Meet the people inside the innerUniverse project
About co-creating in corona times:
For many years I worked more or less as a lone wolf. Now it is a great pleasure for me to work with other people across the globe. The internet brings us all closer together. It's wonderful to experience how we bring new things into the world – as a team without ever having worked together in the same place!
Co-creating in the digital world has shown me that cultural differences are both an enrichment and a challenge. It's an exciting and beneficial learning field when it comes to keeping an eye on time zones when organizing joint meetings, staying on the ball with projects that have been initiated, or keeping communication going across time and space...
Michael Gerth
“I’d like to have 100 years of peace for a change.”
With over 18 years experience as a sculptor and artist, Michael’s work is an intersection of talent and fantasy.
Michael managed the project in 2020
He created a first sculpture of one of the characters
Michael is the main financial supporter of the project
He is experiencing life in a conscious community now – one way to bring the innerUniverse into everyday life
About co-creating in corona times:
I feel thankful to be part of such a wonderful team, such wonderful, creative and caring people. That is amazing and worth all the extra effort we have to put in keeping online communication alive. And I enjoy it very much to hear from daily life in L.A., in Berlin or in Munich. So cool to feel like having windows to other places in the world.
Sometimes I wish to sit around the same table with everyone and share our experiences. Especially when we have achieved something together it is fun to celebrate in one place.
Dirk Brueckner
“Words of art and wisdom — you can‘t grab them but they touch you.”
A self-proclaimed crazy-bohemian-German, Dirk always found his own way — upstream. With an array of professional experience involving people, he created Dancing Spaces before he became part of the innerUniverse team.
Dirk helped writing the book with Tom
He managed the innerUniverse project in 2021
Now he takes part in publishing and marketing the book
About co–creating in corona times:
Starting the inner Universe project in September 2019, the main co-creation took place in 2020. Soon the virus restrictions named lockdown throughed all the cards in the air again.
Does it affect our project, we asked ourselves in April 2020? Yes it does!
The planned crowdfunding campaign didn‘t take place. We planned to do that in Israel, together with Ash – not possible. We were cut off from our main co-creators and we even had to cut back their work for some time.
I like working online. You still can meet nearly in person, via zoom calls. You can even co-create together, work on the same document. This technology is amazing. And using platforms like upwork or fiverr can give you access to experts and creative people in no time. That helped us to go even further with our ideas like creating a map about the inner universe. The artist is a teacher from the Netherlands enjoying map drawing as well. In less than two weeks we had the results.
Tom Millar
After travelling the world, Tom decided to leave the idea of living in that so-called hamster wheel for good. After all his unbelievable experiences, it wasn’t possible to stay in there anyway.
Tom has written the book together with Dirk
He visited the innerUniverse – magic as it is!
Tom still has his own business as a consultant for hotel quality standards
About co–creating in corona times:
Doing everything online in our project is somehow new for me.
What I like the most is that we created close working relationships, even friendships without having seen each other in person. I was not expecting that. What a strange and exciting world we keep saying to ourselves.
On a personal level we miss working together in the same room from time to time. Over that inner universe project, so far, it was just not possible to do.
Another good thing is, we have learned to use the Internet in a totally different way – as a real communication tool, as a workshop, office, meeting room. It is the biggest office space I’ve ever came across. And to me it feels amazing to be part of such an international project, where people from different countries work together. So cool.
Manú Sarah Kaytoni
Manú loves stories diving deep into different times. Setting up exhibitions for museums is just the right thing for her to do. To come across an innerUniverse was somehow unexpected.
Manú helps us with our Instagram
She is going to create workshops together with Dirk
Manú is very exited about the idea to create an exhibition with the innerUniverse project
A lifelong student of the arts, Dania is grateful to have merged her love for reading and design into a career as a book designer.
Dania Zafar
Dania loves working with independent publishers and self-publishing authors, making sure their books are as good as they dreamt they would be.
Dania did the interior design for the english version of the book
She co-created the cover design together with Sonja
Dania helped us bringing the book out to the world
The innerUniverse-Co-Creation is very inspiring. Here I’m getting to know a new way of Co-Creation. For example I came in contact with mindfulness practices such as check-ins, in which thoughts and feelings are shared. A helpful foundation for Co-Creation.
It helps me understanding my inner world and the inner world of others. This is how I understand meeting each other in an authentic way.
