The development of creative skills (UNESCO, 2006) appears to be one of the most urgent challenges in today's complex (Morin, 2017) and 'fluid' (Bauman, 2007) society, characterized by uncertainty and instability. This is because creativity is not an adaptive response to needs and difficulties but an exactive (Vrba & Gould, 1982) opportunity to be in relation to the context. In fact, the concept of creativity has multiple definitions: it is a performative skill, a transformative process (Edwards, Grandini & Forman, 2017; Munari, 2017; Rodari, 2010), an improvisational attitude (Zorzi, 2020), a generative capacity (Tiozzo Brasiola, 2020), a political condition and a dimension of complex thinking (Lipman, 2005). Moreover, creativity is a higher psychic function present in all human beings since childhood (Vygotsky, 2010) and a process historically and culturally mediated. Creativity is a necessary educational condition to imagine otherness, to think in terms of differences, and to welcome the thought of the other (Santi, 2006a) to nurture open and democratic societies. Hence, schools are in charge of cultivating it, so that it becomes a different opportunity to relate with others and with the world.

If and how can creativity be taught? In the Italian language, the word "teach" comes from the Latin word "insignare" and means to put things into signs, to leave a mark. According to Peirce (1980), sign is a dialogical relationship between three semiotic entities: object, representamen and interpreter. The transition between them occurs through a creative mediation, which is possible only when the sign participates in the nature of thought. For this reason, creative mediation allows signs to always have other interpretations thus inserting them into a process of unlimited semiosis.  What results is the generativity of the sign through thought. In this sense, sign, like creativity, is also uncertain, indefinite, never completely clear. As a result, teaching creativity understood as putting creativity into signs can only involve the dimension of thought.

According to Lipman (1988, 2005), creativity is one of the dimensions of complex thinking that can be finds expression in Philosophy for Children (P4C), an educational practice characterized by the dialogic-argumentative method and the didactic model of the research community (Santi, 2005). In the literature, there are many researches aimed at investigating creative thinking through P4C (De Puig, 2003; Sátiro, 2006, 2019; Santi, 2007), but no studies highlighting the possible link between generativity and creative thinking through signs in the perspective of complex thinking. Therefore, mobilizing generativity as an interpretative model to read an empirical investigation of creativity promoted through P4C can open a new pedagogical and didactic view of what has already been explored. The research aspires to give a generative reading of creativity, as an object of teaching, by investigating the horizon of generative didactics of creativity through PhilosophArt.

PhilosophArt is an educational-didactic practice that aims to generate creativity through art and dialogue in the community, taking into account the complexity of thought. It combines the dialogical-discursive method and the research community of P4C with the realization of community works of art through graphic signs (Kandinsky, 1968, 2005). P4C develops creative, critical and free minds in community members so that they can live in today's complex, unstable and uncertain society.

The research questions are: 1. How can the complex thinking approach be reinterpreted through a generative outlook in order to redefine the concept of creativity at school? 2. What is generative creativity didactics? 3. Can PhilosophArt be an educational-didactic activity that moves creative-generative thinking? 3.1 What signs of creative-generative thinking are moved through PhilosophArt? The research involved the entire school community of a primary school in the Veneto Region, Italy. More specifically, 120 students and 13 teachers. This school was chosen because it is a small public school, located on the outskirts of the city and with a school timetable suitable for hosting a medium-term research project. Furthermore, the teachers decided to join the research by highlighting the urgency of promoting creativity education in their school. In line with the participants and the research topic, the Participatory Art-Based Research has been chosen for this exploratory study (Barone & Eisner, 2012; Lenette, 2022). The use of arts-based participatory research methods fosters research practices that are more collaborative, creative, and respectful of co-researchers' perspectives (Lenette, 2022). The research design involves three phases. The first phase (October 2022) was an exploration of the structural, organizational, and methodological-didactic aspects of the school context. This has been done through a community of inquiry with all teachers in the school. The macro-topics of the focus group refer to an INDIRE questionnaire on creative practices and they concern 1) the concept of creativity, 2) didactics and creativity, and 3) creativity space. The second step (October 2022-February 2023) of the research was an experimental phase: PhilosofArt sessions were proposed in each classroom of the school. In the concluding phase (March 2023), we did a community of inquiry with the teachers of the school complex around the macro-topics investigated in phase 1 in the light of the observed PhilosophArt experience and its reflections on everyday teaching. The collected data were analyzed with the video-analysis software "Transana." The dialogue between the collected data and Kandinsky's theory brought out the meanings the community attributed to the abstract graphic signs used in the PhilosophArt sessions. A possible model of thinking in signs emerged.

This research is part of a national and international overview that strongly believes in creativity as the key to 21st-century education (UNESCO, 2006, OCSE, 2022). There are many meanings that psychology and pedagogy have been attributing to creativity for years, but few of them are their educational nuances. On this gap in the literature, the research intends to fit. The educational and pedagogical value of research on creative and generative thinking in the historical, social and cultural context of today's schools shows how it can be an opportunity to cope with the uncertainty and instability of today's society. In this horizon, PhilosophyArt can be an opportunity to promote creative thinking through its signs. Indeed, in this educational practice, the conceptual indefiniteness of creativity is reflected in all the meanings that are attributed by the community to signs. Signs suggest, invite, evoke something that is never certain, clear and equal for all. This uncertainty that inhabits meaning also encroaches on gesture, on the way of leaving a graphic and verbal trace. In addition, in PhilosophyArt, the cultural diversity of creativity promotes inter-subjective exchange, growth of knowledge and openness to different perspectives also through different languages of communication. Finally, this educational practice fosters the contextual diversity of creativity, as artistic and dialogical signs do not have value in themselves but in relation to others and the world (Lotman, 2022). The questioning of the sign and the discussion about the sign thus create a habit of uncertainty in the community of enquiry. A school that creates the conditions for creativity to reproduce itself becomes a school that generates different opportunities for all in relation to others, the world, and culture.

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