Imagining the Future for Transformation – master’s elective
The Urban Futures Studio offers the master’s elective ‘Imagining the future for transformation’. In this course, students embark on a ten-week journey as members of the social movement - 'Creative Collectives for Utopia' (CC4Utopia), which serves as a critical and imaginative friend for transformative societal initiatives. CC4Utopians learn how to become both an archaeologist and co-designer of the future:
- An archaeologist in the sense of uncovering the politics and dynamics that have narrowed what futures we see as plausible, or even possible.
- A co-designer through their collaboration with diverse societal groups to generate approaches that can convincingly challenge the status quo and help expand our imagination and action towards more just and sustainable futures.
Publications
Visions of better worlds (2024)
In the first half of the course, members explore critical perspectives on why it is so difficult to imagine and bring about ‘better’ futures, alongside state-of-the-art techniques for facilitating collective imagination in ways that enable societal transformation. This includes mapping, modelling, artistic, speculative, participatory, and decolonial approaches that challenge Western and capitalist biases in how sustainability issues and possible futures are often imagined and addressed.
CC4Utopians then put their learning to practice by working closely with one of several initiatives around the world which use futuring approaches to enable societal transformation. Last year, we worked with practitioners/academics involved in participatory reimagination of public space in Nigeria, imagining contested futures of sustainability in Norway, NL, & UK, Atlantis Green Special Economic Zone in South Africa, and transformative pathways for the biodiversity nexus across Europe. This year, we worked with societal groups establishing an Embassy of the Peat in the Netherlands, enabling just and sustainable infrastructures across Africa, fostering cultural resilience through design in the Philippines, regenerating agriculture with farmers across Europe, imagining a green state vision for West Papua, and fostering doughnut economics in Mexico City.
These collaborations have resulted in the co-creation of innovative approaches to futuring that we have shared in the form of a CC4Utopia futuring zine each year! Click on the zines above to read more!