In this qualitative study we explore how groups who are deeply engaged in creative work cope with impasses. We take a process and practice approach to creativity and analyze group interaction through which members find new ways for progress when they are stuck in a creative process. Through ethnographic field video data of group interaction at a documentary film production company we theorize practices that creative workers use to overcome such pressing situations. Our multimodal analysis reveals three distinct impasse work practices: isolating, managing competing ideas and sidestepping through which groups move through impasses or fail to do so and we show the implications that each of these practices have for creative group engagement. Leveraging our field video data our study shows that groups sense impasses before they verbally explore novel solutions. Our study is unique in that it combines verbal, embodied and material interaction in the development of a general theory of impasse work in creative processes. The findings have implications for how creative groups deal with deeply engaging work, the role of iteration in creativity and advances the embodied perspective on creative interaction.
