How might I explain this project?
Imagining Future Spaces was designed to support and inspire conversations about what alternative worlds might look and feel like.
A HISTORY
Imagining Future Spaces was an idea I had in response to two moments. The first was a talk by the incredible Cassie Robinson where she asked "what has happened to our imaginations?" and advocated for social dreaming. The second was a series of conversations I had with friends and loved ones while we were on the brink of COVID-19 where despite seeing the effects take hold elsewhere, they couldn't describe what impact a lockdown would have on their days let alone what a life post-pandemic might be like.
There are likely hundreds of complex and interwoven reasons why our imaginations appear to be weakening.
But one thing I have always believed to be true is that you can get better at anything if you commit to practising. So I thought I'd put my skills as a researcher and illustrator (AKA I like questions and weird juxtapositions) to use and create a space to practise.
That's where these 52 questions came from. There's one for every day of the year or card in a deck. There are enough for sustained practise and fun.
Each question comes with a random set of conditions (some realistic, some silly) to challenge your imagination but also take away the fear of a blank page.
Learning from the questions posed by Aron, Melinat, Aron, Vallone and Bator in The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness, better known as the 36 Questions that lead to love, these questions get more personal and more abstract as they go. They’re designed to be a challenge. But they do only offer imaginary snapshots of what alternative worlds could look and feel like. In order to truly imagine and design sustainable new worlds, we need to think in systems, but that’s a challenge bigger than today.
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A FUTURE
Over the next year I will be trying to create my own responses to each of the questions. I'll be challenging myself to think of what's possible, not just what's probable or plausible.
Others may join me and share their ideas for what alternative worlds might be.
I'd like to imagine a world where we can develop a stronger imagination together and through doing so gain confidence in our own potential and the potential for alternative worlds to exist.
Perhaps we might even get to take that belief back into the present and push for positive changes to the world we're in and shaping all of the time.
Fingers crossed there will be ice cream too.
Imagining Future Spaces is a project by Natalie Harney designed to support and inspire conversations about what alternative worlds might look and feel like.
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©Natalie Harney 2020, made with Semplice