Sonja Langewald
Sonja has studied and worked in graphic design. After that she traveled the world and got in touch with yoga philosophy. Now she focuses much on bringing inner work and regular job structure together with nature.
Sonja did the interior design for the German book
She creates and structures our Instagram posts
Sonja lends us her expertise with graphic design questions
About co–creating in corona times:
I’m actually really used to working in teams remotely. While moments have been extremely challenging and unprecedented, I’ve also found something strangely freeing in the forced distance. As a world traveler that has lived in Asia, Europe, the US, and Israel, I notice feeling thankful that more people than ever now have an opportunity to experience remote working.
All that said, I am nearing 3 years working nearly fully remotely, and I do sense missing the option to work in close proximity regularly with a team.
Ash Witham
Ash is a multi-disciplinary artist, creative brand consultant and graphic designer. As an Authentic Relating coach, she helped us focus on clear communication.
Ash did the graphic design and interior design of the Minibook
She created our website
Ash has set up our style guide and everything that is visible on the innerUniverse project
Working in and with this particular inner universe is different – different compared to my usual work as a copy-editor. And it is exciting and sometimes eye-opening when it comes to recognizing own emoties, patterns and old injuries.
Working with texts is my passion. What I love most about this job is that language is an extremely creative stuff. There are endless opportunities to change or shift the meaning of a sentence, a paragraph or even a whole book. With every text, there is so much to learn and to experiment. If I’m lucky they are good fun to read, too, as was this book.
An absolute zoom plus is that it allows meeting and communicating throughout the inner universe and the whole world and that it enables real co-working in real-time.
A major handicap of zoom (or any other online meeting device) is that mood and energy of the other meeting members are hard to grasp. Another disadvantage is that creative work, like paintings, can be perceived two-dimensionally only.
Tanja Roos
Tanja is a book editor and proofreader. As a PhD-historian she is leading an archive as well. For us, Tanja is a true word expert.
Tanja did the copy-editing for the German book
She translated the English website into German
Tanja was checking book content and coherence
She is part of the launch team
For me working with a team is really not that new. I’ve been doing it for a while, way before corona came around. So, that way of working is my normal.
I do see a lot of pros. For example that I can work from wherever I want. And, it seems easier to get people together in a zoom room than it is to get them together physically.
A con would be that technology doesn’t work right. That can be quite annoying.
My true sense for you about the inner universe is:
Go and explore yours.
Katrin Muser
Working as a copy-writer and translator is much fun for Katrin. She truly is an expert in marketing and knows a lot about event management. What else? Have a look here.
Katrin helped us with translations
She brought us on track with our marketing structure
Katrin introduced us into the world of Instagram
About co–creating in corona times:
Throughout the whole project, none of us have been able to meet in person, both because of the Coronavirus, and because a fair few of us are separated by the Atlantic ocean.
Working purely online like this, and with people I've never met before has definitely been a challenge (it's hard to get people together for a meeting when we're in 3 different time zones), but I don't think it's been a detriment to the project.
On the contrary, it allowed for a very independent workflow, where we were all able to manage our deadlines in a way that suited us best, and I feel like it fostered a very creative and collaborative environment - when presented with some unusual challenges, we all came together (virtually), and found a way in which we could use our individual skills and connections to help solve the problem.
If you were to put me on the spot, I'd say that a "con" to meeting mainly on Zoom is that it definitely creates a more formal atmosphere than I expect we'd have had with in-person meetings, but a really strong "pro" for me is that it allowed people from all over the world who were passionate about the inner Universe to come together and contribute to the project.
As I'm sure everyone else that's been introduced to the inner Universe also has, I started relating to it and it's inhabitants more and more in my daily life. I've found it incredibly helpful - I've noticed that one of my main Emotis is something of a control freak, someone who likes to plan and schedule, and who feels incredibly uncomfortable when things don't go according to this neatly laid-out plan. So, during quarantine, when I've found myself getting anxious and worried, it's actually been really comforting to me to be able to say to myself, "It's alright, it's only your Control Freak feeling scared."
Anna Christensen
She is an actress, voice-artist, model, copy-writer and translator. And she is full of energy, very much grounded and hands on. Living in L.A., she knows reality behind the world of glamour in show-biz.
Anna did an interview with us about the work in the project
She helped us translate and proofread
Anna was the lead person for producing the audio edition of our Minibook