Liberating the Imagination — with Jonathan White & Laura Pereira

On Monday, 14 September, we will officially open the Week of the Imagination with an interactive lecture on ‘Liberating the Imagination’, featuring two keynotes by Jonathan White and Laura Pereira. How can we escape the narrow confines of our imagination? How can we open up and democratise our images of the future? And how can we ensure that the grand challenges facing society today strengthen democracy rather than undermine it? This evening brings these questions to life through two twenty-minute talks, followed by an interactive discussion with the speakers and audience. Register via the link below and join us at the Zalen van Zeven in Utrecht.

Jonathan White will open the evening by asking what it means to democratise the future. How is our imagination constrained? What are its democratic shortcomings? And how can we escape the grip of powerful actors who seek to shape the future for us? Drawing on his work as a leading scholar of the politics of futuring, Jonathan will explore what it means to look towards the future democratically.

Laura Pereira will then turn these reflections into practice. Drawing on years of experience working with futures and imagination across the globe, she will explore how we can liberate the imagination in practice. How can we democratise the future, and what practical interventions can empower our political imagination?

About the Week of the Imagination

This event marks the beginning of the Week of the Imagination: the celebration of the Urban Futures Studio’s tenth anniversary and the 25th anniversary of our home department, the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development. Throughout the week, we will explore how we can put the (political) imagination to work for good – and how we can build a winning politics of the imagination in an increasingly reactionary and authoritarian world