach movement and choreography at Wiks FolkhΓΆgskola (outside Uppsala, Sweden). With other priorities in mind, we put the experiment on hold until recently, when we decided it would be psychologically beneficial to give it some closure before moving on.

Fuji closed his end of our challenge with a touchingly honest statement about the need to move on without finishing it:

Frankly, if the beautiful colors and shadows he accessed in the process constitute a failure, then i’m not sure what would be a success — a challenge is just a guide!

Thank you so much for your time and engagement, Fuji, and i look forward to walking another path with you some time <3


Fuji and i challenged each other throughout the month of October to experiment with different habits and create something new every week. We made videos describing our process and results and sharing our dialog here on my blog. It starts with Fuji & Mika #0 — Creative October Challenge, where we explain the concept and share our first challenges to each other. To read and watch all posts from the challenge in chronological order, visit Creative October Challenge.

If you prefer to start with some results from the challenge, then i recommend fiction_Extract_test1.0, The Stubborn Face of Matter, Haikus from Borzhava, or Infinity + 1 πŸ™‚


Enjoying my creative experiments and collaborations?
Sing up for my newsletter to be notified when something new comes out πŸ™‚


Check out my vimeo for more videos from other projects, and follow me to be notified when new ones go live!

Experiments: Creative October Challenge; Fuji & Mika

Fuji & Mika #13 — Infinity + 1

This video picks up the Creative October Challenge — my collaboration with my friend, artist and supporter Fuji Hoffmann [vimeo, website] — where we left it off last year.

I have little to say beyond the few words describing my third challenge to Fuji in the beginning of the video, and his hypnotizing response afterwards!

We’re now in the process of giving some closure to this experiment we started last October, collecting our thoughts, and seeding the way forward. Stay in the loop — follow me on vimeo or sign up for the Not Mad Yet mailing list!


Fuji and i challenged each other throughout the month of October to experiment with different habits and create something new every week. We made videos describing our process and results and sharing our dialog here on my blog. It starts with Fuji & Mika #0 — Creative October Challenge, where we explain the concept and share our first challenges to each other. To read and watch all posts from the challenge in chronological order, visit Creative October Challenge.

If you prefer to start with some results from the challenge, then i recommend fiction_Extract_test1.0, The Stubborn Face of Matter or Haikus from BorzhavaπŸ™‚


Enjoying my creative experiments and collaborations?
Sing up for my newsletter to be notified when something new comes out πŸ™‚


Check out my vimeo for more videos from other projects, and follow me to be notified when new ones go live!

Experiments: Creative October Challenge; Fuji & Mika